Self-Assessment Tools To Improve Emotional Intelligence And Personal Development

Emotional Quotient Instrument- D. Goleman

The EQ Instrument designed by Daniel Goleman helps in the analysis of Emotional Intelligence of people, using 15 questions, which can be answered on the grade of 1 to 5 (likert scale) (Goleman and Boyatzis 2017; Goleman 2006; Goleman 1998). I used this tool to perform an analysis of my Emotional Intelligence, and have the same tool to a friend and a colleague to perform an assessment of my EQ score. This allowed me to understand the perception of others regarding the strengths and weaknesses in key aspects of the EQ tool. ON the self test, I had a score of 47, while both my friend and my colleague also assessed my EQ score as 44. This showed that my understanding and their perception of my EQ were close enough. The scores are in the range of 35 to 55, which implies high emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is vital to develop healthy work and personal relations, as well as understand other’s perspectives well.

The Multiple Intelligence test by Howard Gardner analyses the strengths and weaknesses across 7 intelligence types which includes: interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial visual, bodily kinesthetic, musical, mathematical, logical and linguistic (Gardner 2008; Gardner 2018). The test comprises of 69 questions, which can be answered on a scale of 1 to 4 (Gardner 2017). This test was also performed by myself and the same friend and colleague who analyzed by EQ on the Goleman Test. Given Below are the results of the Howard Gardner Test:

Test done by myself:

Intelligence type	your totals Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper
Linguistic	22
Logical-Mathematical	29
Musical	25
Bodily-Kinesthetic	29
Spatial-Visual	27
Interpersonal	31
Intrapersonal	34

Test done by my friend:

Intelligence type	your totals
Linguistic	30
Logical-Mathematical	25
Musical	36
Bodily-Kinesthetic	33
Spatial-Visual	37
Interpersonal	35
Intrapersonal	28

Test done by a colleague:

Intelligence type	your totals
Linguistic	27
Logical-Mathematical	25
Musical	32
Bodily-Kinesthetic	31
Spatial-Visual	34
Interpersonal	32
Intrapersonal	26

Complete table:

Intelligence type	Self A	Friend B	Colleague C	(B+C)/2 D	(A+B+C)/3 E
Linguistic	22	30	27	28.5	26.33
Logical-Mathematical	29	25	25	25	26.33
Musical	25	36	32	34	31
Bodily-Kinesthetic	29	33	31	32	31
Spatial-Visual	27	37	34	35.5	32.66
Interpersonal	31	35	32	33.5	32.66
Intrapersonal	34	28	26	27	29.33

The Johari Window is a tool which can help to learn the relationship between an individual and others, understanding learning, self awareness, personal development, and developing communication (Shenton 2007). The tool analyses various aspects of human characters in four groups: Arena which consists of factors known by everyone, that is self and others, Façade which consists of factors known by self but not others, Blind Spot which consists of factors known by others but not to self, and Unknown which comprises of factors not known by self or others (Halpern 2009).

Comparing the results of the Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence Test, it is possible to use it in the Johari Window, to understand, which of the aspects of the Multiple Intelligence test falls under the different categories of the Johari Window, and to identify which aspects I need to focus on. Since the test was done by a friend and a colleague, and their results showed differences, I have taken the mean values of their results, to get an understanding of the perspective of ‘others’, to be compared to the result of the self test.

Intelligence type	Mean score D
Linguistic	28.5
Logical-Mathematical	25
Musical	34
Bodily-Kinesthetic	32
Spatial-Visual	35.5
Interpersonal	33.5
Intrapersonal	27

Multiple Intelligence Test- Howard Gardner

Comparing the rests of the test done by myself with the mean scores of the rest of the tests done by my friend and colleagues (representing others) can help me to identify which factors are known or unknown by me and others, and thus populate the Johari Window Accordingly. For the sake of convenience, a gap of 5 or less is used to identify factors known or unknown to both self and others, while gap more than 5 is used to differentiate factors known by self or others. The table comparing the values and the corresponding categories are given below: 

Intelligence type	Self A (self)	Others D (others)	Category on Johari Window
Linguistic	22	28.5	Arena
Logical-Mathematical	29	25	Arena
Musical	25	34	Blind Spot
Bodily-Kinesthetic	29	32	Arena
Spatial-Visual	27	35.5	Blind Spot
Interpersonal	31	33.5	Arena
Intrapersonal	34	27	Facade

 JOHARI WINDOW showing the different factors of the Multi Intelligence test and the mean values of self friend and colleague (column E):

	Known to Self	Not Known to self
Known to others	ARENA: Linguistic (26.33) Logical-Mathematical (26.33) Bodily-Kinesthetic (31) Interpersonal (32.66)	BLIND SPOT: Musical (31) Spatial-Visual (32.66)
Not Known to Others	FAÇADE: Intrapersonal (29.33)	UNKNOWN:

ARENA: My strengths in bodily kinesthetic and Interpersonal skills, my weaknesses in Linguistic and Logical Mathematical Skills. BLIND SPOT: My strengths in musical skills and Spatial Visual skills which others are aware of, but not known to me. FAÇADE: Weakness in Intrapersonal Skills, which is something only I know, not others. UNKNOWN: yet to be identified.

Using the mean scores from the test results from all the three tests, I was able to draw an overall score of my strengths and weaknesses. For the sake of convenience, I considered scores of 30 or above as strengths, and below 30 as weaknesses. The table below shows the mean score of column E.

Intelligence type	Mean score E
Linguistic	26.33
Logical-Mathematical	26.33
Musical	31
Bodily-Kinesthetic	31
Spatial-Visual	32.66
Interpersonal	32.66
Intrapersonal	29.33

The table shows that my strengths are in Spatial-Visual skills, Interpersonal Skills, Musical Skills and Bodily-Kinesthetic Skills. The weaknesses identified in the table are: Logical mathematical skills, linguistic skills and intrapersonal skills. This table is helpful for me to identify the skills I need to develop and the skills I can utilize for my future professional and personal development. Firstly I plan to develop my abilities in Logical mathematical skills, linguistic skills and intrapersonal skills. Developing Logical Mathematical skills is vital for logical thinking and reasoning, analyze problems perform calculations. Developing Linguistic skills on the other hand is important for communication and language. Interpersonal skills are also important to develop self awareness, cognizance and objectivity, and help to analyze one own need for change. Secondly, I also plan to utilize my strengths in Spatial-Visual skills, Interpersonal Skills, Musical Skills and Bodily-Kinesthetic Skills. These skills vital for visual or spatial perceptions, perception the feelings of others, perceiving tonalities and have good control of body movement.

Being a part of the Global Citizenship entails responsibilities towards self and others, and implies the need to struggle for existence through constant effort of development and improvement as per my opinion. I strongly feel therefore, that to be a contributing member of the society, I must be able to realize and achieve my full potential, by working on my weaknesses and blind spots while utilizing the strengths to help my growth. The EQ tests and the Johari window provided key insights into my own strengths and weaknesses, working on which I believe I can be a constructive global citizen.

Part 1: Johari Window

Communication and Language is an important part of personal development, and my improving my Linguistic skills, In can improve in written and spoken communication, retention, interpretation of ideas and information using languages, and help me to relate communication with its underlying meanings. I plan to learn more foreign languages to increase my understanding over language, and help be communicate with a wider range of people. Developing logical thinking can also help me in detecting patterns, help in scientific reasoning and problem solving, performing calculations, and understand the relations between cause and effect. Such skills can be useful for my own growth, as well as useful to help others. Scientists, engineers, accountants, statisticians, computer experts, traders, bankers, bookmakers, insurance brokers, negotiators, deal makers, directors and troubleshooters all depend on Logical Mathematical skills for their work, and developing this skill can help my project my career towards these directions. Developing Intrapersonal Skills can be useful to develop myself awareness, personal objectivity, and ability to understand myself better, and understand the relationship I have with others around me in a clearer manner. It can also help me understand the need for change, and to implement those changes towards my future career development and towards being a global citizen. Moreover, it can be useful to foster a sense of self discovery and self reflection, which is important for both personal and professional development.

I also intend to help other, using my skills in Musical abilities, Bodily-Kinesthetic abilities, Spatial Visual Abilities and Interpersonal Abilities. Using my musical skills, I can compose music, play instruments and teach others how to play them. By Bodily Kinesthetic skills can allow me to coach effective workplace postures, and assess workstation ergonomics. The Spatial Visual Skills can help me to create layouts, logos and designs. Also, through my strengths in Interpersonal skills, I can be an effective coach or a teacher, and able to assess the intelligence of others, and thus understand the extent of help they might need.

Conclusion:

From the above essay it could be concluded that the EQ result would help me to identify my ability, potential strength and weakness and accordingly I was able to improve my weakness by increasing my level of competency, in order to become a global citizen.

References:

Gardner, H., 2017. Taking a multiple intelligences (MI) perspective. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40.

Gardner, H., 2018. Multiple approaches to understanding. In Contemporary Theories of Learning (pp. 129-138). Routledge.

Gardner, H.E., 2008. Multiple intelligences: New horizons in theory and practice. Basic books.

Goleman, D. and Boyatzis, R., 2017. Emotional intelligence has 12 elements. Which do you need to work on. Harv Bus Rev.

Goleman, D., 1998. Working with emotional intelligence. Bantam.

Goleman, D., 2006. Emotional intelligence. Bantam.

Halpern, H., 2009. Supervision and the Johari window: a framework for asking questions. Education for Primary Care, 20(1), pp.10-14.

Shenton, A.K., 2007. Viewing information needs through a Johari Window. Reference Services Review, 35(3), pp.487-496.