Emotional intelligence

This blog post is going to be a bit different. Instead of the usual learning theory concepts that I talk about, I will be talking about a concept which sounds familiar but one which most people lack a deep understanding about. I had recently had an opportunity to research about emotional intelligence. Before I started researching my mental thoughts were Oh I know about it and a lot of things that I came across were known to me but there were certain things that I had never thought about or associated with emotional intelligence.

The term Emotional Intelligence was first coined by researchers Peter Salvoy and John Mayer in their 1990 article called Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality. In their article, they described emotional intelligence as “a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others and the use of feelings to motivate, plan and achieve in one’s life”. In the same year, author and journalist Daniel Goleman, who was working as a science writer for the New York Times came to know about the work of Salovey and Mayer. Goleman wrote his own book on emotional intelligence in 1995 and is credited with bringing the term emotional intelligence to mainstream popularity.

So, what is emotional intelligence in simple layman terms? In simple terms, emotional intelligence can be described as an ability to manage emotions, both of our own and those of others around us and is said to include three skills such as:

·      the ability to use emotions to facilitate thinking and problem solving

·      the ability to manage personal emotions

·      the ability to manage emotions of others including encouraging self-management     of emotions 

Some people tend to think that emotional intelligence is the same thing as IQ or intelligence quotient. This couldn't be further from the truth as IQ is a measure of a person’s ability to effectively use reasoning and logic. IQ is something that remains stable throughout a person’s life whereas emotional intelligence tends to be very flexible and can be increased through learning certain skills. IQ tests had long been in vogue as a way to understand a person’s intelligence levels but it was found that despite the results of such tests a lot of people simply did not perform in the manner or to the effect that their IQ test indicated. At the same time, it was also noted that certain people with less IQ scores than some other people often performed better than those with higher IQ scores. Think of individuals who are excellent performers on an academic level but are socially inept, which makes them look great on paper due to their qualifications but they may not be able to perform as well as their qualifications seem to suggest. This anomaly has been explained gradually since the publication of works by Goleman, Salvoy and Mayer and others. Cherniss (2000) citing Feist & Barron in their 1996 work provides the examples of 80 PhDs in science who were given a number of personality tests, IQ tests and interviews during the 1950s when they were graduate students. Forty years later these PhDs were tracked down and estimates were made of their success based on their resumes and evaluations by experts in their own fields. The results seemed to indicate that social and emotional abilities were four times more important than IQ in determining professional success and prestige. Prior to publishing of Goleman’s 1995 book, questions were already being raised around the effectiveness and utility of using IQ tests as a predictor of performance capability by researchers such as David McClelland who voiced their concern at the futility of using IQ tests in determining future success in life. Subsequent research has identified emotional intelligence as the main factor that when used along with traditional IQ tests, works as a much better predictor of performance. Having said that while some connection or association has been found between emotional intelligence and IQ, in that there is research suggesting that emotional abilities help in improving cognitive functioning (read IQ) they essentially remain two separate concepts that can be used together as a predictor of performance.

Another difference to be kept in mind is that emotional intelligence and personality are two different things. The word personality comes from the Latin word persona. This word persons refers to a mask worn by performers in a theater while performing, to disguise their identities. American psychology association (2017) defines personality as individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. In other words, personality refers to an individual’s overall disposition or the diverse ways in which a person thinks, feels, acts and reacts. Also, personality has something in common with IQ in that just like IQ, personality does not change much during the lifetime of a person whereas emotional intelligence can be further developed.

Goleman has talked about 5 basic elements of emotional intelligence. These are:

1.      Self-awareness – Being self-aware means that you know how you feel about situations, and events and how your own emotional state and being can affect people around you. Being self-aware has tremendous significance in life as it gives you a lot of confidence to deal with situations and events due to your awareness about how you feel regarding those situations and events. Being self-aware also implies that you know what your strengths and weaknesses are in a given situation, which in turn enables you to determine the best possible course of action to deal with the situation.

2.      Self-regulate – Self-regulation is the strength manage or control our emotions. Self-regulation is very significant as it provides us with a capacity to keep tabs on our impulses and allows us to think about things in a rational manner (due to the ability to control negative emotions) and also helps in coming across as a reasonable person. People who are good at self-regulating tend to be reflective and thoughtful, accept uncertainty and change and as mentioned above have the ability to control their impulses. The simple act of thinking before saying or acting allows a person to take sophisticated approaches in how they come across others. Think about a manager who flies into a blind rage when something goes wrong or starts shouting at his subordinates or starts throwing things about. Do you think this sort of behaviour will encourage fact finding and a collaborative team effort to resolve the issue? No, it will not. On the contrary team members will try to evade this manager’s gaze where possible lest he starts shouting at them again. His behaviour just might also start a culture of defensiveness and blame games and root out initiative taking. Contrast this with a manager who self-regulates and takes a measured approach when things go wrong in an effort to find the reasons behind what went wrong. This sort of a manager is well placed to induce an objective fact-finding exercise where team members might feel confident in coming forward with actual reasons instead of apportioning blame on other team members.

3.      Motivation – This element of emotional intelligence refers to the self- motivation found in emotionally intelligent people. Motivation is what pushes an individual to try and achieve their goals. Motivation is what keeps people keep following their dreams and be optimistic about situations and results. Motivation is what drives an individual to improve themselves and their life. Keeping yourself motivated can be a challenging thing at times but even in the most adverse of circumstances one should try to motivate themselves as being motivated allows us the clarity of thoughts that helps us to achieve our goal

4.      Empathy – The word empathy comes from the German word ‘einfuhlung’ which was coined by psychologist Theodore Lipps and literally means in-feeling. Though there are a number of ways in which empathy has been defined, in its simplest form empathy can be described as the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people. When we say put yourself in another person’s shoes we are essentially saying we should empathise with others. Yet another definition of empathy is that it is the ability to understand and identify with the needs and viewpoints of others. While it should be remembered that empathy does not only mean compassion, generally speaking empathy does have a positive connotation associated with it. Empathy is a very important element of emotional intelligence and provides the basis for formation of relationships. 

      In his book, Daniel Goleman has defined empathy as the foundation skill for all social competencies at work. Empathy leads to trust and trust is the basis of all relationships. Empathy is what allows a professional to understand the constraints faced by their co-worker. Empathy is what allows a manager to understand the ground realities being faced by their team members and empathy is what allows a team member to understand how a customer is feeling. It is only by understanding and exploring what the other person is feeling that we can truly start connecting with them on an emotional basis. Then this connection puts the seeds of trust and gradually the formation of a solid relationship. Think about the manager who understood while your young child was sick and was patient with you when you had to arrive late or leave early. Think about the colleague who stepped in to share your workload when she saw how overwhelmed you were with it. It is also important to understand that empathy is very different from sympathy. Sympathy is when we feel sorry for the person in a difficult situation whereas empathy is when we feel what the other person feels and so can look at the situation from a different perspective. Sympathy is more of a fleeting emotional reaction in which we briefly express our regrets for the other person’s situation and then move on with our lives whereas in case of empathy we use our skills to understand the other person’s feelings. Showing empathy takes time and effort but it also conveys to the other person that you really care and if you show to the other person that you truly care then they might feel the same way for you 

5.      Social skills – The last element that makes up emotional intelligence is social skills. Social skills are a very broad concept that refer to how we engage with others around us both verbally and non-verbally (tone, volume of speech, type of words spoken) and influence their emotions. It includes a number of skills such as persuasion skills, communication skills, conflict management skills, leadership skills, change management skills, teamwork skills, relationship skills etc. Development of social skills can make an individual become more charismatic. Charisma is difficult to define but generally speaking refers to accumulation of traits that are appealing to others. Charismatic individuals come across as confident, optimistic, interesting, interested in others, understanding, intelligent and assertive. 

Emotional intelligence is here to stay and will only get more important with time. Hiring managers often look for evidence of emotional intelligence when hiring and even during probation. In addition, all the talk about core skills for the next fifty years talk about soft skills and if you play a close enough attention to these soft skills, you will find they contain one aspect of emotional intelligence or another. So let's get into self-awareness, reflection and regulation mode.

I have written an entire explanatory document on this topic. For more information go to:

https://twitter.com/blueswimmercrab
https://www.academia.edu/34403516/Develop_and_use_emotional_intelligence_Learner_Resource