When approaching last week's class activity, i expected it to be relatively easy: read a card and express a corresponding emotion as dictated by another card. As we started the activity, though, i realized that it was going to be much more difficult than i thought. Aside from the fact that many of the emotions we had to choose from were similar in nature, on several occasions the pairing of the sentences and the emotion that were selected were contradicting, making it exra difficult to convey the emotion while reading the card.
Personally, i did better at the decoding part of this activity than i did at the encoding part. I have never been much of an actor, and so trying to sincerely convey emotions that i wasn't actually feeling was very difficult from me. However, in my social experiences through school, work and family i have learned very well how to read the tone in other's voices, which enabled me to be much more effective at the decoding part of this activity. My family is very expressive, so i grew up in an environment where i was very aware when my parents and siblings were happy, sad, angry, worried, etc. based on both the tone in their voice and, when in person, their facial expressions.
I think that my struggle at the encoding part of this activity is very reflective of my personality and how i am in other areas of my life. I consider myself a very sincere person, and am not one to talk about people behind their backs or be fake to their face. If i am angry at someone, I communicate that to them; if i am sad, it's visible in my eyes and through my voice; if i am happy, it shows in my eyes and my smile. I have been taught to be open with my emotions, and to find rational ways to express and communicate them to others when necessary. I am not good at "faking" emotions depending on my audiences, and even though this was just an exercise i found that my acting skills are pretty poor. :( I am partially proud of that, though, since sincerity and being "real" is something that i value in myself and others, and i similarly have a very low tolerance for two-faced-ness.
You would probably qualify as a low self-monitor, I'm guessing. But, part of emotional intelligence is knowing when to hide emotions and when to really broadcast them. As Laszlo said last night, as a leader he has to shield his subordinates from some things - he has to protect them. There may be times when you need to hide bad news, or otherwise hide your emotions in order to benefit your subordinates.
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