Surviving a tough economy: the role of social intelligence

We are in tough economic times, and many experts tell us they’ll get tougher before they get better.  Unemployment rates are soaring, and even people with jobs are afraid those jobs might vanish at any moment.  Literally millions of Americans and people around the world, who until recently thought they had secure employment, have been laid off.  Careers and lives have been shattered.  As a result, people are reacting with anger, fear, and most of all caution: holding onto jobs they don’t necessarily love, keeping their heads low, cutting back on spending, worrying constantly about how they’ll manage if their jobs disappear, or how they’ll survive after having lost one.

During times like these, it may be more important than ever to nurture any advantage  you can in the work world.  I’ve recently been thinking a lot about how the social intelligence skills I wrote about over a year ago, back when things seemed much better economically, might actually be super useful during times like these.