Studies show that employees with higher EQ are more likely to be promoted than those with high IQ alone. In fact, American psychologist Daniel Goleman claims that emotional intelligence accounts for 67% of the abilities deemed necessary for superior performance in business, mattering twice as much as technical skills.
“Without [EQ],” he said, “a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but still won’t make a great leader.”
Having emotional intelligence in the earlier stages of career can help you to be seen as future leadership material. And the key to success, said Goleman, is: “motivation, extended practice, feedback”. Helpfully, he also provided us with five key components of emotional intelligence. Follow our guide for developing each by applying Goleman’s mantra.
1. Self-awareness: the ability to “know thyself”
In today’s business world, those who lack self-awareness – a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives – rarely win friends or influence people. Anyone who’s been on the receiving end of a blundering boss or a colleague oblivious to his or her impact on others will know that self-awareness is anything but a “soft skill”.
Self-aware people:
- Recognise how their feelings affect them, others and their job performance.
- Have a good grasp of their values and goals.
- Are honest and candid about their feelings with regards to work.
- Know their strengths and weaknesses.
- Seek balanced feedback
- Know when to ask for help.
- Play to their strengths.
Applying the mantra
Motivation: Think about why developing self-awareness is important for you specifically. How might past events have played out differently if you’d been more in tune with yourself?
Extended practice: Make a plan for how you’ll work on developing more self-awareness in your daily interactions with others.
Feedback: Who within your network can you check in with regularly to examine the impact of greater self-awareness on your growth – your boss, a mentor, a trusted colleague?
2. Self-regulation: the ability to control your emotions
You have biological impulses that drive your emotions, and to attempt to do away with them is an impossible task. You cannot stop yourself feeling anger, fear or anxiety, but you can learn to control them for the benefit of yourself and those around you.
Practised self-regulators:
- Can control their emotions.
- Instil calm in those around them.
- Are adaptable and agreeable in the face of change.
- Lead the way in uncertain times.
- Avoid acting impulsively.
Applying the mantra
Motivation: Note any examples of where negative emotions have had more of a grip over you than you’d have liked. How can you use those experiences and their outcomes to motivate you towards increased self-regulation?
Extended practice: Think of an example of a time when you found your emotion managing you and your behaviour, rather than the other way around, and examine it for evidence as to what was truly going on. Commit to behaving differently in future.
Feedback: Have you been advised to keep a better check over your emotions in the workplace? If so, share your newfound goals with your boss, and ask if he or she can give you feedback on how you conduct yourself going forward.
3. Motivation: understanding what drives you, beyond a need to make a living
“Those with leadership potential,” says Daniel Goleman, “are motivated by a deeply embedded desire to achieve for the sake of achievement”. That doesn’t mean that emotionally intelligent leaders don’t suffer bouts of demotivation, driven by stress, burnout or boredom. But underpinning the values of an emotionally intelligent person will be a deep desire to make things happen, to grow, to learn and to keep moving forward.
Motivated individuals:
- Constantly seek to improve.
- Keep score with themselves.
- Take pride in a job well done, setting their personal bar high.
- Have deep reserves of energy to draw on.
- Relish a challenge.
- Demonstrate a passion that is felt by others.
Applying the mantra
Motivation: Spend some time thinking about what really inspires you, what you value and why you do what you do.
Extended practice: Think about how you can bring your values to life for yourself, even during the toughest of times. It might be as simple as representing them in a visual way, somewhere where you always have access to them. Or turn creative and develop them into a morning mantra that will help you keep them at front of mind when motivation slides.
Feedback: Share your short or long term goals with a boss or mentor and ask to be held accountable.
4. Empathy: seeing things from someone else’s point of view
Empathy isn’t just about feeling sorry for people or giving them the benefit of the doubt. “It’s an act of imagination,” says the Harvard Business Review, “in which you try to look at the world from the perspective of another person, a human being whose history and point of view are as complex as your own.”
Empathetic individuals:
- Considers others’ feelings in intelligent decision making.
- Communicate in a way that makes others feel understood.
- Use active listening.
- Are good readers of people.
- Can get inside the heads of others.
Applying the mantra
Motivation: Reflect on examples of occasions where you have demonstrated low empathy in the workplace. How might you have behaved differently and how might the outcome have changed if you’d brought more empathic skills to the situation?
Extended practice: Listen more. Study the person you’re conversing with, paying attention to what they say and do, and what their body language is telling you at the same time. Force yourself to slow down, beware of interrupting, and find ways to demonstrate that you’re absorbing what the other person has told you – summarising their points to show you’ve really listened, using mirroring body language and asking questions to express your interest in what they’re saying.
Feedback: Make time to regularly check in with your key stakeholders, looking for ways you can dial up your ability to see the world through their eyes. The results may well be there to see in the quality of your relationships, which can be measured through 360 performance review feedback.
5. Social skills: channelling skills 1-4 through top class communication
“As a component of emotional intelligence, social skill is not as simple as it sounds. It’s not just a matter of friendliness. Social skill, rather, is friendliness with a purpose: moving people in the direction you desire, whether that’s agreement on a new marketing strategy or enthusiasm about a new product,” writes Daniel Goleman.
Individuals with strong social skills:
- Build wide bonds.
- Don’t shy away from negative situations.
- Develop trust and rapport.
- Enjoy organising groups.
Applying the mantra
Motivation: Consider the ways in which increased social skills will enable your fast track to goal achievement: by generating a wider network? By making others feel good about themselves and thereby fostering better relationships based on trust? By feeling more at ease in group situations?
Extended practice: How can you make more room in your schedule for meaningful networking, whether it’s attending more events or reaching out to colleagues far and wide, inviting them to coffee with a view to better understanding their needs?
Feedback: Regularly evaluate the strength of your network and the quality of your relationships – via your own analysis or 360 feedback.
Discover more ways to increase your emotional intelligence in the everywomanNetwork workbook: Developing your EQ.
