Working in a new country surrounded by people from diverse backgrounds is an amazing experience. As an expat, you bring new ideas, suggestions, and unique perspectives to the table, but living without family or outside your own country can be challenging sometimes.
New surroundings, unfamiliar customs, and a completely different work culture can be difficult to manage sometimes. This is where emotional intelligence, often known as EI or EQ, comes in. It is not just a helpful skill but a game-changer for an expat to truly succeed in a global work culture.
Let’s look at how emotional intelligence can make all the difference.
Understanding Emotional Intelligence for Global Professionals
What exactly is emotional intelligence? It is basically about how well you understand and handle your emotions on your own and those of the people around you. It refers to
- Knowing yourself- Understanding your mood, strength, and weakness.
- Managing yourself- Being able to control your reactions and emotions, especially in difficult moments.
- Stay focused- Keeping yourself focused on the goal even when facing new challenges.
- Understanding others- Able to sense what others are feeling and why.
- Connecting with people- Being great at building relationships, and working well with everyone.
In a global workplace, you are not only working with different people but also dealing with different cultures and ways of thinking.
While dealing with new people and new work cultures, knowing your emotions is not enough; you need to understand how emotions are expressed and understood in other cultures.
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Why Expats Need EQ in Cross-Cultural Workplaces?
Working with a team around the globe is exciting but also challenging. Misunderstandings can happen easily, not because anyone’s wrong, but because we see and express things differently. Emotional intelligence can help to close this gap.
Here’s how:
Better Communication Across Cultures
Every culture has its own way of communicating and listening. Some say exactly what they mean, while others are more indirect and hint at things. Some workplaces care a lot about rules and policies, while others are more relaxed.
Expats with a good emotional intelligence pick up these signals. They don’t just hear the words but pay attention to the tone of voice, body language, and even silence. This helps them avoid confusions and build trust with the people they work with.
More Understanding and Empathy
When professionals move to a new country, they usually feel alone and have no one there to understand them. At the same time, their new coworkers might find it hard to understand what they are going through. Emotional intelligence helps to fill this gap.
Empathy, which is the main part of emotional intelligence, helps professionals understand what others are feeling. It also helps them share their feelings in a way that shows respect. This creates a space for real connections to grow.
Less Stress and Culture Shock
Adapting to a new culture is not easy. Everything from food to work culture is unfamiliar. Only those who possess emotional intelligence are able to better handle stress and perform at work. Instead of reacting and getting frustrated, take a pause and react calmly. It won’t remove cultural shock completely, but it will also make things easy to handle.
Stronger Teamwork and Collaboration
A team that truly respects different ideas and backgrounds can work better together. Expats with high emotional intelligence can get others into it because they are more open to new ideas and skills. They are more likely to encourage others to share their thoughts on anything and value the different ways of understanding the same thing.
This not only makes working together easier but also leads to more innovative and effective results.
Boosts Personal and Professional Growth
Living and working in a different country can truly make you grow not only with your skills but but also with your mind and heart. Professionals with better emotional intelligence get better at understanding themselves. They learn about their weaknesses and strengths and become tougher when things are hard and grow as better leaders, in their professional and personal lives.
Emotional Intelligence + Cultural Intelligence = Success for Expats
Many experts also say that cultural intelligence (often called CQ), which is the ability to understand and work well in different cultures, is as important as emotional intelligence.
These two skills work hand in hand. As Darren Menabney wrote in Forbes, your EQ needs CQ to shine in a global setting. When expats combine being good at understanding emotions with a sensitivity to different cultures, they truly become global citizens. They become people who are respected, can easily adapt, and succeed no matter where they are.
How to Strengthen EQ as an Expat
If you are already a professional working in another country and thinking about being an expat, here are some easy ways to boost your emotional intelligence.
- Practice active listening- Pay close attention to the words of what others are saying and what their body language wants to tell.
- Think about yourself- Keep asking yourself how you are feeling, especially after emotional or difficult moments.
- Seek feedback- Seek feedback from your trusted coworkers on how your communication style comes across to them.
- Be curious to learn more- Learn about that specific country you want to go to, local customs, values, and workplace etiquette.
- Be kind to yourself- Give yourself grace during the adjustment period.
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Emotional intelligence isn’t magic, but it helps a lot. Working with people from other countries can be hard sometimes. But if you understand feelings and know how to talk to others, things get easier.
Feel free to reach out if you’d like guidance in building EQ for a successful global career.
Usha Nagrani, an HR Leader turned ICF Executive Coach, empowers senior management professionals and business leaders to achieve breakthroughs as expats, build cross-cultural teams, and navigate the exciting journey of career acceleration.
