The following five traits are according to Goleman the key to understanding and improving your EQ.
Self-awareness
These traits mean that you can see yourself as others see you. You understand and can accurately estimate your own strengths and weaknesses. Fairly often those with higher IQs will either see themselves wrongly as geniuses or as far less clever than what they really are. Understanding your own abilities lets you judge how best to use your talents.
Self-management
This trait relates to emotional control. Those with high EQ can control their emotions, recover from setbacks easily and are not overly self-critical. Generally, people with a high EQ have a positive outlook on life as oppose to focusing on the negative.
Social-awareness
People with a high EQ are empathetic and understand the lives and challenges of others. It also means being able to understand how team members will react in certain situations and what tasks they will be able to complete competently.
Relationship-management
Those with high EQ are able to manage multiple different relationships, personal and professional, simultaneously. This often makes them natural leaders because they are able to speak to people at different levels of IQ and EQ and are able to speak to them in ways each individual will actually understand.
