Ans2: Self-esteem is an individual's subjective evaluation of their own worth. Self-esteem
encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am unloved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional
states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame.[1] Smith and Mackie (2007) defined it by saying
"The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations
of the self, as in how we feel about it."[2]
Self-esteem is an attractive psychological construct because it predicts certain outcomes, such as
academic achievement,[3][4] happiness,[5] satisfaction in marriage and relationships,[6] and criminal
behavior.[6] Self-esteem can apply to a specific attribute (for example, "I believe I am a good writer
and I feel happy about that") or globally (for example, "I believe I am a bad person, and I feel bad
about myself in general"). Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality
characteristic (trait self-esteem), though normal, short-term variations (state self-esteem) also exist.
Synonyms or near-synonyms of self-esteem include many things: self-worth,[7] self-regard,[8] selfrespect,[9][10] and self-integrity.
What Is Self-Esteem?
By Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT
Last updated: 10 May 2019
~ 5 MIN READ
Self-esteem is what we think of ourselves. When it’s positive, we have confidence and selfrespect. We’re content with ourselves and our abilities, in who we are and our competence.
Self-esteem is relatively stable and enduring, though it can fluctuate. Healthy self-esteem
makes us resilient and hopeful about life.
Self-Esteem Impacts Everything
Self-esteem affects not only what we think, but also how we feel and behave. It and has
significant ramifications for our happiness and enjoyment of life. It considerably affects
events in our life, including our relationships, our work and goals, and how we care for
ourselves and our children.
Although difficult events, such as a breakups, illness, or loss of income, may in the short term
moderate our self-esteem, we soon rebound to think positively about ourselves and our
future. Even when we fail, it doesn’t diminish our self-esteem. People with healthy selfesteem credit themselves when things go right, and when they don’t, they consider external
causes and also honestly evaluate their mistakes and shortcomings. Then they improve
upon them.
Healthy vs. Impaired Self-Esteem
I prefer to use the terms healthy and impaired self-esteem, rather than high and low,
because narcissists and conceited individuals who appear to have high self-esteem actually
don’t. Theirs is inflated, compensates for shame and insecurity, and is often unrelated to
reality. Boasting is an example, because it indicates that the person is dependent on others’
opinion of them and reveals impaired rather than healthy self-esteem. Thus, healthy selfesteem requires that we’re able to honestly and a realistically assess our strengths and
weaknesses. We’re not too concerned about others’ opinions of us. When we accept our
flaws without judgment, our self-acceptance goes beyond self-esteem.
Impaired Self-Esteem
Impaired self-esteem negatively impacts our ability to manage adversity and life’s
disappointments. All of our relationships are affected, including our relationship with
ourselves. When our self-esteem is impaired, we feel insecure, compare ourselves to
others, and doubt and criticize ourselves. We neither recognize our worth, nor honor and
express our needs and wants. Instead, we may self-sacrifice, defer to others, or try to
control them and/or their feelings toward us to feel better about ourselves. For example, we
might people-please, manipulate, or devalue them, provoke jealousy, or restrict their
association with others. Consciously or unconsciously, we devalue ourselves, including our
positive skills and attributes, making us hyper-sensitive to criticism. We may also be afraid
to try new things, because we might fail.
Symptoms of Healthy and Impaired Self-Esteem
The following chart lists symptoms that reflect healthy vs. impaired self-esteem. Remember
that self-esteem varies on a continuum. It’s not black or white. You may relate to some, but
not all.
Healthy Self-Esteem
Impaired Self-Esteem
Know you’re okay
Feel not enough; always improving yourself
Know you have value and matter
Lack self-worth and value; feel unimportant
Feel competent and confident
Doubt self, feel incompetent, and afraid to risk
Like yourself
Judge and dislike yourself
Exhibit honesty and integrity
Please, hide, and agree with others
Trust yourself
Indecisive, ask others’ opinions
Accept praise
Deflect or distrust praise
Accept attention
Avoid, dislike attention
Are self-responsible; honor self
Discount feelings, wants, or needs
Have internal locus of control
Need others’ guidance or approval
Self-efficacy to pursue goals
Afraid to start and do things
Have self-respect
Allow abuse; put others first
Have self-compassion
Self-judgment, self-loathing
Happy for others good fortune
Envy and compare yourself to others
Acceptance of others
Judge others
Satisfied in relationships
Unhappy in relationships
Assertive
Defer to others, indirect and afraid to express yourself
Optimistic
Feel anxious and pessimistic
Welcome feedback
Defensive of real or perceived criticism
The Cause of Impaired Self-Esteem
Growing up in a dysfunctional family can lead to codependency as an adult. It also weakens
your self-esteem. Often you don’t have a voice. Your opinions and desires aren’t taken
seriously. Parents usually have low self-esteem and are unhappy with each other. They
themselves neither have nor model good relationship skills, including cooperation, healthy
boundaries, assertiveness, and conflict resolution. They may be abusive, controlling,
interfering, manipulative, indifferent, inconsistent, or just preoccupied. Directly or indirectly,
they may shame their children’s feelings and personal traits, feelings, and needs. It’s not
safe to be, to trust, and to express themselves.
Children feel insecure, anxious, and/or angry. As a result, they feel emotionally
abandoned and conclude that they are at fault — not good enough to be acceptable to both
parents. (They might still believe that they’re loved.) Eventually, they don’t like themselves
and feel inferior or inadequate. They grow up codependent with low self-esteem and learn
to hide their feelings, walk on eggshells, withdraw, and try to please or become aggressive.
This reflects how toxic shame becomes internalized.
Shame
Shame runs deeper than self-esteem. It’s a profoundly painful emotion rather than a mental
evaluation. Underlying toxic shame can lead to impaired or low self-esteem and other
negative thoughts and feelings. It’s not just that we lack confidence, but we might believe
that we’re bad, worthless, inferior, or unlovable. It creates feelings of false guilt and fear and
hopelessness, at times, and feeling irredeemable. Shame is a major cause of depression and
can lead to self-destructive behavior, eating disorders, addiction, and aggression.
Shame causes shame anxiety about anticipating shame in the future, usually in the form of
rejection or judgment by other people. Shame anxiety makes it difficult to try new things,
have intimate relationships, be spontaneous, or take risks. Sometimes, we don’t realize that
it’s not others’ judgments or rejection we fear, but our failure to meet our own unrealistic
standards. We judge ourselves harshly for mistakes than others would. This pattern is very
self-destructive with perfectionists. Our self-judgment can paralyze us so that we’re
indecisive, because our internal critic will judge us no matter what we decide!
Relationships
Our relationship with ourselves provides a template for our relationships with others. It
impacts our relationship happiness. Self-esteem determines our communication style,
boundaries, and our ability to be intimate. Research indicates that a partner with healthy
self-esteem can positively influence his or her partner’s self-esteem, but also shows that low
self-esteem portends a negative outcome for the relationship. This can become a selfreinforcing cycle of abandonment lowering self-esteem.
Impaired self-esteem hinders our ability to speak up about our wants and needs and share
vulnerable feelings. This compromises honesty and intimacy. As a result of insecurity,
shame, and impaired self-esteem as children, we may have developed an attachment style
that, to varying degrees, is anxious or avoidant and makes intimacy challenging. We pursue
or distance ourselves from our partner and are usually attracted to someone who also has
an insecure attachment style.
Generally, we allow others to treat us the manner in which we believe we deserve. When
we don’t respect and honor ourselves, we won’t expect to be treated with respect and might
accept abuse or withholding behavior. Similarly, we may give more than we receive in our
relationships and overdo at work. Our inner critic can be judgmental of others, too. When
we’re critical of our partner or highly defensive, it makes it difficult to problem-solve.
Insecure self-esteem can also make us suspicious, needy, or demanding of our partner.
Raising Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is generally determined by our teens. Some of us struggle all our lives with
impaired self-esteem and even the resulting depression. But we can change and build
healthy self-esteem. Raising self-esteem means getting to know and love yourself —
building a relationship, as you would with a friend — and becoming your own best friend.
This takes attentive listening, quiet time, and commitment. The alternative is to be lost at
sea, continually trying to prove or improve yourself or win someone’s love, while never
feeling truly lovable or enough — like something is missing.
It’s difficult to get outside our own thoughts and beliefs to see ourselves from another
perspective. Therapy can help us change how we think, act, and what we believe. Cognitive
behavioral therapy has been shown to raise self-esteem. It’s more powerful when combined
with meditation that increases self-awareness. Some things you can do:
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Recognize the Signs. Be able to spot clues that your self-esteem needs uplifting. Many people think
they have good self-esteem. They may be talented, beautiful, or successful, but still lack self-esteem.
Root Out False Beliefs. Learn how to identify and deprogram false beliefs and behaviors you want
to change and those you want to implement.
Identify Cognitive Distortions. Impaired self-esteem can cause us to skew and distort reality. Learn
to identify and challenge your cognitive distortions.
Journal. Journaling has been shown to elevate mood and decrease depression. Keeping a journal can
also help you to monitor your interactions with others and your negative self-talk.
Heal Toxic Shame. If you believe you suffer from codependency and shame, learn more about it and
do the exercises in Conquering Shame and Codependency.
The 4 components of selfesteem
There are 4 components that define the esteem you might feel for
yourself: self-confidence, identity, feeling of belonging, and feeling
of competence.
Self-confidence (feeling of security)
This is the foundation of self-esteem. If we feel secure with our family, if we feel
loved and our needs are met, our self-esteem develops. That’s when we try to
take our place and dare to try new things and new experiences. For example,
when we learn to walk, we fall down the first few times, but with
encouragement, we develop our confidence and try again!
Identity
This is the knowledge we have of ourselves. By experimenting, learning, and
getting feedback from the people around us, we come to identify our
characteristics, abilities, needs, and feelings. Identity can be divided into
several parts: including physical (the representation that each person has of
their own body) and social (how I come into contact with other people, the
groups I associate with, my economic situation, my place as a student,
worker, teen, how I act with my girlfriend or boyfriend, which sex attracts me,
etc.).
Feeling of belonging
We all belong to several groups: family, friends, school, sports team, etc. We
also define ourselves by belonging to these groups, by the relationships we
have with other people and the experiences we have in these groups: feeling
like part of a group, feeling solidarity, seeking out the other group members,
communicating well, sharing, etc. The various groups we belong to allow us to
feel understood and know that there are people who are like us.
Feeling of competence
To feel competent, we need to have different experiences, succeed and fail,
and learn new things. The feeling of competence is related to motivation: a
person is motivated when they face challenges that they are able to meet.
Success results in a feeling of efficacy and pride that promotes self-esteem
and pushes the person to accept new challenges.
Self-esteem is not carved in stone. It changes and stabilizes based on the
people we meet and our life experiences. Although it can be a challenge
during adolescence, one thing is certain: the more different situations we face,
the more we learn about ourselves and the better we know who we are and
who we want to identify with, what we don’t want to repeat, and what we want
for our lives.
How do you measure your
self-esteem?
I am becoming increasingly aware of a tendency in society (or perhaps myself?) to associate selfworth with our performance or position. This can result in all sorts of defensive behaviours when
people get under pressure or are exposed to change situations.
Here’s a few things I uncovered about self-esteem in my last post:
1. Happy people can have high self-esteem, but having high self-esteem does not mean you’re
happy.
2. Self-esteem that is based on being better than others or your performance can make you
miserable.
3. Healthy self-esteem is based on setting our own goals, learning from the process of achieving
those goals, and having goals that are for something bigger than ourselves.
4. Our self-esteem is largely based on our upbringing, and our self-esteem will likely be similar to
the self-esteem of our parents.
5. Because of the connection between our upbringing and our self-esteem, mentors can act as an
external catalyst to help us develop healthy self-esteem, helping show us how to set goals and
point us to a purpose that is bigger than ourselves.
These points and the supporting research, along with a few conversations I have been having
about the post, are highlighting a practical model of self-esteem.
Fragile versus secure self-esteem
One of the research articles I found from my last post said our self-esteem is either fragile or
secure, depending on the source.
Fragile self-esteem often comes from external sources such as:
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validation of our performance,
our relative position to others, and
our membership in a group, team, organisation – including profession, religion, family,
political party or community.
Secure self-esteem on the other hand comes from within; an awareness of our intrinsic value.
Goals play a role, but only if the goals are an expression of our value rather than our value being
defined by our goals. This intrinsic value often has spiritual elements, as people integrate
spirituality into their view of self.
This integration is evident in what one researcher defines as Universal Worth, which is based on
the belief that:
1. one is valued by a deity;
2. one’s value is not contingent on success or failure; and
3. one is not valued by a deity more or less than others are valued.
This distinction of source as internal or external is also seen in another study that defined seven
sources of self-esteem in college students:
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Competency – specific abilities like academic competence;
Competition – outdoing others;
Approval from generalized others – the perception of others’ esteem;
Family support – refers to perceived affection and love from family members;
Appearance – self-evaluations of one’s physical appearance;
God’s love – the belief that one is valued by a supreme being; and
Virtue – adherence to a moral code.
Self-esteem from external sources such as competition or approval from others could be seen as
fragile, whereas self-esteem from virtue or a belief in inherent value could be seen as secure.
Ans3: personality is the characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a
person unique. It is believed that personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly
consistent throughout life.
The term personality has been defined in many ways, but as a
psychological concept two main meanings have evolved. The first
pertains to the consistent differences that exist between people: in this
sense, the study of personality focuses on classifying and explaining
relatively stable human psychological characteristics. The second
meaning emphasizes those qualities that make all people alike and
that distinguish psychological man from other species; it directs the
personality theorist to search for those regularities among all people
that define the nature of man as well as the factors that influence the
course of lives. This duality may help explain the two directions that
personality studies have taken: on the one hand, the study of ever
more specific qualities in people, and, on the other, the search for the
organized totality of psychological functions that emphasizes the
interplay between organic and psychological events within people and
those social and biological events that surround them. The dual
definition of personality is interwoven in most of the topics discussed
below. It should be emphasized, however, that no definition of
personality has found universal acceptance within the field.
The study of personality can be said to have its origins in the
fundamental idea that people are distinguished by their characteristic
individual patterns of behaviour—the distinctive ways in which they
walk, talk, furnish their living quarters, or express their urges.
Whatever the behaviour, personologists—as those who systematically
study personality are called—examine how people differ in the ways
they express themselves and attempt to determine the causes of these
differences. Although other fields of psychology examine many of the
same functions and processes, such as attention, thinking,
or motivation, the personologist places emphasis on how these
different processes fit together and become integrated so as to give
each person a distinctive identity, or personality. The systematic
psychological study of personality has emerged from a number of
different sources, including psychiatric case studies that focused on
lives in distress, from philosophy, which explores the nature of man,
and from physiology, anthropology, and social psychology.
Characteristics of Personality
So what exactly makes up a personality? Traits and patterns of thought and emotion play
important roles as well as the following fundamental characteristics of personality:
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Consistency: There is generally a recognizable order and regularity to behaviors. Essentially,
people act in the same ways or similar ways in a variety of situations.
Psychological and physiological: Personality is a psychological construct, but research suggests
that it is also influenced by biological processes and needs.
Behaviors and actions: Personality not only influences how we move and respond in our
environment, but it also causes us to act in certain ways.
Multiple expressions: Personality is displayed in more than just behavior. It can also be seen in
our thoughts, feelings, close relationships, and other social interactions.
PERSONALITY TESTING
Despite the various debates about the nature and source of
personality, psychologists have both categorized personality
types and sought out ways to test individuals for their conformity
with such types. These tests can give the individuals as well as
their employers useful insights into the personality traits of
those tested.
Since employees' personalities may dictate how well they
perform their jobs, such personality testing is meaningful to and
useful for management. Personality may indicate how hard a
person will work, how organized he is, how well he will interact
with others, and how creative he is. In recent years, more
organizations have been using self-reporting personality tests to
identify personality traits as part of their hiring or management
development processes. Employers recognize that experience,
education, and intelligence may not be the only indicators of
who the best hire might be. Additionally, understanding one's
own personality characteristics may improve one's ability to
develop as an employee and manager.
There are a number of different ways in which personality has
been categorized, and different opinions exist about the number
of dimensions of personality. Early tests of personality were
developed to diagnose mental illness, and while some of these
tests were used in employment settings, their acceptability and
applicability were questionable. However, there are now tests
specifically for use in normal adult populations, each of which is
based on different conceptions of the dimensionality of
personality.
Big Five
The Big Five are the five broad dimensions of personality that most researchers
in the personality testing community use when evaluating a person’s personality.
For organizations, where an employee falls on the range for these five traits
(Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Neuroticism)
can provide great insight into how a new hire — or current employee — interacts
with co-workers, manages work-related stress, deals with managerial decisions,
and more.
Occupational Interest Inventories (OIIs)
In organizations with multiple positions and different career paths, occupational
interest inventories can be effective tools for putting employees in the right roles.
These tests, like the Holland Code Career Test, measure how interested a
participant is in different tasks and roles. They also provide insight into the career
interests of that participant. OIIs are especially effective for increasing employee
retention when administered to current employees to determine what their role in
an organization should be.
DISC Behavior Inventory
Understanding an employee’s work behavior style can be important, especially
when it comes to team building. Used frequently in larger organizations,
the DISC classifies candidates into four different “styles” based on questions
about their behaviors at work. It helps organizations find out more about a
candidate’s tendencies toward: dominance, influence, support, and control.
5. Situational Judgment Tests (STJs)
If you’re looking to see how an employee interacts with customers or handles the
pressure of common challenging situations, consider using STJs as a part of
your evaluation process. STJs put your employees in realistic, simulated
situations to find out which pre-loaded responses the employee feels are most or
least effective. Tools like FurstPerson’s customized hiring solutions are especially
effective for determining whether or not employees will make good customer
service representatives.
Myers Briggs
One of the most well known tools for mapping employee personalities, Myers
Briggs (MBTI) assessments describe an employee’s tendencies toward:
Extraversion vs. Introversion, Intuition vs. Sensing, Thinking vs. Feeling, and
Judging vs. Perceiving. Results from these tests place the employee into one of
16 personality types, which each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Although personality type doesn’t predict success on the job, knowing a new
hire’s personality type can help you to understand whether they’ll be a cultural fit
for your company, as well as guide you toward integrating them effectively with
the team.
Ans4.
What is emotional intelligence or EQ?
Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the
ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to
relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome
challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger
relationships, succeed at school and work, and achieve your career and personal
goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into action,
and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.
Emotional intelligence is what we use when we empathize with our coworkers, have
deep conversations about our relationships with significant others, and attempt to
manage an unruly or distraught child. It allows us to connect with others, understand
ourselves better, and live a more authentic, healthy, and happy life.
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. Some
researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others
claim it's an inborn characteristic.
The ability to express and control emotions is essential, but so is the ability to understand,
interpret, and respond to the emotions of others. Imagine a world in which you could not
understand when a friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker was angry. Psychologists refer to
this ability as emotional intelligence, and some experts even suggest that it can be more
important than IQ in your overall success in life.
Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different.
Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior that is distinct from your
intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict
emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the
same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can
be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent
than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.
Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the stable “style” that defines each of us. Personality is the
result of hard-wired preferences, such as the inclination toward introversion or extroversion. However,
like IQ, personality can’t be used to predict emotional intelligence. Also like IQ, personality is stable over a
lifetime and doesn’t change. IQ, emotional intelligence, and personality each cover unique ground and
help to explain what makes a person tick.
Why is emotional intelligence so important?
As we know, it’s not the smartest people who are the most successful or the
most fulfilled in life. You probably know people who are academically brilliant and
yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships.
Intellectual ability or your intelligence quotient (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to
achieve success in life. Yes, your IQ can help you get into college, but it’s your
EQ that will help you manage the stress and emotions when facing your final
exams. IQ and EQ exist in tandem and are most effective when they build off one
another.
Emotional intelligence affects:
Your performance at school or work. High emotional intelligence can help you
navigate the social complexities of the workplace, lead and motivate others, and
excel in your career. In fact, when it comes to gauging important job candidates,
many companies now rate emotional intelligence as important as technical ability
and employ EQ testing before hiring.
Your physical health. If you’re unable to manage your emotions, you are
probably not managing your stress either. This can lead to serious health
problems. Uncontrolled stress raises blood pressure, suppresses the immune
system, increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, contributes to infertility,
and speeds up the aging process. The first step to improving emotional
intelligence is to learn how to manage stress.
Your mental health. Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also impact your
mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. If you are
unable to understand, get comfortable with, or manage your emotions, you’ll also
struggle to form strong relationships. This in turn can leave you feeling lonely and
isolated and further exacerbate any mental health problems.
Your relationships. By understanding your emotions and how to control them,
you’re better able to express how you feel and understand how others are
feeling. This allows you to communicate more effectively and forge stronger
relationships, both at work and in your personal life.
Your social intelligence. Being in tune with your emotions serves a social
purpose, connecting you to other people and the world around you. Social
intelligence enables you to recognize friend from foe, measure another person’s
interest in you, reduce stress, balance your nervous system through social
communication, and feel loved and happy.
Five Components of Emotional
Intelligence
1. Self- Awareness
Self-awareness or self-assignment is having complete knowledge of your emotions, feelings,
behavior, morals, strengths, and weaknesses, and then understanding how these will affect
people around you.
To bring out the best in your team, you first need to bring out the best in yourself, which is only
possible through self-awareness. If you are self-aware, you will know how you feel and then will
manage your emotions and actions positively to lead the organization effectively. In addition to
that, a self-aware leader is more generous towards the team.
To become more self-aware:
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Evaluate yourself by comparing your performance with your team’s feedback.
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Be mindful of your responses and reactions. Which means that think logically about every small
situation and then react.
2. Self Regulation
Once you become self-aware and understand your emotions, next is to regulate yourself and
these emotions.
Self regulation means taking control of your emotions and manage these emotions according to
the situation. A good leader needs to have self-regulation to manage arising conflicts and
difficult situations.
In simple words, self regulation is turning the negatives into the positives. If a team comes across
an issue, these leaders maintain a positive outlook and solve the problem constructively without
losing their patience.
The team members are free to seek help under self-regulated team leaders. They do not hesitate
to deliver their ideas, ask questions, or even inform about any arising issue. Hence, a healthy and
comfortable workplace is established.
To improve the ability to self-regulate:
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Keep in mind your moral values while leading a team.
Do not hesitate in taking responsibility for your actions.
Avoid panicking and manage stressful situations with a cool mind.
3. Self Motivation
One of the most important components of emotional intelligence for great leaders is internal
motivation.
Self motivation or internal motivation basically means that the leader is passionate, dedicated,
optimistic, and interested to work without any external drivers like fame, money, or promotion.
Leaders who are internally motivated are more focused to achieve goals. They put in their best to
yield excellent results as a leader.
When the leader of a team is motivated it boosts the employee morale and thus, the team also
gets motivated to accomplish the task.
To enhance self motivation:
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Remind yourself of all the reasons you wanted to join this job.
Take the obstacles positively and turn them into opportunities by reacting smartly.
Know the importance of your position and its effects on the team. The team will only be positive
when the leader is positive.
4. Empathy
Empathy is walking in someone else’s shoes and understanding them, keeping in mind their
circumstances.
Empathy is a key component of effective leadership. Great leaders are empathetic towards their
team. Empathetic leaders listen to their team, understand them, and help them as a member and
not as a leader. A team with an understanding leader makes the team engaging, comfortable, and
free. People will fearlessly bring all their problems to the team leader and the leader will assist
them accordingly.
To improve empathy:
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Listen carefully to the team member’s query and respond like a friend
Understand their feelings and do not overburden them.
Appreciate your team members to boost their morale.
Determine how they truly feel by understanding their body language
5. Social skills
Social skills are the last component of emotional intelligence for good leaders. Great leaders
need to have good social skills to build and manage relationships.
Emotionally intelligent people interact with people and keep building a network. These people
have amazing communication skills which help in translating the ideas to their team effectively.
Leaders with great social skills know how to take both appreciation and criticism. They make the
best team leaders as they listen and solve all the issues within their team. Team members look up
to them for assistance and guidance.
To build social skills:
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Enhance your verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
Know how to solve problems within your team and outside it
Ans5. Simply put, creativity involves transforming your
ideas, imagination, and dreams into reality. When you’re being
creative, you can see the hidden patterns, make connections
between things that aren’t normally related, and come up with new
ideas. Creative ability depends on creative thinking which is part
hard work but largely creative problem-solving.
Creativity is not confined to fine art, literature, performing arts, music, and similar
artistic domains, but also occurs in fields such as business, manufacturing, technology,
medicine, administration, education, even defense. Its products include tangible objects
such as artworks, books or music, as well as buildings, machines, or devices, but go beyond
these to encompass ideas, processes, services, or systems of operation, production and
delivery. Creativity involves doing these things in ways that are, on the one hand, novel and
on the other, effective in achieving a desired result. The result may range from abstract
actions such as communication of a feeling, arousal of esthetic admiration, provocation of a
new way of looking at something, development of new understandings of experience or
existence, to concrete results such as the making of works of great beauty or imagination,
the design and construction of improved or novel devices, machines, buildings or
structures, improved processes or systems, more efficient operation of something, even
enhancement of profits or preservation of national security.
characteristics
Creativity has been associated with a wide range of behavioral and mental characteristics,
including associations between semantically remote ideas and contexts, application of multiple
perspectives, curiosity, flexibility in thought and action, rapid generation of multiple,
qualitatively different solutions and answers to problems and questions, tolerance for ambiguity
and uncertainty, and unusual uses of familiar objects.
Biographical studies of exceptionally creative individuals have uncovered recurring features.
Creative individuals typically master a practice or tradition before they transform it. They
organize their lives around a network of interrelated and mutually supporting enterprises. They
are prolific. There is no evidence for an inverse relation between quantity and quality; instead,
the two appear to be correlated. Exceptionally creative accomplishments are complex, evolving
outcomes of long-term efforts sustained by high levels of intrinsic motivation, often in the
absence of societal rewards.
There are many examples of exceptionally creative individuals who led troubled and turbulent
lives and there is widespread belief in a relation between creativity and mental disorder, but it
has not been conclusively shown that the more frequent such disorders are, the higher the level
of creativity.
The rate of professional productivity in art, science, and other creative endeavors increases
rapidly at the beginning of a career, reaches a peak in midlife, and then slowly declines. It is not
known whether the decline is necessary or a side effect of other factors, for example, health
problems. That some individuals begin creative careers late in life is evidence against an
inevitable decline.
Creativity as Ability
All individuals with healthy brains have some degree of creative potential, but individuals vary
in how much novelty they in fact produce. Psychometric measures of creativity are based on the
hypothesis that the ability to create is general across domains of activity (art, business, music,
technology, etc.) and stable over time. This view implies that a person whose creativity is above
average in one domain can be expected to be above average in other domains also.
The Remote Associations Test (RAT) developed by Sarnoff A. Mednick measures how easily a
person can find a link between semantically different concepts. E. Paul Torrance's Tests of
Creative Thinking (TTCT) measures divergent production, that is, how many different answers
to a question a person can provide within a time limit. For example, a person might be asked to
propose alternative titles to a well-known movie. More recent tests developed by Robert J.
Sternberg uses complex test items from realistic contexts. Creativity tests correlate modestly
with each other. Critics point out that there are no objective criteria for scoring the responses and
that test performance might not be indicative of a creative mind.
Nature and Characteristics of Creativity:
a. Creativity is not confined to any individual:
Creativity is not confined to any individual, group of individuals, caste,
colour or creed. It is not bound by the barriers of age, location or
culture.
b. Creativity is innate as well as acquired:
Although many research findings and incidents favour the suggestion
that creativity is a God given gift and natural endowment, the
influence of cultural background, experiences, education and training
in the nurturing of creativity cannot be ruled out. Thus one’s creativity
may be correctly said to be a function of natural endowment as well as
its nurturing. It is a combination of responses or ideas in novel ways.
c. Creativity is adventurous and open thinking:
Creativity is not a product of the stereotyped, rigid and closed
thinking. It encourages and demands complete freedom to accept and
express the multiplicity of responses, choices and ways of action.
d. Creativity carries ego involvement:
There is complete involvement of one’s ego in the creative expression.
One’s individuality and identity are totally merged in one’s creation.
Here ‘I’ is given more weightage.
e. Creativity has a wide scope:
Creative expression is not restricted by any limits or boundaries. It
covers all fields and activities of human life in any of which one is able
to demonstrate creativity by expressing or producing a new idea or
object.
It is universal (individual, cast, color, creed, age, location, culture)
 It is innate as well as acquired
 It produces something new or novel
 It is adventurous and open thinking (It encourages complete freedom to accept and
express the multiplicity of responses)
 It carries ego involvement
 It has a wide scope
 No positive correlation between Creativity and Intelligence
 It rests more on divergent thinking than on convergent thinking
 It cannot be separated from intelligence
 Creativity and school achievement are not correlated
 Sociability and creativity are negatively correlated

Creativity and anxiety often go together
What is Idea Generation?
Idea generation is the creative process or procedure that a company uses in order to figure out
solutions to any number of difficult challenges. It involves coming up with many ideas in a group
discussion, selecting the best idea or ideas, working to create a plan to implement the idea, and then
actually taking that idea and putting it into practice. The idea can be tangible, something you can
touch or see, or intangible, something symbolic or cultural.
How it Works
Sam is a marketing manager for a shoe company, and he has about eight people who work for him.
Sam is a big fan of using idea generation with his team whenever they need to tackle a new
challenge. The team has a new project this month. They have to come up with a brand new way of
marketing the newest line of shoes to a previously unaddressed target audience. Sam puts his group
to work into pairs.
Each pair tackles the task by first thinking of many ideas, far more than they would ever use. The
pair will eventually rejoin the team, and the team will select the best idea or ideas before assessing
the ideas' worth on a focus group of potential customers at a later date. After feedback from the
focus group, the team will adjust their approach and build on the idea using the focus group
feedback before putting their plan through real testing or trials. Finally, when the team is confident in
their idea, the idea will be passed on for actual business implementation. In our example with Sam
and his team, their marketing plan will be employed by the company to target their new customer
demographic.
This general process structure is used across many types of businesses for many types of
decisions. There is no rule saying that a company must follow this exactly, so don't be surprised if
you encounter variation. If it seems like a long process, that is because it is. Some aspects require
ample time, like conducting research, gathering opinions, learning about competitors, testing the
idea, and improving on the idea after testing. Individual teams or companies will also find that some
techniques work better for them than others, and that's just fine. Knowing a wide range of idea
generation techniques allows for flexibility in a decision making process.
Idea Generation in Entrepreneurship
Finding new ideas is the key to managing change and innovation. Companies need to
find ideas for organizational innovation, to develop innovative products and service
innovations. Innovation strategies and digital strategies can only be implemented
effectively through successful ideas. Ideas are also the key to digital innovation and the
development or digital business models. Advanced idea management software and
innovation management software makes it possible to define topics for idea generation
and collaboratively develop ideas.
What is idea generation
Idea generation is “the process of creating, developing, and
communicating ideas which are abstract, concrete or visual.” As the
first stage in the idea management funnel, idea generation simply
focuses on identifying solutions for a problem.
Why idea generation is important
It’s rare for the best ideas to pop into our heads instantaneously –
though sometimes it seems like some people have a gift for
generating instant solutions. Instead, great ideas take time to develop
and mature. Therefore, idea generation is important because the
process expands your thinking beyond the obvious or rational.
Success factors for generating innovative
business ideas
In order for idea generation to be successful, you must consider
several factors:
The problem you’re solving
Before you can reach a solution, you need to first understand the
challenge or obstacle ahead of you. That includes researching the
market, competitors, trends and so forth. Equipping your team with
this knowledge can lead to insights that inspire creative solutions and
imagination.
Target audience needs
It’s important to remember that creativity can come from anywhere
and anyone. Effective creative is driven by an understanding of the
target—what they need or care about and how we can help them.
Great creative work adds a layer of imagination and insight to make
the messaging, strategy or approach unique and powerful.
Workplace culture
Your company culture should provide an environment in which
creative expression and active discussions are encouraged. Great
ideation can be difficult if employees do not feel safe expressing their
thoughts and/or opinions. Where do you start to build a culture
emphasized on creative expression? From the top with transparent
and encouraging leadership.
Stakeholders & team members
Prior to the ideation process, determine who the key stakeholders or
team members are and whether they should be included in the idea
generation exercises. Examples of key members might include
department heads, CEOs, project managers, account folks or
creatives. From an approval standpoint, having these people in the
same room at the start can ensure on-strategy solutions and early
alignment.
Guardrails or constraints
While it’s fun to imagine any project has endless possibilities, it’s
simply never the case. Before brainstorming ideas, set basic
limitations to keep everyone’s ideas from veering too far off track.
These constraints might include timing, budget or priority. While you
never want to stifle creativity and imagination in the ideation process,
these constraints can help avoid drifting off into “dream land.”
The principles of idea generation
In our agency, everyone on the team plays an important role in
generating ideas for our clients. It doesn’t always happen naturally,
however. We must set aside time to develop these ideas. To better
equip and train our team, I am reviewing several resources. One of
them is a short book called A Technique for Producing Ideas by
James Webb Young. This quick read is not hot off the press, rather an
older publication first published in 1940 and recently republished by
Walking Lion Press. The author writes that there are two important
underlying principles to the production of ideas.
Principle one: a new idea is nothing more than a new combination of
old elements
Principle two: capacity to bring old elements into new combinations
depends largely on the ability to see relationships
Consciously or unconsciously, every idea we produce follows a certain
technique that includes these principles. Thanks to these principles,
we can cultivate a conscious idea-generating technique. According to
Young, this technique follows a five-step process from which all ideas
flow. It’s important to follow each step in sequence.
5 Steps of the idea generation process
Step 1 – Gather raw materials
In the advertising world, it is the agency’s job to know the client, its
products and, most importantly, its customers. Yet most agency
people stop too soon in the process of gathering information. If
enough research exists, differences between products and consumers
appear, leading to relationship individualities that may lead to an idea.
In advertising, an idea results from a new combination of specific
knowledge about products and people with a general knowledge
about life and events. A practical step is to write information down and
save it in a systematic way on your computer. Classify and organize
information as you gather it. This helps prepare your mind for the ideaproducing process.
Step 2 – Blend your information together
The second step, after thorough raw material gathering, is to blend the
information together—bringing facts together to see how they fit. Bits
of ideas may begin to appear; this can be mentally exhausting but
press on and think of it as putting a puzzle together.
Step 3 – Drop and forget it
Drop the idea completely and turn it over to your unconscious mind: In
other words, let it develop while you sleep. Also, do things that you
enjoy that stimulate your mind and emotions. Listen to music; go to
the movie or theater; read poetry; or get outside your normal routine.
Step 4 – Have your eureka moment
If you’ve really done your work during the first three steps, then the
fourth happens naturally. Perhaps you’ve experienced this: a “Eureka”
or “I’ve got it” moment. You wake up with a great idea or you are
taking a shower or driving to work and the idea appears with clarity.
Write it down or commit it to memory.
Step 5 – Share your idea
This is when reality hits. Your bright, shiny idea may lose some of its
luster once others are made aware of it. However, the refining and
tuning process that happens when you share your ideas with the team
can offer enlightening perspective—and generate something better.
It’s important not to hold your idea too tightly: allow it to go through a
critical-thinking process. If it’s a good idea, you will see that it has selfexpanding qualities, and with this, possibilities you did not think of may
come to light.
This five-step process, as simple as it seems, will allow you to
continue down the path of producing relevant and dramatic ideas for
your business. However, Young’s method of idea generation is not the
only approach.
Other popular methods and techniques for
generating ideas
Brainstorming
Probably the most well know idea generation exercises are
brainstorming and mind mapping. Brainstorming is a process which
involves coming up with as many solutions for a specific problem as
possible. This activity can either be done individually or in a group or
sometimes a combination of both.
At LoSasso, we tend to brainstorm individually and then meet as a
group to review, build upon and prioritize our ideas prior to sharing
with the client. This not only helps us solve our clients’ problems but
ensures key members are involved and aligned. More often than not,
we find ourselves combining multiple ideas into one killer idea.
Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is a visual framework representing tasks, concepts or
items linked to a central concept. The main benefit of this technique is
to help organize and categorize ideas faster so you can more quickly
identify relationships between concepts. In fact, mind mapping can be
useful for inspiring or uncovering connections you wouldn’t normally
think of or see. For example, if you’re looking for ways to increase
product sales, a mind map may illuminate new ways to think about
how you message the product offerings or approach marketing
overall.
A mind map must have three characteristics I order for it to be
successful:

Your central tropic should be at the center of your map


Main themes of the central topic should branch out from the
center
Second level topics form the structure of your mind map
We encourage using various colors to denote relationships, doodling
to highlight areas and having fun when mind mapping. Let your mind
and your team wander free to create those new, unexpected
relationships. When the mind mapping process is complete, then you
can go back and refine ideas that come out of it.
SCAMPER technique
Another popular idea generation and creative thinking approach is the
SCAMPER technique which focuses on understanding the problem.
Developed by Bob Eberie, the acronym stands for (S) substitute, (C)
combine, (A) adapt, (M) modify, (P) put to another use, (E) eliminate
and (R) reverse. This technique works by using each of the seven
prompts to ask questions about existing products with the goal of
improving upon them or innovating new solutions.
Opposite thinking
Also known as reverse thinking, instead of going with the rational
route to solve the problem, you consider the exact opposite of the
idea. For example, if you’re generating ideas for how to increase email
subscribers, you’d instead ask yourself: How do I stop getting new
email subscribers? This approach allows you to expand your thought
process and pinpoint certain areas or solutions that wouldn’t normally
cross your mind.
Now that you’ve successfully come up with brilliant ideas, you or your
team needs a place to organize and store them.