What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence Quotient is defined as a set of competencies demonstrating the

ability one has to recognize his or her behaviors, moods, and impulses, and to manage
them best according to the situation.

Typically, "emotional intelligence" is considered to involve emotional empathy; attention

to, and discrimination of one's emotions; accurate recognition of one's own and others'
moods; mood management or control over emotions; response with appropriate
(adaptive) emotions and behaviors in various life situations (especially to stress and
difficult situations); and balancing of honest expression of emotions against courtesy,
consideration, and respect (i.e., possession of good social skills and communication
skills).

Additional, though less often mentioned qualities include selection of work that is
emotionally rewarding to avoid procrastination, self-doubt, and low achievement (i.e.,
good self-motivation and goal management) and a balance between work, home, and
recreational life.

"People see what they want to see." — Red Barber

How is EQ Different from Personality?

In psychology, personality refers to the emotion, thought, and behavior patterns unique
to an individual. Personality influences one's tendencies, such as a preference for
introversion or extroversion.

Like Intelligence Quotient (IQ), personality cannot be used to predict EQ. However, as
EQ can identify both the biases and clarity in one's thinking patterns that allow them to
make good sound decisions, personality only refers to the biases in the behaviors
themselves.

We know we want an extrovert, sensor, thinker, and judger (ESTJ) from the Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator for the vacant leadership role, but we cannot tell which ESTJ will
make sound judgments under stress and which ones will maim everyone in his/her path
when under stress.

An employee with a "good" personality may be fun, social, energetic, and outgoing.
However, having a "good" personality doesn't necessarily equate to success in the
workplace. A "good" personality tells you nothing about the fact that the employee can
also make errors in judgment due to lack of "clarity" when making decisions within their
own biases.

This is why people with varying personality styles can successfully perform the same job.
It boils down to their ability to exercise clear and sound judgment in those situations
their job/role presents on a regular basis.

An employee with high emotional intelligence can manage his or her own impulses,
communicate with others effectively, manage change well, solve problems, and use
humor to build rapport in tense situations. These employees also have empathy, remain
optimistic even in the face of adversity, and are gifted at educating and persuading in a
sales situation and resolving customer complaints in a customer service role.

"Unmet emotional needs cause the majority of problems at work."—EQI.org

EQ Competencies that Correlate to Workplace Success

The following outlines a set of five emotional intelligence competencies that have proven
to contribute more to workplace achievement than technical skills, cognitive ability, and
standard personality traits combined.

A. Social Competencies—Competencies that Determine How We Handle Relationships

Intuition & Empathy. Our awareness of others' feelings, needs, and concerns. This
competency is important in the workplace for the following reasons.

o Understanding others: an intuitive sense of others' feelings and

perspectives, and showing an active interest in their concerns and
interests
o Customer service orientation: the ability to anticipate, recognize, and
meet customers' needs
o People development: ability to sense what others need in order to grow,
develop, and master their strengths
o Leveraging diversity: cultivating opportunities through diverse people

Political Acumen and Social Skills. Our adeptness at inducing desirable responses in
others. This competency is important in the workplace for the following reasons.

o Influencing: using effective tactics and techniques for persuasion and

desired results
o Communication: sending clear and convincing messages that are
understood by others
o Leadership: inspiring and guiding groups of people
o Change catalyst: initiating and/or managing change in the workplace
o Conflict resolution: negotiating and resolving disagreements with people
o Building bonds: nurturing instrumental relationships for business success
o Collaboration and cooperation: working with coworkers and business
partners toward shared goals
o Team capabilities: creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals

B. Personal Competencies—Competencies that Determine How We Manage Ourselves

Self Awareness. Knowing one's internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.
This competency is important in the workplace for the following reasons.

o Emotional awareness: recognizing one's emotions and their effects and

impact on those around us
o Accurate self-assessment: knowing one's strengths and limits
o Self-confidence: sureness about one's self-worth and capabilities

Self Regulation. Managing one's internal states, impulses, and resources. This
competency is important in the workplace for the following reasons.

o Self-control: managing disruptive emotions and impulses

o Trustworthiness: maintaining standards of honesty and integrity
o Conscientiousness: taking responsibility and being accountable for
personal performance
o Adaptability: flexibility in handling change
* Innovation: being comfortable with an openness to novel ideas,
approaches, and new information

Self Expectations and Motivation Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate

reaching goals. This competency is important in the workplace for the following reasons.
 o Achievement drive: striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence
we impose on ourselves
o Commitment: aligning with the goals of the group or organization
o Initiative: readiness to act on opportunities without having to be told
o Optimism: persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks

Research on EI and Performance

o A growing research literature suggests that EI may play a far more important role
in career success and job performance than general intelligence (cognitive
ability).
o A recent meta-analysis of 69 independent studies explored the predictive validity
of emotional intelligence with diverse job performance outcomes (Van Rooy &
Viswesvaran, 2004).
o EI can be considered a moderate predictor of job performance and success,
relative to other types of personnel selection techniques including interviews,
personality inventories and assessment centers. Other recent EI research studies
suggest that:
• Highly conscientious employees who lack social and emotional intelligence
perform more poorly than those high in conscientiousness and emotional
intelligence.
• On average, strengths in purely cognitive capacities are approximately 27
percent more frequent in high performers than in the average performers,
whereas strengths in social and emotional competencies are 53 percent more
frequent.
• The highest performing managers and leaders have significantly more
"emotional competence" than other managers.
• Poor social and emotional intelligence are strong predictors of executive and
management "derailment" and failure in one's career.
o Leadership and relationships play a key role in organizational success. Recent
o research on the association between employee satisfaction and job performance
o suggests that the single most important contributor to the feelings of employee
o engagement, empowerment and satisfaction is based on the relationship they
have with the leaders of the organization (Sheridan & Vrendenburgh, 1978;
Ribelin, 2003; Eisenberger, Stinglhamber, Vandenberghe, Sucharski, Ivan &
Rhoades, 2002; Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R., & Armeli, S. (2001). A recent
meta-analysis of over 7,939 business units in 38 companies explored the
relationship at the business-unit level between employee satisfaction-engagement
and the business-unit outcomes of customer satisfaction, productivity, profit,
employee turnover, and accidents (Harter & Schmidt, 2002). Generalizable
relationships, large enough to have substantial practical value, were found
between unit-level employee satisfaction-engagement and these business-unit
outcomes suggesting that management practices that affect satisfaction can have
bottom line results on productivity and profit.
o One of the most salient career paradigm shifts has been the change from job
security to
o employability security. Today, the engagement and retention of high potential
talent is a competitive advantage to all organizations. What do we know about
engagement and its relationship to productivity and retention? Several recent
studies provide some answers to this question.
o For example, Aon Consulting reported in a recent research study of about 1,800
workers that employee commitment is declining in every industry, age group,
income group and job classification. The Gallup organization also recently
reported evidence of declining employee engagement in a major survey that
found only 26 percent of employees consider themselves "actively engaged" in
their work.
o A change in the psychological contract with employees over the last few years
has contributed to a set of critical paradigms shifts about careering in the US. The
old sense of job security has given way to the concept of “employability security”
 where developing “just in time competencies” results in the ability to be
competitive in a global market place. In the “old” paradigm employees expected
to be with companies for long periods of time (job jumping was typically seen as
a sign of instability, immaturity or loyalty) and an expectation of rising
responsibilities and salary/benefits. Today’s “IPOD generation” employees have
typically experienced mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy,
o extensive downsizing and failures resulting in a focus on continuous relearning,
o development and work/family balance.
o Perceptions of stress at work are quite high with several studies suggesting 40 %
to 60% of all employees rate their jobs as being stress or extremely stressful with
impact on family balance and health. In a recent poll by US based TrueCareers,
more than 70% of workers do not think there is a healthy balance between work
and family lives.
o More than 50% of the 1,626 were exploring new career opportunities because of
the inability to manage both work and family stressors.
o No doubt, this helps to explain why some professional women have chosen to
“stop out” from professional careers after a large investment in formal education
and training much to the display of their employers. Employers of choice today
understand these changing career paradigm shifts and have developed programs,
benefits and cultural
o Change to enhance the commitment and retention of its talent.

Changing Career Paradigms

OLD PARADIGMS
• Job Security
• Longitudinal Career Paths
• Job/Person Fit
• Organizational Loyalty
• Career Success
• Academic Degree
• Position/Title
• Full-Time Employment
• Retirement
• Single Jobs/Careers
• Change in jobs based on fear
• Promotion tenure based
NEW PARADIGMS
• Employability Security
• Alternate Career Paths
• Person/Organization Fit
• Job/Task Loyalty
• Work/Family Balance
• Continuous Relearning
• Competencies/Development
• Contract Employment
• Career Sabbaticals
• Multiple Jobs/Careers
• Change in jobs based on growth
• Promotion performance based

The top five retention factors included: 1) Exciting Work/Challenge (48.4%); 2) Career
growth/learning (42.6%); 3) Relationships/working with great people (41.8%); 4) Fair
pay (31.8%); and 5) Supportive management/great boss (25.1%). These findings
suggest that engagement can be enhanced in organizations that emphasizedevelopment,
leadership effectiveness and collaborative cultures.