Emotional Intelligence
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you choose? I might humbly suggest something. It will make the biggest possible potential difference in your life, no matter your career or life stage. This one change improves all of our relationships, how we feel about ourselves, and ultimately our life circumstances. What is it? Increased emotional intelligence. Listen to this episode for what it is and how to do it.
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Emotional Intelligence
When smart, capable people fail at their jobs, whether it be the head of a multinational corporation or the manager of a small team, what is it that goes wrong? According to extensive multi-year research by the Center for Creative Leadership, there are three reasons. 1) Difficulty handling change. 2) The inability to work well in a team. 3) Poor interpersonal relations.
On the other hand, research by successful executive search agency Egon Zehnder International found among over 500 senior executives, there was 1 factor that correlated with success more than intelligence or relevant experience. They found those who were strongest in emotional intelligence or also the most successful. That's executives. It makes sense. What they do or don't do affects entire organizations. What about everybody else?
One factor that correlates with success more than intelligence or relevant experience is emotional intelligence.
TalentSmart, a company specializing in emotional intelligence testing, included emotional intelligence alongside 33 other workplace skills in extensive studies and found emotional intelligence to be the strongest predictor of performance, explaining 58% of success in all kinds of jobs. TalentSmart also found that 90% of the top performers across industries and the earning spectrum also scored high in emotional intelligence. At the same time, they found only 20% of low performers to be high in emotional intelligence. It's worth mentioning another of their findings, a $30,000 per year difference in annual earnings between those who scored high versus those low in emotional intelligence.
That brings us to some very good news. It used to be taken for granted that IQ was the leading predictor for performance and success in any job that requires complex thinking, which now represents the majority of jobs. There was an element of discomfort with that because whatever higher-order reasoning capacity we are endowed with at birth remains that way throughout our lives.
There was a life's lottery sense of injustice behind this genetic endowment. No amount of training or experience changes our IQ, but that's not the case with EQ, our level of emotional intelligence, and it's a better predictor of success. That reality opens up the possibility of success at the highest levels to a greater percentage of people.
It's not everyone because it's not like IQ doesn't matter at all. It's the number two predictor of success, but because emotional intelligence is very much a skill that can be learned and strengthened, we are all back in the driver's seat. No matter where we are in our emotional intelligence, we can always build it and improve our performance regardless of our chosen profession, and there's no cap on what we might be able to accomplish.
Emotional Intelligence: No matter where we are in our emotional intelligence, we can always build it and improve our performance, regardless of our chosen profession.
That’s good news. Here's a question that might come to mind. How on earth do we do that? To explore that question, let's look at what emotional intelligence is. It turns out it's very compatible with the Eye of Power model and commercially available assessments that capture EQ, the most commonly used model shares some important features with the Eye of Power.
For instance, both models map self versus social. The other axis for EQ is awareness and regulation. This is analogous to the attitude and action axis in the Eye of Power. As a result, the two models complement one another. This means using the Eye of Power model systematically increases all aspects of our emotional intelligence.
Let's take a closer look at EQ. It begins with self-awareness. That's the ability to recognize and understand our moods, emotions, and drives as well as their effect on others. It's the beginning of a cycle of improvement because we must become aware before we're positioned to make a positive change. This stage is analogous to the self-attitude or perception quadrant in the Eye of Power model. Once we see the potential for improvement, we move to self-regulation, which is the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and our ability to think before we act. Work in the self-action or pain quadrant of the Eye of Power model most affects our ability to self-regulate.
Social awareness is our ability to understand the emotional makeup of others. This applies to our ability to predict how people will react and be sensitive to the variety of cues that tell us how they are feeling in the present moment. When we work in the others' attitude or people’s quadrant in the Eye of Power, a net effect is we increase this capacity.
The fourth quadrant of the Eye of Power is others' action or the purpose quadrant, which corresponds roughly with social regulation in the EQ model. This is defined as the ability to proficiently manage relationships and build networks. These capacities directly contribute to how we serve others and, in so doing, how we build purpose in our lives.
There are a few features of our emotional makeup that when we pay them respect, increase our emotional intelligence. We can think of them as principles. Here are three that seem most apropos to me. EQ principle number one, our natural emotional state is balance. When we feel strongly one way or another, it's not necessarily a bad thing. That's the stuff that gives life its dimensionality. It’s what makes us human. Otherwise, we'd exist like the Borg in Star Trek. Yet we exercise more of our power when we're aware of where we are and can at our whim, return to a place of balance.
EQ principle number two, balance leads us to peace. Peace of mind can be fleeting in our complex modern world. It requires emotional intelligence to sustain peace of mind, and it's even more important than the pleasant feeling we get in those moments that we have it because it functions as a key to open us up to the next EQ principle.
EQ principle number three, peace leads us to happiness. We can feel moments of pleasure and amusement regularly, no matter our emotional intelligence. Deep, persistent happiness comes when we are at peace. Peace comes when we have balance and balance comes when we're able to maintain our emotional equilibrium no matter what life presents us.
Peace comes when we have balance, and balance comes when we're able to maintain our emotional equilibrium.
A key to building emotional intelligence is the realization of something we talk about regularly. We must remember how we navigate through the experiences of our lives. We do not know the world. It is beyond our limited powers of perception. When we look at objects, people, or concepts, what we see is a small representation of their totality. What we perceive and react to are models, images, and ideas that exist only in our minds. Once we realize this, we become free. We immediately get greater access to our power. We don't have to take things personally. We remain open to new information. In so doing, we increase our emotional intelligence.
I would go so far as to suggest that manifesting our full agency is not possible without the capacities only available with high emotional intelligence. Therefore, building emotional intelligence is one of the most effective ways of building our power. There is a difficulty we all face as we do this. We can't see our blind spots. Due to that, we need help to break through the most stubborn places where we're stuck. I'll share four recommendations that will help anyone who wishes to maximize their EQ.
First, we need to have a clear view of the places that provide the most opportunity to make improvements. There are assessment tools available that do that. I provide the emotional quotient tool that measures five dimensions of emotional intelligence. It includes the four we already talked about, plus a fifth that circles them, which is motivation. That's defined as a passion for work that transcends money or status. Motivation reflects the amount of energy and persistence we apply to an activity. The assessment gives us a snapshot of where we are and highlights the areas where concerted efforts to improve will make the biggest positive differences.
If you're interested, please reach out to me. The assessment I use is an online survey. I'll send you a link. You complete the survey, and then we'll review the resulting report together. It could be the most important thing you do this year. Second, we can decide to work on our emotional intelligence. We can make a definite plan of action. Identify goals, and ask, “What does my ideal look like? How will I be different in my new, improved version?” Place timelines and decide the habits we will change to move in that better direction. For instance, we can better manage stress by getting proper exercise, sleep, and nutrition and adding or expanding mindfulness practices such as yoga or meditation.
The third action we can take to increase emotional intelligence is to recruit a trusted person to help us, someone who knows us will have a different perspective about our blind spots than we do. We can ask for their opinion on questions such as, “What have you witnessed triggers me emotionally or what can I do that would help me understand you more than I currently do?”
Finally, we can obtain the help of professionals to guide us along our chosen path to high emotional intelligence. This is my area of passion and purpose. It's a rapidly growing industry because more and more people are seeing the incredible benefits that come from working on ourselves. The technological interconnectivity nowadays opens the possibility of working with anyone, anywhere.
Emotional Intelligence: Experts can't change our fate. All they can do is quicken our steps and help us avoid pitfalls that would slow our journeys.
Experts can't change our fate. All they can do is quicken our steps and help us avoid pitfalls that would slow our journeys. Since we can't see our blind spots, we must rely upon outsourced resources to improve the models we use to navigate the world. As we do that, we increase our power, and as you know, that's what the Eye of Power is all about. Let's go.