EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, is the capacity to understand and manage your emotions. It is that "essence" in each of us that affects how we govern our behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions which power us to achieve positive (or negative) outcomes. And most importantly, it drives our life, work and career success.
Emotional Intelligence is responsible for 58% of individual performance.
What are you doing to enhance yours?
THE FIVE CORE COMPONENTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Broadly speaking, EQ refers to someone’s ability to perceive, understand and manage their own feelings and emotions. Psychologist Daniel Goleman says it has five core components:
Self-awareness – the ability to recognise and understand your moods and emotions, and how they affect others
Self-regulation – the ability to control impulses and moods, and to think before acting
Internal (or intrinsic) motivation – being driven to pursue goals for personal reasons, rather than for some kind of reward (the opposite is external motivation)
Empathy – the ability to recognise and understand others’ motivations, which is essential for building and leading teams successfully
Social skills – the ability to manage relationships and build networks
Benefits of Enhancing EQ in the Workplace
Enhancing EQ in the workplace has two very practical benefits:
The individual who can understand what stimuli 'pushes his buttons' 0r creates anxiety can learn to harness those emotions, control them, and use to create more positive outcomes. Being able to interpret and respond appropriately to the emotions of others makes a manager more effective and builds camaraderie among workers and stronger client connections.
For an organization, encouraging emotional intelligence leads to better collaboration and creates a happier, healthier, and more dynamic operation.
“Multiple studies have identified the one dynamic that employers see as a true necessity in their employees-they seek talent with a desire to make a positive difference inside their organization; those who possess a higher sense of self and responsibility. They overwhelmingly value Emotional Intelligence (EQ)over IQ and skill.”
More EQ Research
It was in the early 1900’s that people began searching for an early predictor of success, and they settled on Intelligence Quotient or IQ; a score derived from standardized tests designed to assess human intelligence. But it quickly became clear that while IQ was important, there were other human elements that were perhaps even more relevant to individual performance and outcome. Studies have concluded that there is a small correlation between IQ and career success, with both career success and employability depending on individuals behaving in socially desirable ways, especially when interacting with recruiters, employers, and managers. Now, decades of research point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.
Here’s the good news: unlike IQ- which is likely static and unchangeable no matter how much one wishes to improve it- emotional intelligence can be enhanced.
Psychologists John Mayer, Ph.D. of the University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey, Ph.D. of Yale University coined the term emotional intelligence in an academic paper which was published in 1989. Emotional Intelligence is defined by Mayer and Salovey as follows:
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to effectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth.