Emotional Intelligence:
Social Skills and
Interpersonal Skills
Objectives:
•Comprehend the importance of “Social Skills”
• Understand how “Interpersonal Skills” are a
combination of empathy and social skills.
Everybody Up!
• Let’s hear our I-POSSESS song/ cheer!
Social Skills
• When you possess Social Skills, you have the
skills that are used in relating to others.
Let me ask you…
• What would you say are the skills that you have to
possess to hold a job?
• What skills seem to be the most important when working
with other people, especially adults?
• What is the difference between a skill and a technique?
• This is a hard question, so think about the
meaning of being skilled at something.
Can people begin by being skilled or
do they have to go through some
training or experience before they
can be skilled?
• Would you want to go to a surgeon who has learned a
technique for surgery or would you want to go to a surgeon
who has used the technique over and over and over and is
now “skilled” in the use of that technique?
Learn it, then do it!
• In order to develop a skill, you have to learn how to do
something and then you have to do it.
• Learning something is not the same as being able to do
it!
• You can become skilled at something only by doing it
over and over. It is a lot like playing a sport or piano
or anything that you learn how to do well.
Back to Social Skills…
• When we are talking about social skills, we are
talking about a certain set of information and
skills that are necessary for you to succeed in
life.
• If I could teach you these skills, what would it be worth
to you to learn to do them well?
The fact is, it would be worth a great
deal to you.
• You’ll want to notice that not everyone has these
skills.
• That is because of one or more of three
reasons:
– 1 They have not been taught the techniques, or
– 2 They have not used them enough to be good
at them, or
– 3 They are too lazy to care about them.
Now, you decide!
• Do you want to fall in one of these groups OR …
Do you want to learn them and do them until you are
really good at them?
Believe me, social skills are crucial to
your success. Let’s talk about them.
• What are the most important social skills you can think of?
• What is important when meeting new people?
• Did you know that when you meet new people the
most important thing is what you do with your
body? Remember that 55% of what we say is
communicated by our body language.
• Think about the eight cues we talked about.
The Eight Cues
• Let’s name them:
• To show self-confidence –
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Eye contact
Posture
Handshake
Dress and grooming
Facial expressions
Tone of voice and Word selection
Level of relaxation/ stress
Energy level
Do you see how all of
these things relate to
how you use your
body?
These things show
people whether or not
we are relating to
them.
Discussion
• Do you relate to adults well?
– If not, why do you think that is?
• Do you think that you are able to determine how an
adult relates to you?
• What could you do to get adults to take you more
seriously?
Where do we use these skills?
• We need to look at the places that you can practice these
social and business skills.
• Don’t forget that these skills include things like…
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talking to secretaries in offices
using the phone
setting up appointments
being friendly to the clerks in stores
learning how to eat out
order food
use the silverware
when to be seated and where to sit
when to stand when someone comes to your office or table at
lunch
– …and lots of other things.
Where can YOU practice these skills?
• The teacher asks you to ask the teacher’s aid for ten
copies of a handout. How do you address the teacher’s aide?
• You have to buy a lunch ticket. How do you address the
cashier?
• There is a spill in the classroom and the teacher asks you
to go ask the custodian for her help. How do you address
the custodian?
• You are asked to deliver a message to the principal’s
office and bring back a response. How do you address the
secretary and/or principal?
• You can practice these skills NOW and you will
be amazed at the response that you get from
adults.
• They think of you as “just a kid”, until you show
them you can act in a professional way.
• Listen to a story from Flip Flippen about
determining how adults relate to youth.
YOU determine…
• …where you go in life and what you do!
• Your skills and especially your social/
professional skills are what will take you there.
• It is not your race, your color, your I.Q., your
background, your heritage or your parents who
will take you there.
• And, even if those things did get you ahead,
they won’t keep you there.
Conclusion
• Everyone is going somewhere.
• It’s up to you to decide where you’re going.
• Remember this, your skills are what determine
where you go and what you do in the world.
Interpersonal Skills
• Back to the Emotional Intelligence acronym and
the very first scale, the “I” – Interpersonal Skills.
– Remember that the interpersonal skills scale is a joint
scale combining empathy and social skills.
• What does empathy mean?
• The ability to feel and relate to what another
person is feeling.
• Let’s say that…
• You would want your friend to care about what
happened and how you’re feeling about it.
• And, as we just discussed, social skills are those
skills that help us when we meet new people and
want to develop relationships with them.
• The kinds of skills we are talking about are: good
handshake, posture, dress and grooming, manners,
courtesies, language, humor and many others.
• People who have these skills are usually
comfortable in lots of different situations.
What do Interpersonal Skills
look like when balanced?
• So what happens when we put these social skills
together with empathy? Well, let’s see what
happens if we don’t put them together, and we
have one without the other.
• What would a person be like who had great social skills,
but had no empathy for others?
• For these people, getting along with others is
just a game. It’s really using others to get what
they want, but without really caring about the
relationships.
• We would say that those kind of people are not
genuine; they are phony.
• Now, what about a person who had empathy for others,
but no social skills?
• These people could be sincere and really care about you,
but would have no way to express it.
• These people might be so awkward socially they would
probably never meet you, and you would never be able
to have a relationship with them.
• Or they might show it inappropriately, such as being too
pushy, and you might not want to have a relationship
with them.
• On the other hand, a person with a good balance of
empathy and social skills – good interpersonal skills –
would sincerely care about you and have the skills to
appropriately convey that to you.
Conclusion
• Stories…
• Leaders who are healthy and honest are people
who have good empathy and good social skills
in balance—that’s, good .