In today’s society, EQ is more important in the field of public service. John Thompson shares this to the attendees as he discusses Emotional Intelligence for Law Enforcement.

John Thompson stresses that he is no doctor to the webinar participants. His extensive background and experience in public service and criminal justice that brought him to Quantico, the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development School, and the Department of Homeland Security is no easy feat and definitely takes a skill and expertise though. He is currently the Deputy Executive Director and COO of the National Sheriff Association.

John unpacks the basics of emotional intelligence, gets the participants to self-assess their EQ level, determine their strengths and weaknesses and teaches how to overcome beliefs and behavior that hinder one’s emotional intelligence.

Some of the areas John covered in the webinar are:

• Why emotional intelligence (EQ) is now seen as a better determinant of success than IQ.
• The need for public servants to better understand, empathize, and negotiate with they interact with as the main driver for the need for emotional intelligence skills.
• A self-reflecting activity on triggers that cause overreaction.
• The four skill domains of emotional intelligence and a self-assessment activity that uncovers the audience’s strong and weak points within these four domains.
• The parts of the brain that function when in a heightened emotional intelligence state and in an emotional reaction.
• The four core abilities of EQ
  • Self-awareness as the ability to recognize own emotions, strengths, and weaknesses.
  • Self-management as the ability to control impulsive responses and emotions, manage your reactions, and adapt to changing circumstances.
  • Social awareness as the ability to empathize with other people, understand their thoughts, feelings and needs, and recognize power dynamics in a group.
  • Relationship management as the ability to maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, manage conflicts, and work in a team.
• The results of an improved EQ as reducing stress, connecting to one’s own emotions, resolve conflict, and using humor to deal with changes.
• How emotional hijacking happens when the amygdala takes over, and videos that exhibit good EQ and bad EQ.
• The two emotion equations that illustrate what happens in an emotional hijacking scenario, and one where redirecting beliefs and thoughts are added into the formula to create an improved emotional response and action.
• Ways to develop one’s emotional intelligence by:
  • Observing your reactions when interacting with other people.
  • Looking at your work environment and practicing humility.
  • Reflecting and doing a self-evaluation to understand weaknesses.
  • Examining your reaction to stressful situations and ensuring you keep your emotions under control.
  • Taking responsibility for your actions, apologizing if you’ve hurt someone, and making things right.
  • Having foresight on how your behavior can impact others.
• A video that uses humor to teach how to diffuse other people’s emotions.
• John deep-dives on specific points during the Q&A portion where the webinar participants asked his take on topics as:
  • Implementing programs geared towards improving emotional intelligence.
  • How emotional intelligence is a concept that can be applied to any industry that deals with people.
  • The time it takes for the reprogramming to take effect.
  • Ideas to help someone who might be having issues with emotional intelligence.
  • Using emotional intelligence to improve law enforcement response to adult sexual assault.
  • The impact of prescription medications on EQ.