Emotional intelligence is an aspect I have encounter during these past four years of my life. Emotional intelligence refers to a person’s emotional ability. It follows the ability to recognize your/and other people's emotions, why you feel them, and how they’re affecting you at any given moment.
In short, emotional intelligence is all about your ability to acknowledge and manage your emotions and the emotions of others. It’s about communication, care, and control. But how this applies to the development process, burnout, and the software industry?
Learning as emotional intelligence
The world of software is changing and is changing fast. In a blink of an eye, there is already a new JavaScript framework or new advancements in tools, and software platforms. With all types of tool changing, we need to adapt fast and be ready for failure. As a soon-to-be Software Engineer, you need to revalue your skills in a whole different way.
And as you become aware of all the things you need to learn, you start to become overwhelmed. That is how I started to feel last week learning a tool called Tailwind CSS, weird trigger, I know.
It all started with a tweet that said Tailwind CSS is a great CSS framework when you don't know the specific of CSS and I felt so behind in front-end development knowledge just finding that. And as I started realizing and checking my emotions is that someone had to recommend that framework, and the chain goes on and on.
When it comes to our careers as engineers, acquiring and learning new technologies and solving problems has never been much of a challenge. Also, this is why this career is so exciting, you never stop learning. But a plan needs practice, and commitment. So when I found out about this framework I just glance at the main page and said “cool beans”. But as I revisit my experience, if I am really interested in learning something new —just anything. Organization and planning are the way to it.
Communication as emotional intelligence
Communication is the cornerstone of leadership. Learning how to bridge business and technology can help technologists take their careers to the next level. Becoming a better communicator is good career advice for pretty much anyone. Especially if you want to empower your team.
A common practice I have seen many times is micromanagement. Micromanagement should be avoided in any software development team to prevent negative consequences. Among the principles of Agile, one states the following;
You should aim for self-organized and motivated individuals, where they can go out to the world and think for themselves.
Rest as emotional intelligence
As exciting as something new can be, resting your body and mind is important. With remote work is important to change environments and also not look to a screen 24 hours a day.
If your hobby is also coding, great! It is mine too, but so much screen time can also affect the eye. Instead, try reading a book about scalable systems or best practices in your coding. Rest is important.
