EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Have you ever thought why the best student at university is not the
best one in family life or in profession? Why he is not the best father
or best spouse?
Anyone who has begun his/her working life might discover soon that
his/her ability to 'get ahead' depends little on what they learned in
training school or university. So, what’s the mantra of success?
…It’s probably the emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a
form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s
own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them,
and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.
This term was originally coined by two US psychologists, Peter
Salovey and John Mayer, referring to it as “ a learned ability to
perceive, understand and express our feelings accurately and to
control our emotions so that they work for us, not against us.”
In other words EI is about:
• Knowing how you and others feel and what to do about it
• Knowing what feels good and what feels bad and how to get
from bad to good
• Possessing emotional awareness, sensitivity and the
management skills that will help us to maximise our long-term
happiness and survival
The reasons for EI being considered nowadays as of great
importance are :
• Changing nature of work: flatter structures, fewer tiers of
management, greater responsibility
• Increasing complexity: impact of technology and reshaping of
jobs
• Rise in competition: shorter product life-cycles and more
demanding customers
• Globalisation of markets: organisations now need to think
global, yet act local
• Rapid pace of change: change is now a constant feature of
organisational life
• Rising stress levels: The World Health Organisation predicts
that depression will be the second highest cause of death in
the next 10 years (stress is a mild form of depression)
• Emergence of the self-managed career: no more jobs for life
• Recognition of the need to maximise individual performance:
not just know how and the
ability to do, but know how you feel about what you know and
do
• Research evidence: IQ + EQ = Success
Still some people will ask what’s the need to develop Ei?
Following can be cited as justification :
• Those high on Ei among partners in a multi-national consulting
firm on being assessed;secured $1.2 million more profit
• Analysis of 300+ top executives showed certain Ei
competencies (influence, team
• leadership, organisational awareness, self-confidence)
distinguished star performers
• National insurance company agents weak on Ei sold average
policies of $54,000;
• sales agents high on Ei achieved $114,000
• The Centre for Creative Leadership identified that the primary
cause of career
• derailment amongst top executives was the lack of Ei
• Of the sales representatives at a computer company hired on
Ei, 90% were more
• likely to finish training1.
• The Harvard School of Public Health predicts that by 2020
depression will be responsible for more lost workdays in the
developed world than heart disease
• When corporations hire MBAs the three most desired
competencies are: communication skills, interpersonal skills
and initiative
• Two-thirds of stress-related problems result from abusive,
unsatisfying, limiting or illdefined relationships
• Assertiveness, empathy, happiness, emotional self-awareness
and problem-solving skills are more predictive of sales success
than background, gender and sales techniques
• Studies of 500 organisations worldwide indicate that people
who score highest on Ei measures rise to the top of
organisations2
In nutshell we can say : Once, what sort of job you ended up was
depended on how well you did in college or your technical skills. But
now, academic or technical ability are simply the threshold
requirements to gain entry to a career. Beyond this, what makes you
a 'star' is your ownership of things such as resilience, initiative,
optimism, adaptability to change and empathy towards others. Very
few employers will give as a reason for hiring someone that they
were 'emotionally intelligent', but it will often be the decisive factor.
Other terms might be used like character, personality, maturity, soft
skills and a drive for excellence. One needs a relatively high level of
IQ merely to get admitted to a graduate program at a top ranked
university. But once you are admitted, however, what matters in
terms of how you do compared to your peers has less to do with IQ
differences and more to do with social and emotional factors. To put
1
www.eiconsortium.org
2
Fenman, Using Emotional Intelligence at Work
it another way, if you’re a student of business administration, you
probably needed an IQ of 120 or so to get a job. But then it is more
important to be able to persist in the face of difficulty and to get
along well with colleagues and subordinates than it is to have an
extra 10 or 15 points of IQ.
Importance of EI to Organizations :
• 50% of work satisfaction is determined by the relationship a
worker has with his/her boss.
• EI is a prerequisite for effective leadership across borders.
– Requires a high level of self-mastery and people skills;
ability to put yourself into the positions of others.
• Increases retention.
• Decreases absenteeism.
• Increases overall organizational growth.
If we knew nothing about a store except that employee attitudes
had improved 5%, we could predict that its revenue would rise 0.5%
above what it otherwise would have been3.
Daniel Goleman described five core emotional competencies as
the base of emotional intelligence:
3
Sears executive, Harvard Business Review, January, 1998
INTRAPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE
STEP 1: SELF-AWARENESS
Self-awareness is the ability to see ourselves with our own eyes, to
be aware of our …
• Goals, immediate and long-term
• Beliefs, about ourselves and others
• Values, those things we hold dear
• Drivers, that affect how we work
• Rules, that we live by, the shoulds, musts and oughts
• Self-talk, the inner voice that tells us we can or cannot do
something
STEP 2: EMOTION MANAGEMENT
Managing our emotions effectively involves controlling those
unproductive behaviours that really don’t get us anywhere. You
might feel great at winning a shouting match with a difficult
colleague or customer, but this is a short-term gain and transitory.
You may have lost a potential major client and done nothing to build
effective relationships. In addition, raising your adrenalin levels will
do nothing for your longer-term health! By understanding the link
between your interpretation of an event and your responses to it,
you can choose an alternative way to feel. This is a key Ei capability.
Using the feeling diary will help you to identify the interaction
between your thoughts, feelings and actions.
4
Why EQ Matters for Consultants and Developers, Organisations & People,Vol.7, No.1,
Dyke, Martin & Woollard, 1999
Method of emotion management is the 5-step freeze-frame
technique:
1. Recognise stressful feelings and freeze-frame them. Take time
out!
2. Make a concerted effort to shift your focus away from the racing
mind or disturbing emotion(s).
3. Be calm and recall a positive, fun feeling that you have had and
re-experience it.
4. Ask your heart, What’s a more effective response to this stressful
situation?
5. Listen and do what your heart says5.
STEP 3: SELF-MOTIVATION
Motivation comes from the Latin to move. As human beings we are
goal-oriented, and being self-motivated means pursuing our goals
with commitment, passion, energy and persistence.In order to
achieve high levels of motivation, overcome setbacks and perform
at our best, we need to be able to manage our own internal states,
5
Eq vs. IQ by Cynthia Kemper,Communications World, 1999
harness our emotions and channel them in a direction that enables
us to achieve our objectives.
Being self-motivated calls for four essential actions. You can
remember them by using the acronym SAME:
1. Adopt positive Self-talk
2. Build an effective support network (your ‘A’ team)
3. Visualise an inspirational Mentor (real or fictitious)
4. Create a conducive Environment (air, light, sound ,visual images)
INTRAPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE
STEP 4: RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Relationship: The coming together of two or more people for their
mutual benefit.
Types of relationship:
• Personal partnerships
• Friendships
• Relationships with work colleagues
Reasons why we get together :
• Companionship
• Sense of belonging
• Establish a support system
• Build our identity
• Personal development
• Love
• Enhance a sense of common purpose
• Develop a sense of teamwork
• Produce a product or service
Reasons why relationships fail:
• Unrealistic expectations
• Lack of empathy
• Immaturity (low Ei!)
• Dependency/co-dependency
• Inability to assert own needs
• Poor communication
• Ineffective strategies for conflict resolution
• Personality differences(different maps of the world)
Six steps to building effective relationships:
1. Know the boundaries of the relationships (what can and can’t
be said or done; behaviours that are acceptable outside of
work may be inappropriate within the workplace)
2. Check out expectations (respective needs and wants)
3. Review your perceptions (avoid making assumptions on basis
of little evidence)
4. Review the other person’s perceptions of you (take a risk, ask
yourself what is the worst that can happen – use the worry
buster to help)
5. Examine interactions (consider what worked well or not so
well, and why this might be the case)
6. Determine the desired outcomes (set exceptional goals that
have power)
STEP 5: EMOTIONAL COACHING
In terms of Ei, being an E-coach means helping others to:
• Develop their emotional capabilities
• Resolve differences
• Solve problems
• Communicate effectively
• Become motivated
E-COACH CAPABILITIES :
• Demonstrate empathy and capacity to build rapport
• Act as an Ei role model
• Be non-judgemental
• Maintain confidentiality
• Signpost learner to other sources of support (recognising your
own limitations and gaps in learning)
• Continually engage in a critical evaluation of your own
performance and take action
• Be committed to your own personal and on-going development
• Continually seek to build learner’s confidence and self-esteem,
to open their horizons
INFERENCE :
IQ explains 25 per cent of job performance which leaves a full 75 per
cent for other factors. In most fields, a reasonable level of cognitive
ability or IQ is assumed. So are basic levels of competence,
knowledge or expertise. Beyond these, it is emotional and social
competencies that separate the leaders from the rest.
It is also important to look at executive failure. Though not so
frequent, some times we see that executives who were previously
working at a high level but fired or demoted afterward. Goleman
believes that they are held back by shortcomings in the key
emotional intelligence competencies. They are too rigid, unable or
unwilling to make changes or adapt to change, or have poor
relationships within the organization, alienating those who work for
them or with them.
Possibly the most important difference between IQ and emotional
intelligence is: whereas we are born with a certain level of
intelligence, and it does not change much after the teen years,
emotional intelligence is largely learned. Over time we have the
chance to improve our ability to manage our impulses and emotions,
to motivate ourselves, and to be more socially aware. The old-
fashioned terms for this process are 'character' or 'maturity'; unlike
native intelligence, their development is our responsibility. Now it
would be absurd to say that IQ does not matter at all. The point is
that, all things being equal (intelligence level, expertise, education),
the person who works well with others, is far sighted, empathic and
is aware of their emotions will go a lot further in their career.
