This is a guest post by Mariya Vasileva.

Recently Mariya Vasileva, a friend of my posted (in Bulgarian) on her blog that she read the book “Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success” by Karl Albrecht. I haven’t read the book but the topic looked interesting and appealing to me, as she has highlighted some of the most intriguing facts on being socially intelligent. Hence, I invited her to translate it for the readers of Higher and Higher. So… the following text is a short preview on the “Social IntelligenceThe New Science of Success” book written by Karl Albrecht.

“Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success” by Karl Albrecht is one of those books which do not say something particularly new but remind us how important is to observe better ourselves and to be more conscious in our words or actions towards the others.

The author makes a distinction between social and emotional intelligence and adds that there are six main types of intelligence we distinguish today: abstract, social, practical, emotional, aesthetic and kinesthetic (according to the theory of multiple intelligences by Professor Howard Gardner).

The shortest definition of social intelligence (SI) might be “Interacting successfully with others in various contexts.” The key word here is “successful” as our relations with others- friends, colleagues, clients, suppliers, etc., matter only when they are successful for all sides.

The other definition of SI refers to it also as “a mix of fundamental sense towards people and a combination of related skills for successful cooperation with them” or “…the ability to get along well with others, and to get them to cooperate with you.”*

Karl Albrecht focuses on five main sides of the social intelligence:

1. Situation Awareness
2. Presence
3. Authenticity
4. Clarity
5. Empathy

A couple of articles on the topic may be enough to give you a good picture on the social intelligence, but the book was not a waste of time at all.

*Note from Mariya: The author of the post has read the book in Bulgarian language, therefore the quotes may not be exactly the same as in the original English text.

** Note from Petya regarding the photo: Isn’t Red from Mad Men a good example of behavior of a socially intelligent person?

Passionate about more great content on PR and social media: Follow @pgeorgieva