I like to define emotional intelligence (EQ) in the broad sense as a combination of self-mastery and people skills. By mastering our inner world, we are better able to influence the emotional states of those around us in positive ways.
Over the last 15 years, as a result of the bestselling book of the same name by Daniel Goleman, “emotional intelligence” has become one of the most common buzz words in the business world.
An abundance of research has been published suggesting that EQ is the most important skill for leaders to develop. Daniel Goleman’s research suggests that EQ actually predicts stellar performance twice as often as IQ does. Goleman’s research also suggests that for senior leaders EQ accounts for roughly 90% of the differences between stellar performers and those that are average.
As we would expect when there is so much written about a topic, and it is touted as being the most important skill to develop, there has been some backlash.
Studies have been conducted suggesting that EQ isn’t really that important in many situations.
Who is right?
I don’t think we need research to help us realize how important emotional intelligence is. It’s actually quite intuitive.
Let’s imagine two hypothetical companies, company A and company B.
The leaders of both companies have relatively similar business acumen. They have relatively similar levels of competence and intelligence.
However, at company B, the leaders aren’t able to create and sustain a positive emotional climate. The culture is quite toxic. Negative emotions like anger and anxiety are the norm. People don’t enjoy coming to work. They come in, do enough to keep their jobs, and go home.
At company A, the leaders are able to sustain a culture where positive emotions reign. People are happy, inspired, and feel cared for by their leaders and their co-workers. Communication is open and robust. People truly enjoy coming to work.
Which company would you imagine is the better performer, especially over the long-term? There’s no question about this, is there?
Of course, in the short term, company B may outperform company A if they have a dominant market share or some other factor that allows them to generate a lot capital.
But, at company B, workplace metrics like quality, innovation, and customer service will all be significantly worse than a company A. Over time this will create a huge disadvantage for company B.
Company A will be able to attract and retain people much more easily. This will result in better workplace performance and lower costs due to the expense of high turnover.
Emotional intelligence is what allows the leaders at company A to achieve better long-term success as leaders.
Is competency important? Are cognitive skills like creative problem solving and analytical ability important? Of course. In fact, these skills are required to be promoted to a leadership position in the first place. Technical and cognitive skills are essentially a ticket that allows us to have a chance to get in the leadership game.
What Daniel Goleman’s research suggests, and what intuition tells as well, is that while technical skills and cognitive ability can help us get into the leadership game, they’re not what’s most important for long term leadership success.
For those of us who aspire to be highly effective leaders who can consistently serve and care for team members, EQ is what helps us close the gap between aspiring to effectively serve team members and actually doing it on a consistent basis.
The good news is that EQ is highly trainable. We can train to change our brains in ways that make us more emotionally intelligent.
If we aspire to be highly effective leaders who can serve and inspire greatness in others, we should commit to a well-structured plan for training in emotional intelligence skills.
This topic of EQ is so essential to leadership success that I will be devoting numerous posts the topic of EQ over the coming months.
What are your thoughts on the subject?
Can you think of examples where a technically proficient, smart person failed when promoted to a leadership position simply because she or he lacked emotional intelligence?
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