How Important is Emotional Intelligence in Career Building

Over lunch today, an HR executive talked about valuing competence over loyalty. In some organizations, loyalty is the most important attribute while in others competence is valued over loyalty. Top HR managers predict that companies will increasingly opt for EQ training as they realize that it raises job productivity and customer satisfaction. John Mayer, PhD, a University of New Hampshire psychologist defines Emotional Intelligence narrowly as the ability to understand others' emotions, work, and the control of one's own emotions. Broad definition includes competencies as optimism, conscientiousness, motivation, empathy, and social competence.

The Road to Win/Win

Are you sometimes "hooked" into unproductive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving? Emotional intelligence affects just about everything you do at work whether in a solitary setting or in a room with other people. How well you work has a lot to do with how well you discipline and motivate yourself.

If you look around you will discover that the best companies within any industry invest in their employees by providing their people with training to become a knowledgeable and committed workforce. Trainings and seminars are not simply another reward or reward for above-par job performance. It is an absolute necessity that pays for itself many times over in improved performance and business results. Experts say Emotional Intelligence is a greater predictor of success than Intelligence Quotient. As a result, companies are continuously looking for ways to motivate and develop their employees' emotional intelligence.

For instance, people who rise to the top of their field, whether in business, psychology, law, medicine, engineering, or banking are not just good at their jobs. They are, also, affable, resilient, supportive, and optimistic. Documented studies on professional leaders indicate that people who score highest on EQ measures rise to the top of corporations due to better interpersonal skills and confidence. Their EQ is twice as much as technical and analytical skills combined. Likewise, the higher people move up in the company, the more crucial EQ becomes.

A Blueprint for High Performance

At work, an area often considered more head than heart, IQ is relatively fixed. However, companies can test and teach Emotional Intelligence via working with psychologists and executive coaches. Women can hone their assertiveness skills and learn stress-management techniques like meditation, yoga, and jogging. Likewise, men can learn the importance of listening to co-workers and customers, reading their moods, winning their trust, aspects of leadership, teamwork and customer relations.

Bosses and leaders need high EQ because they represent the organization to the public and they interact with the highest number of people. Within and outside the organization they set the tone for employee morale. In addition, leaders with empathy are able to understand their employees, their needs and provide them with constructive feedback.

Different jobs also call for different types of Emotional Intelligence. For example, success in sales requires the empathic ability to gauge a customer's mood and the interpersonal skill to decide when to pitch a product and when to keep quiet. By comparison, success in painting or professional tennis requires a more individual form of self-discipline and motivation.

Strengthening Self and Others

We know that to be effective, we must learn productive ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Because the primary cause of unsatisfactory results is faulty thinking, poor communication, mistrust and low self-esteem. It does not mean that education, knowledge, money, wealth, freedom, quality of life, security, are not important, but did you know that all of these are dependent upon relationships? In fact, success at anything in life is dependent upon relationships. It is easy to see then that the most important thing in life is... relationships.

Emotional Intelligence is the reason why, despite equal intellectual capacity, training, or experience, some people excel while others of the same caliber lag behind.

In other words, it takes more than traditional cognitive intelligence to be successful at work. It also takes emotional intelligence - the ability to restrain negative feelings such as anger and self-doubt, a positive attitude in general, confidence, and congeniality, being principled and motivated - to become the best in what we do wherever we are.