How to Heal a Distressed World Through Emotional Intelligence

Everyone is familiar with the standard IQ test. In fact, as a society, we’re so obsessed with the intelligence quotient that a simple Google search will bring up any number of so-called “IQ tests”, although the validity of most of these is questionable. We’ve got apps that claim to test our intelligence and we take legitimate assessments for work and school.

However, there is far from only one kind of intelligence, and education and knowledge is not always the biggest indicator for potential success. 

Emotional intelligence actually proves to be more important than any other kind of intelligence when it comes to success in both relationships and career. In fact a single point increase in emotional intelligence brings up to $1,300 in additional annual income, and 90% of high performing employees exhibit high emotional intelligence. 

Emotional intelligence leads to stronger interpersonal relationships, improved leadership abilities, and greater job satisfaction. These all result from people with higher emotional intelligence being more likely to embrace cross-cultural experiences, feel positively toward their employers, remain with a company longer, and earn promotions and salary increases. In one recent Spanish study, emotional intelligence was a stronger predictor of salary than both age and gender. 

The term “emotional intelligence” was coined in a 1990 research paper by psychology professors, John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey. The term and ideas behind it gained popularity and grew in prominence when Daniel Goleman published “Emotional Intelligence and Why it Can Matter More than IQ”, in 1995. According to Professor Mayer, emotional intelligence is “the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others’ emotions.” 

In essence, emotional intelligence is self-awareness (the ability to understand one’s own emotions, strengths, and weaknesses), self-regulation (the ability to manage emotional reactions and respond reasonably), empathy (the ability to detect and predict other people’s emotions in a situation), social skills (ability to get along with others in a friendly manner), and motivation (ability to keep pushing forward despite obstacles.) 

People with high emotional intelligence are 7x as likely to be effective leaders. Emotional intelligence is linked to up to 60% of performance metrics for supervisors and executives. These leaders tend to increase employee engagement, have lower turnover, higher productivity, and higher consumer satisfaction.

Emotional intelligence, while not always inherent, can be a learned skill, and can help greatly in achieving your career goals.