Background Information on Emotional Intelligence

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Background Information on Emotional Intelligence

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is variously referred to as EI or EQ (for Emotional Quotient.) Emotional intelligence describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence or IQ. Essentially, emotional intelligence is being able to recognize and understand your emotions and the impact that they have on your behavior and on those around you. Being able to understand how others feel and knowing how to manage relationships makes you more socially savvy and allows you to forge positive relationships for the long-term. A growing body of research is proving these "emotional muscles" are key to effective leadership, sales, customer loyalty, retention, increased productivity and team performance.

Why is Emotional Intelligence Important?

"A leader's intelligence has to have a strong emotional component. He has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity and self-control. She must be able to withstand the heat, handle setbacks and when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with equal parts of joy and humility. No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can't ignore it."
Jack Welch, Chairman of General Electric

Numerous studies of organizations and government agencies worldwide, undertaken by dozens of experts, conclude that emotional intelligence is the barometer of excellence in virtually any job, from entry level to executive. Emotional Intelligence is synergistic with IQ. Top performers have both. As Dr. David Caruso states, it is "very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head—it is the unique intersection of both."

A key component of emotional intelligence is self-management. Emotions like anxiety, frustration or anger, prevent us from doing our best thinking and staying focused on what matters most for our success and the success of our team or organization. Self-management also means marshalling positive emotions such as passion to motivate us to achieve what we want to achieve.

Emotional Intelligence is also the key to handling our relationships with others in a way that helps us rather than hinders us. Most of what we do in our professional and personal lives entails dealing with other people. How many people do you know who have been fired because of lack of technical skills or low I.Q.? Probably not many. Discounting lay-offs due to business imperatives, more employees are fired because of reasons related to lack of emotional intelligence than to deficits in IQ or poor technical skills. A study by the Centre for Creative Leadership, for example, showed the top three reasons that managers are derailed in their career are inability to adapt to change, poor interpersonal relations and failure to maintain collaborative working relationships, all of which are EI competencies.

Increasingly employers are listing "soft" skills, as a hiring requirement for jobs of all kind. And this is not just jobs that traditionally require soft skills, such as jobs in customer service or sales, but even jobs in enginnering or technology, for example.

A Sample of Business Case Studies for Emotional Intelligence

(Source Hay Group)

Leadership: A study of 15 global companies attributes 85-90% of leadership success to emotional intelligence.

Sales: A study of 44 Fortune 500 firms shows that salespeople with high emotional intelligence produce twice the revenue of average performers.

Computer Programmers: Programmers in the top 10% of EI competency can develop effective software three times as fast as those lower in EI.

Physicians: Studies into the doctor-patient relationship show that doctors' demonstration of empathy reduces hospital litigation issues.

Head Teachers: Schools whose head teachers have high EI scores demonstrate the best national inspection scores.

All Jobs: Emotional competence has been shown to be twice as important as cognitive abilities for star performers in all jobs, in every field.

You can download a report on the business case for emotional intelligence here. (pdf.)

(Source Multi-Health Systems)

Construction Executives: A study of 130 construction executives found a positive relationship between total EQ and transformational leadership; 34% of the variance in transformational leadership was explained by total EQ.

Family-member Managers: There was a high and significant correlation between EQ and family business success. The mean EQ of the entire management team was found to influence the success or failure of a business.

Identifying High Potential: A study of 51 high potentials and 51 “regular” managers showed the utility of EI to identify high potential in managers.

Telecom Employee Performance: Leader emotional intelligence accounted for 48% of the variance between high and low performing groups.

You can download another report on the business case for emotional intelligence here. (pdf.)

Can you raise your EQ?

The good news is that you can increase your EQ at any point in your life. Increasing emotional intelligence requires that we replace old habits of thought, feeling and behavior that are hard-wired in us, with new, emotionally-intelligent habits. To do this effectively, we need to fully buy-in on the importance for EI for our well-being and success; we need to have the motivation to change, and we need to practice the new behaviors until they become our default options.

The first step involves an understanding of where you are now in terms of your EQ—raising your self-awareness in a number of critical areas and developing your awareness of how others perceive you. Without this self-awareness, you have virtually no chance of improving your self-management—of understanding the impact that you have on others and improving how you manage yourself and your relationships.

What are some of the characteristics of persons who are emotionally intelligent?

They can identify their emotions correctly, understand the cause of the emotions and the impact that their emotions have on their behavior.
They like themselves and believe in their own capabilities. They are also aware of their weaknesses.
They are comfortable talking about feelings.

They take a stand, defending what is important to them, in a socially-acceptable, non-offensive manner.

They know their "trigger" points and have an appropriate response plan.
They can manage their emotions and are not derailed by worry, disappointment, doubt, fear, anger or embarrassment.
They maintain a positive outlook even in trying moments.
They can control the urge to act too quickly or rashly. They take the time to think before they act.
They are self-directed and can act autonomously when needed.
They understand how emotions can impact decision-making and can make decisions that involve emotions.
They are objective and see things as they really are rather than as they want them to be.
They are not rigid and can adapt to unfamiliar, changing circumstances.
They know that they can't control everything and are flexible when encountering unpredictable circumstances.
They have tenacity in pursuing goals toward their betterment and fulfillment.
They are good at understanding others' feelings and perspectives, and show that they care for others.
They are capable of reading the organization's ethos or to take the pulse of a group.
They develop and maintain mutually satisfying relationships that are built on a foundation of trust and compassion.
They contribute to society and the welfare of others beyond their immediate sphere.
They are the kind of people others want to have on their team—the kind of people we want as our boss, friend or partner.

Emotional Intelligence Quotes

American Express Financial Advisors, Doug Lennick, Executive Vice President

“Emotional competence is the single most important personal quality that each one of us must develop and access to experience a breakthrough. Only through managing our emotions can we access our intellect and our technical competence. An emotionally competent person performs better under pressure.”

Dr. Reuven Bar-On, an internationally known expert and pioneer in the field of emotional intelligence
"The current findings confirm previous research findings indicating that EI significantly impacts occupational performance."

Fast Company:
"Companies can continue to give top priority to financial performance -- but many now also realize that technical and intellectual skills are only part of the equation for success. A growing number of organizations are now convinced that people's ability to understand and to manage their emotions improves their performance, their collaboration with colleagues, and their interaction with customers. After decades of businesses seeing "hard stuff" and "soft stuff" as separate domains, emotional competence may now be a way to close that breach and to produce a unified view of workplace performance."

John Gottman, voted as one of the Top 10 Most Influential Therapists of the past quarter-century
"In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships."

United States Airforce, Lt Col Sharon M. Latour and Lieutenant General Bradley Clark Hosmer
"When military leaders unfamiliar with EI first hear about it, they are generally unreceptive. But there is more to judging this "book" than its 'touchy-feely-sounding' cover."

"When one considers EI in light of these domains, it becomes obvious that the field represents a set of comprehensive, interpersonal abilities rather than hardwired native skills; as such, it can be learned. EI could well be called "affective effectiveness."

Warren Bennis, American scholar, organizational consultant and author who is widely regarded as the pioneer of the contemporary field of leadership
"In those fields, and many others I have studied, emotional intelligence is much more powerful than I.Q. in determining who emerges as a leader. I.Q. is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn't make you a star. Emotional intelligence can."

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