Emotional Intelligence ……. ……. unleash the Best You Have to Offer

…. knowing what feels good, what feels bad, and how to get from bad to good is all about emotional intelligence says Inderjit Singh a UN Consultant and a keen student of behavioral sciences…...

— BY INDERJIT SINGH

High Intelligence alone is no guarantee of success and happiness. Then why is it so, that Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is generally regarded as such a prime virtue? It was only until the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) emerged, that we could guess, what that ever-elusive “why” was. Not anymore!

Emotional Intelligence is the “difference” that “makes the difference”.

This write-up is by no means, a treatise or a chronological development of the concept. My attempt is to rationalize the approach to the subject in the given ever-changing circumstances and one’s ability to make the best-balanced combination of the “intellective” (IQ) and “nonintellective” (EQ) elements to effectively meet our, and more importantly for the Leaders amongst us, to suitably discharge their social obligations and responsibilities towards the society and world at large.

Suffice here to mention and pay tribute to the proponent of the concept of EI, the psychologist Edward Thorndike who almost a century back coined this phrase and the developers of the concept John Mayer and Peter Salovey in late 1990’s who elaborated it through their definition:

“The emotionally intelligent person is skilled in four areas: identifying emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions, and regulating emotions” followed by an all-encompassing narration by Daniel Goleman, the contemporary modern-day expert on the subject: “What really matters for success, character, happiness and lifelong achievements is a definite set of emotional skills – your EQ — not just purely cognitive abilities that are measured by conventional IQ tests.”

There has been no time like this in the recent past. Life for the humanity has reached an inflexion point. Emotional and Social Intelligence (ESI), perhaps a more appropriate terminology, has over the course of last few months since inception of the pandemic, has become a key talking point.

In a time with no guarantees of job security & health safety and consistently performing under pressure, conflicts, tensions, when the very concept of a “job” is being replaced by “mobility skills” like work-fromhome or work-from-anywhere has become a norm; and when health concern - in the absence of an appropriate vaccine, is limited to certain make-shift precautionary measures of wearing face masks, social distancing, sanitization in the current global coronavirus pandemic; there are prime qualities that make and keep us employable with a mental equilibrium and sanity for a proper balance in our personal and business life alike – and that is emotional intelligence – in its larger sense of the word.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – REDEFINED

The current dynamics of the global environment, is charged with a sense of immobility, helplessness, anxiety, depression et al; as we are constantly “chasing a moving target”. A judicious blend of IQ and EQ i.e. Logic and Emotions is the requirement of this moment; as never before. Hence, the need to re-evaluate, re-examine and re-define the concept within the established and well accepted broadoutline parameters. I believe that EI, as several other theories is organic in nature; always growing, reinventing and redefining with changing circumstances.

There has been no time like this in the recent past. Life for the humanity has reached an inflexion point. Emotional and Social Intelligence (ESI), perhaps a more appropriate terminology, has over the course of last few months since inception of the pandemic, has become a key talking point.

Lady Anita Duckworth-Bradshaw in one of her recent video clips made a mention of one being a “work-in-progress”. True, as we are evolving, so should our thinking processes until we reach a state of perfection – that is, if there is at all, anything called perfect?

Simply put, in a lay person language, emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that involves “the ability to identify, assess, control manage, evaluate and monitor emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups, and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions” or even further simplified version “knowing what feels good, what feels bad, and how to get from bad to good is all about emotional intelligence”. However, this definition too is not the end-all in itself.

Adaptability to one’s environment is the name of the game! In context of environment being the operative word, the definition can be reworded as “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively within the given environment”.

EI AND LEADERSHIP

There are Leaders and there are “Leaders of Substance”. A holistic leader of substance is skilled in two key areas he presents in his competence framework. These are “personal competence” - how he manages himself, and “social competence” - how he manages relationships.

America’s old and ingrained belief that a good CEO or Executive level leader is ruthless has been replaced with the rise of humanity conscious leaders. New leaders in various industries have embraced a human-centered approach to leading their companies. When employees are more deeply connected to a vision for their company, and they are cared for in a broad sense rather than just their production value, better working environments are created. A Harvard Business School research has determined that EQ counts for twice as much as IQ and technical skills combined in determining who will be successful. The realization has dawned that over 80% of competencies that differentiate top performers from others are in the domain of EI. What is clear is that EI is no longer a nice to have for organizations aspiring to be high performing; it is a need to have. EI is no longer an option but a prime necessity.

A leader with high-level emotional intelligence can navigate not just motivating and empowering employees, but also navigating complex and challenging decision making with the mastery of emotional response. In other words, a leader must have the ability to process emotion to make sound decisions. It means that when a complicated issue erupts, that leader may have an adverse reaction that can aid them in making a good decision despite that negative reaction. A leader could be the most intelligent person with a high IQ rating in the room, but without a high EI score, this leader may fail to motivate employees. The presence of positive mood in leaders at work creates more effective and broader thought processes in certain types of decision-making abilities. Emotional Intelligence can be a game-changer to high performance and personal leadership.

LAST WORD

One size does not fit all; every leader will have different style and that style will interact with different environments in different ways. However, one research at the Institute for Health and Human Potential (IHHP) of over 10,000 global leaders revealed that there are some clear distinctions between high and low performing leaders and EI is at the heart of this difference. In a recent worldwide survey, it emerged that 43% of employees agreed or strongly agreed that “if their manger had more emotional intelligence, they would put extra effort.” Research has shown that over 80% of the competencies that differentiate top performers from others are in the domain of EI, yet the notion of emotions in the workplace is often greatly misunderstood. In hard times, the soft stuff often goes away. But emotional intelligence, it turns out, isn’t soft. If emotional obliviousness jeopardizes your ability to perform, fend off aggressors, or be compassionate in a crisis, no amount of attention to the bottom line will protect your career. Emotional intelligence isn’t a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. It’s a basic tool that, deployed with finesse, is the key to professional success.

MY TAKE

To me, EI in a leadership position, is a reorientation, a realization of one’s internal dynamics to put into action at that given moment; a balanced, practical, and a best-suited feasible solution to a problem encountered and further to own the responsibility for its success or failure, as the case may be. Our emotions need to be as educated as our intellect. It is important to know how to feel, how to think, how to respond, and how to let life in, so it can touch you. “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head – it is the unique intersection of both”.

At the end of this write-up we are perhaps left with as many questions as there are answers or more questions still to be answered. It is my conviction that it is better to debate a question without instantly settling it than to settle a question without debating it.

Readers are welcome to respond via inderjit.singh@aviationanalyst.net