Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions. It reflects your ability to monitor and effectively manage your own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions during social and environmental change by flexibly coping with the immediate situation.
While there are no magic formulas, increasing Emotional Intelligence awareness – for people and organisations, can significantly contribute to healthier workplace environments. In our work, we are always hearing reports of how enhanced Emotional Intelligence skills support personal and organisational efforts. To date, many companies have focused their selection criteria and training programs on hard skills (e.g., technical expertise, industry knowledge, education) and the assessment of personality traits.
Topics including competencies like stress management, assertiveness skills, empathy, and political/social acumen were never measured in the selection process or focused on in training and development programs. In reality, these are critical success factors that should not be dismissed, and have a direct impact on the bottom line. Emotions play a large role in our outward displays and behaviours, they help define our tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. For example, the Hay Group states in one study of 44 Fortune 500 companies found that salespeople with high EQ produced twice the revenue of those with average or below average scores. In another study, technical programmers demonstrating the top 10 percent of emotional intelligence competency were developing software three times faster than those with lower competency.
