Emotional Intelligence - EQ | Travis Bradberry

As the bestselling coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, I'm often asked to break down what emotional intelligence is and why it's so important. Here goes...

Emotional Intelligence Is the Other Kind of Smart.

When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.

Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies.

• Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.

• Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior.

Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behavior, and motives in order to improve the quality of your relationships.

• Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.

• Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully.

Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different.

Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior that is distinct from your intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. 

Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.
Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the stable “style” that defines each of us. Personality is the result of hard-wired preferences, such as the inclination toward introversion or extroversion. However, like IQ, personality can’t be used to predict emotional intelligence. Also like IQ, personality is stable over a lifetime and doesn’t change. IQ, emotional intelligence, and personality each cover unique ground and help to explain what makes a person tick.

Emotional Intelligence Is Linked to Performance.

How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short answer is: a lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. TalentSmart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs.

Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you say and do each day. Emotional intelligence is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence.

Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we’ve found that 90% of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim. Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more money—an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence. The link between emotional intelligence and earnings is so direct that every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary. These findings hold true for people in all industries, at all levels, in every region of the world. We haven’t yet been able to find a job in which performance and pay aren’t tied closely to emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed.

The communication between your emotional and rational “brains” is the physical source of emotional intelligence. The pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain, at the spinal cord. Your primary senses enter here and must travel to the front of your brain before you can think rationally about your experience. However, first they travel through the limbic system, the place where emotions are generated. So, we have an emotional reaction to events before our rational mind is able to engage. Emotional intelligence requires effective communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain.

“Plasticity” is the term neurologists use to describe the brain’s ability to change. Your brain grows new connections as you learn new skills. The change is gradual, as your brain cells develop new connections to speed the efficiency of new skills acquired.

Using strategies to increase your emotional intelligence allows the billions of microscopic neurons lining the road between the rational and emotional centers of your brain to branch off small “arms” (much like a tree) to reach out to the other cells. A single cell can grow 15,000 connections with its neighbors. This chain reaction of growth ensures it’s easier to kick this new behavior into action in the future. Once you train your brain by repeatedly using new emotional intelligence strategies, emotionally intelligent behaviors become habits.

Please let me know what you think below.

Source 

7 Qualities of People with High Emotional Intelligence | Rhett Power

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

At least that’s what Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., well-known writer and researcher on leadership who wrote the best-seller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, says. Goleman has dedicated his work to finding out what makes people successful. And, his title spoiling the surprise, he says it comes down to their emotional intelligence. That’s what drives a person to excellence.

Related: Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed

What exactly is emotional intelligence (EI)? Psychology Today says it’s:
The ability to accurately identify your own emotions, as well as those of others
The ability to utilize emotions and apply them to tasks, like thinking and problem-solving
The ability to manage emotions, including controlling your own, as well as the ability to cheer up or calm down another person

The concept of emotional intelligence has been around since 1990, when Yale psychologists John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey presented the concept to the academic world. But Goleman has gone on to study it further—and he found a direct relationship between the EI of a company’s staff and the company’s success:

Employees with a high level of EI have self-awareness that helps them understand co-workers and meet deadlines.

When people have high EI, they are not bothered by client criticism; they remain focused on outcomes, rather than feeling offended. 

If two job candidates have similar IQs, the one with the higher EI will likely be a better fit for the company.

Like Goleman said, no amount of smarts will make up for a lack of the ever-important emotional and social abilities, especially as part of the professional world. Not sure how to recognize this essential trait? Here are seven characteristics of emotionally intelligent people:

1. They’re change agents.

People with high EI aren’t afraid of change. They understand that it’s a necessary part of life—and they adapt.

2. They’re self-aware.

They know what they’re good at and what they still have to learn— weaknesses don’t hold them back. They know what environments are optimal for their work style.

3. They’re empathetic.

The hallmark of EI, being able to relate to others, makes them essential in the workplace. With an innate ability to understand what co-workers or clients are going through, they can get through difficult times drama free.

4. They’re not perfectionists.

While extremely motivated, people with EI know that perfection is impossible. They roll with the punches and learn from mistakes.

5. They’re balanced.

Their self-awareness means that they naturally know the importance of and how to maintain a healthy professional-personal balance in their lives. They eat well, get plenty of sleep and have interests outside work.

6. They’re curious.

An inborn sense of wonder and curiosity makes them delightful to be around. They don’t judge; they explore the possibilities. They ask questions and are open to new solutions.

7. They’re gracious.

People with high EI know every day brings something to be thankful for—and they don’t see the world as “glass half-empty” as a lot of people do. They feel good about their lives and don’t let critics or toxic people affect that.

Emotionally intelligent people know how to make work, and the world, a better place. Are you one of them?

Source: http://www.success.com/article/7-qualities-of-people-with-high-emotional-intelligence

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.