Emotional Intelligence - is it really the answer?
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
"EQ is better than IQ in the workplace" "EQ is what makes you successful".
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, has come to the fore in recent years as the primary driver behind workplace success and solid relationships. But is it as straightforward as that?
Definitions of emotional intelligence vary. At its most superficial level, it's often described as having empathy for others and being comfortable talking about feelings. Daniel Goleman, in his 2012 book Emotional Intelligence, sees EQ as having five main domains:
Self-awareness: the ability to recognise and understand one’s own emotions and their impact on others.
Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s negative or disruptive emotions and to adapt to changes in circumstance.
Motivation: the ability to self-motivate, focusing on achieving internal or self-gratification instead of external praise or reward.
Empathy: the ability to recognise and understand how others feel and consider those feelings before responding to social situations.
Social skills: the ability to manage the emotions of others through emotional understanding and using this to build rapport and connect with people through skills such as active listening verbal and nonverbal communication.
Goleman’s book started a debate about whether IQ or EQ was more important in order to succeed in work and life. The concept of different types of intelligence is not new, though - in 1983, Howard Gardner had named eight types of intelligence in his book Frames of Mind. These intelligences are Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Naturalist, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal - the latter two of which describe emotional intelligence.
Being traditionally “clever” or “booksmart” with a high IQ certainly helps you get top marks in exams within the school system. However, most of us will know people who got fantastic exam results but whose careers have not quite lived up to expectations.
Emotional intelligence will help you build strong relationships and a network to support you in your career. It will help you respond to stressful situations in a mature and responsible way and enable you to adapt your natural style to “fit in” to a workplace environment.
But is there a cost in the workplace for those with a high EQ? Those with a very high level of emotional intelligence are seen as the “nice guys”, those who have loyal followings, who support and care for others and who are there to smooth over troubled waters and make sure that what needs to get done does indeed get done. Many of these “nice guys” are women. But people with traditionally high levels of EQ may suffer in the workplace as they are not perceived as “tough” enough to have difficult conversations and make the big decisions - they are seen as a bit “soft”.
Is the problem then in how we define emotional intelligence? After all, giving difficult messages involves a high level of regulating our own emotions. And what about empathy? Surely that means doing what we need to do to help a fellow colleague improve their performance - even if it means calling out their bad behaviour?
Back to Daniel Goleman, then. In the years since his original work on emotional intelligence, he has developed the model further to split emotional intelligence into twelve elements in four domains, including conflict management and inspirational leadership. To be an effective, emotionally intelligent leader, you need to balance these four domains. In fact, Goleman argues that someone who is seen as having high levels of EQ can actually be anything but nice if their empathy skills are more in tune with knowing how others think and feel and less in tune with caring about them, leading to manipulative behaviour.
Regardless of how you think emotional intelligence is defined, Goleman’s twelve elements are, in my view, a comprehensive list of the skills required to be an effective leader. Why not take a look and do a self-assessment?
If you feel you come up short in one or more areas, then looking at Goleman’s book series is an excellent place to start. Working with an executive coach can also help you increase your self-awareness of your weaker areas and help you come up with strategies to increase your emotional intelligence across all the domains - improving your leadership and promotion potential as a result.