EQ 101: What Is EQ And Why It Is Important
The past few years have been exhausting. The pandemic has caused disruptions in our daily lives and in society that have left many of us looking for ways to cope with significant life changes beyond our control. If you’ve experienced major changes in your career or relationships in the past few years that you’ve struggled to deal with, you are not alone. Developing your emotional intelligence (also known as emotional quotient or EQ) may help you to cope with continued uncertainty and even thrive.
EQ skills are must-haves that largely determine our success in life, in everything from relationships to careers to general wellbeing. The smarter you are about emotions, the better you’ll be at understanding how other people feel, and the less likely it will be that your actions or words will hurt them. You can also use emotional awareness as an opportunity for self-growth by identifying ways where emotions may be holding back some important aspects of your life, like work performance or personal relationships.
EQ is a real differentiator in terms of career success according to Dr. Travis Bradberry & Nick Tasler, on Talent Smart EQ’s portal.
“In a recent study, using the Emotional Intelligence Appraisal®, we tested the emotional intelligence (EQ) of over 42,000 people, and compared their scores to their annual incomes. We found that people with high EQs make an average of $29,000 per year more than people with low EQs. On average, every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary.”
High EQ goes beyond career success. Psychology Today in 2018 wrote,
“…high emotional intelligence is linked to better job performance, working better in teams, increased creativity, retention at work, and accepting change. Beyond the workplace emotionally intelligent people often enjoy better interpersonal relationships at home… people who thought their partners were emotionally intelligent had higher marital satisfaction.”
Emotional intelligence is the secret ingredient to being an effective leader, successfully managing your career, having lasting relationships, and being a loving partner. So where did the term “emotional intelligence” come from, and what does it mean?
The History of Emotional Intelligence
Early psychologists explored the idea of emotional intelligence as a single concept, like IQ (Intelligence Quotient). It takes a certain level of IQ to meet the threshold to be competent in a job, but beyond that threshold, there is little relationship between IQ and success on the job. People with higher IQ don’t necessarily do better on the job than their peers with lower IQ scores.
So, if IQ isn’t driving success, it must be something else. More recently, psychologists have recognized that defining intelligence is far more complex and have begun to describe it in terms of multiple intelligences.
Models of Emotional Intelligence
There are three dominant models of emotional intelligence that have emerged.
The first one, Salovey and Mayer’s abilities model “proposes that individuals vary in their ability to process information of an emotional nature and in their ability to relate emotional processing to a wider cognition.” Their model includes four abilities or competencies: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions.
The second model is a traits model built upon the work of Konstantinos V. Petrides and his associates who used a personality trait framework, using traits like well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability to explain emotional intelligence.
The third model is a mixed model used by Daniel Goleman with both abilities or competencies and traits. Goleman claims that emotional intelligence is a mix of innate traits and developed learned abilities.
For this discussion, I have chosen an abilities model to talk about EQ. Emotional intelligence is defined by the following competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. It’s a modified Goleman model with the four abilities he identified, minus the trait of motivation.
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the foundational component of emotional intelligence. Success is attributed to self-awareness. Being self-aware means that you have a clear understanding of your emotions, strengths, and shortcomings. Self-awareness is the first step to emotional intelligence if you don’t understand how to effectively deal with others you could lose out on all kinds of opportunities. By having a clear understanding of your shortcomings, you also make an effort to work toward improvement. Those improvements may then result in higher chances of success on a personal and professional level.
2. Self-Regulation
Effective self-regulation is the product of self-awareness. Self-regulation allows us to observe our thoughts and emotions, distance ourselves, and respond to the situation in a manner that is in keeping with our values. With self-regulation, we can respond to our circumstances, rather than reacting to them.
3. Empathy
With high EQ comes high empathy. People with high EQ are more empathic because they can read other people’s emotions and understand how their words and actions can impact others.
Emotionally intelligent people are more likely to work well with others. EQ can also help you thrive professionally — whether being an employee at your company (or even getting hired) plus personally too because these skills make life far more manageable when dealing with friends and family.
4. Social Skills
The ability to read other people is a crucial social skill and it’s something that emotional intelligence helps you do. You can communicate with everyone while keeping their emotions in mind, which means finding common ground will be easier for your team because they’re better at reading each person’s personality style.
Emotionally intelligent people have a higher awareness of the group’s emotional climate when working in teams, and they know how to respond appropriately to others. People who have well-developed social skills enjoy tremendous success at work and in relationships.
How To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
Some are lucky enough to naturally develop emotional intelligence, almost as if it were innate. Their EQ has been a gift and has given them advantages to succeed. But don’t worry if you feel like you just weren’t born with high EQ. EQ skills are a set of competencies that can be learnt.
To build self-awareness, develop and practice mindfulness and learn how to observe your thoughts and emotions. Incorporate mindfulness activities into your life. To build self-regulation, bring your focus to your words and actions and try to develop the practice of taking a pause or a break to allow yourself to respond, rather than react to the situation at hand. The other competencies are important and can only be effectively built on self-awareness and self-regulation.
It’s emotional intelligence that will determine how successful you are in life, work, and your relationships.
