Emotional Intelligence

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is all about being aware of and able to work with emotions, both in ourselves and others. According to Wikipedia: "Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions." While some people seem to naturally have high levels of emotional intelligence, it is a skill set that we are able to improve upon with practice.

There are 5 key components of emotional intelligence, these are: social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and motivation.

How is it different to IQ?

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a measure of general intelligence, the analogous measure for emotion intelligence is the Emotional Quotient (EQ). Whereas IQ is a measure of your ability to reason and solve problems, EQ is a measue of your ability to understand and manage yourself and others. Or in other words, IQ is about logic and reasoning, and EQ is about people. An individual's IQ would be a good indicator of their success in school/university, their EQ would be a good indicator or their success in the workplace and life in general.

Why is it important?

From the previous section we mentioned that an individual's level of emotional intelligence is likely to be an indicator of their success in life. People with higher levels of EI are likely to be happier and have more harmonious interpersonal relationships with others. Individuals with higher EQ would tend to be better team players, and also make better and more effective leaders.

It is not uncommon to hear employers talk of "hiring for fit" and teaching new hires the more specific technical skills of the role on the job. Similarly, many would be familiar with the situation of a "superstar" employee, having high IQ and technical skills but a low level of EI, destroying a team culture.

It should be briefly mentioned that EI can also be used maliciously to manipulate, or deceive others. A high-EQ individual with malicious intentions can use their greater understanding of other's feelings and motivations to be more effective at manipulating other people.