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Well! Emotional Intelligence is the ability to use emotions, in the moment, to guide thinking, behaviour and decision-making.
It also affects how we navigate personal and professional relationships. It impacts our overall performance at work.
What does it mean to be Emotionally Intelligent?
Popularised by Daniel Goleman in 1995, the skills of emotional intelligence are central to your ability to respond rather than react to people and challenging situations. It includes four core abilities:
There is no argument that IQ is important to success at work. It’s crucial to getting the job done. But the problem is just about everyone around the table is smart. It essentially puts you on the same playing field as all of your peers.
So, what distinguishes the star performers? The human skills that make up your emotional intelligence – like self confidence, self-awareness, ability to adapt to rapid change, being calm under pressure and using influence to win people over.
So, IQ gets you hired, but EI gets you promoted.
Unlike IQ which is pretty much set, EI skills can be learned and improved at any age.
Traditional training programs that focus solely on the rational part of the brain won’t help you develop EI.
Instead, blending the rational with the emotional side of smarts will encourage emotionally intelligent behaviours and thinking and create new neural pathways in your brain that eventually form new habits.
What’s it take for a company to experience continual, profitable growth?
Most organisations offer good products and services and value for money pricing. So what will enable you to rise to greater heights? Well, intellectual smarts – skills of the head – is the obvious starting point. Smart about products and services, finding the channels to reach the right customers, recruiting clever people who can execute the strategic plan. But is that enough?
What if we combined skills of the head and heart? We know from research that you perform at your best if you feel valued, respected and informed. Similarly you can waste time and energy and focus when you’re feeling frustrated, stressed and worried. It can directly affect your performance.
But what if leaders understood and managed these emotions then used that understanding to build awareness, resilience and assertiveness in others?
Decades worth of research show the relationship between EI and performance. And in fact Forbes reports that according to a study of more than 350 managers, the highest performing managers scored high on emotional intelligence – significantly higher than the lower-performing cohort.