Choosing Intelligently: The human software of emotional intelligence

In hard times, the soft stuff often goes away. But emotional intelligence, it turns out, isn’t so 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[1].

Emotion can override our thoughts and profoundly influence our behavior. Developing emotional intelligence skills helps us recognize, contain, and effectively communicate our emotions, as well as recognize the emotions of other people. These abilities have been proven to surpass high cognitive intelligence (IQ) in predicting success in all types of relationships, at home, at work, and in all other areas of our lives[2].

Emotional Intelligence or Social Intelligence is an area of high managerial importance in today’s ever changing social and business environment. Fuzzy lines of business are overlapping with social media platforms. ‘‘Intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences’’ were just as important to overall life success as the cognitive abilities being measured in standard IQ tests.

There are many professions like engineering, software development, financial management and banking that require years of higher education and specialized training for entry into the field. Gaining entrance into educational programs, such as engineering, medical school, or an advanced program in computer sciences, is highly competitive, meaning that only those applicants with the best academic records and performance on standardized entrance exams will make the cut.

Getting into intellectually demanding professions suggests that all of those in the field have high IQs or they never would have been admitted into their professional training programs and performed well enough to graduate. It is no longer an “accident” that certain competencies are found repeatedly in high performers. Many of these competencies are found in high performers at all levels, from customer service representatives to CEOs. No longer is the discussion about non-quantifiable “soft skills.”[3]

This poses an interesting question. In professions in which everyone has a high IQ and rigorous professional training, what distinguishes those who turn out to be star performers from those who will remain competent but average performers? A fascinating longitudinal study suggests that emotional intelligence makes all the difference.

In the 1950s, a group of eighty Ph.D. candidates in scientific fields were chosen for a long-term study at Berkeley. They were given IQ tests, an array of psychological assessments, and intensive interviews. These scientists were tracked down forty years later when they were all in their 70s. What made the difference? Social and emotional abilities turned out to be four times more important than IQ in determining their overall success[4]. IQ and training alone do not a star performer make. Sheer brainpower isn’t enough.

The concepts of self-awareness, self-control and world view and communication are important facets of emotional intelligence. Many organizations try to reduce or control [the complexity that is a fabric of our working lives] and this simply isn’t possible. It’s not about tackling complexity but more a case of understanding what it means for how we work to develop people and organizations.

Many trainers and training companies over the years have mushroomed in the areas of emotional intelligence.  The self-help market with themes of social and emotional intelligence is over hundred millions of dollars in form of books, trainings and psychometric testing tools. It is important that trainings should be selected based on need and result orientation. The trainings on social skills like emotional intelligence should utilize the indepth expert knowledge, cross cutting applications of strategy, business, management and psychology. Individuals who are desirous to enhance the social skills need focused and customized training based on the trainer’s insight and expertise and his interaction with clients.

Author: Dr. Moin Uddin

The writer is a Program Management Practitioner, Mentor, Coach and Consultant.
 He can be reached at moinhunzai@gmail.com
Linkedin: http://pk.linkedin.com/pub/dr-moin-uddin-phd-pmp/10/342/ab4/
 Twitter:@moinhunzai





[1] HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW (2003, p. 5)
[2] Jeane Segal, The Language of Emotional Intelligence-The Five Essential Tools for Building Powerful and Effective Relationships, McGraw Hill, 2008
[3] Adele B. Lynn, Developing Emotional Intelligence, HRD Press, 2000
[4] G. J. Feist and F. Barron, ‘‘Emotional Intelligence and Academic Intelligence in Career and Life Success.’’ Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society, San Francisco, June 1996.

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