Emotional intelligence (EQ) was always considered a taboo subject in corporate environments, but it is now on the minds of practically every leader and organization seeking to be creative, especially as newly divided workplaces have migrated into uncertain home office situations. Previously, workplace emotions were seen to be harmful and maybe a hindrance to success and discipline. Emotional intelligence is a must-have for today’s businesses and CEOs to keep employees engaged and engaged, whether they’re working from home or in the office, while also delivering market outcomes.
Emotional intelligence (also known as the ’emotional quotient’ or EQ) was placed sixth among the top ten attributes that workers will need to develop to succeed in the future workplace by the World Economic Forum.
So, what’s the EQ? What impact does this have on your professional success and ability to communicate with coworkers and peers, as well as your physical and emotional well-being?
The ability to experience, understand, and control one’s thoughts and emotions are referred to as EQ.
Emotionally sophisticated people are far more likely to succeed in their careers. Consider Daniel Goleman’s five emotional intelligence foundations and how vital they are to a professional:
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and comprehend one’s moods and feelings and how they affect others.
Self-control – the ability to control one’s impulses and moods, as well as to think before acting.
Internal (or core) purpose – the desire to attain goals for personal reasons rather than for monetary gain (the opposite is external motivation)
Empathy – the ability to consider and appreciate the motives of others, which is required for building and managing successful teams.
Social skills – the capacity to maintain partnerships and network
Hiring managers stated that they valued an employee’s emotional intelligence (EQ) over their IQ. They also stated that they would prefer to hire someone with a high level of emotional intelligence. They also stated that they would not hire someone with a high IQ but a low EQ.
Just as it is important to recruit new employees with emotional intelligence, executives and other business leaders must act in emotionally intelligent ways to fulfill the demands of today’s employees Some senior employees started their careers in the same companies where they are now retired. For many earlier generations, work has primarily served as a method of earning money. Most employees nowadays, however, want more from their jobs than just a paycheck. As they have observed their committed older classmates deal with increased unemployment and career setbacks, younger generations have realized that the conventional outlook does not always hold.
Setting Emotional Intelligence Examples at Work
There are various advantages to having high emotional intelligence at work, and companies who use it to their advantage will outperform their competition. Here are a few ideas:
Prioritizing Emotional Intelligence- Contrary to what previous generations of workers may have believed, people cannot—and should not—turn off their emotions when they go to work. The key for business leaders is to rid themselves of preconceived ideas about what the manager is expected to do and to view any situation from an emotional intelligence viewpoint. Stopping your feet and yelling at colleagues to work faster may produce better short-term results, but the long-term implications are virtually certainly disastrous. Employees nowadays don’t expect their boss to be their best friend, but they want to have a trusting and respectful connection with them. They’ll quit for a boss who will give it to them if they don’t like it. But there’s a catch: data suggests that having more emotional intelligence isn’t always a good thing. In other words, emotional maturity is merely one factor to consider when evaluating someone’s qualifications for a given job.
This is a useful rule of thumb to keep in mind-
Good Professional = Skills + Work Morality + Emotional Intelligence.
To create a culture that values emotional intelligence- Emotional intelligence requires practice like any other skill. Organizations can also create a community where employees and managers may practice and improve their emotional intelligence. The first step is to demonstrate to your employees that the organization cares about them. Individual success leads to corporate success, so people already understand why you want them to perform well. When you receive interpersonal assistance, stay at that stage. When you switch from appealing to employees’ emotions to providing directives, the emotional foundation you’ve established appears to be manipulation rather than compassion. Being real is a part of actual emotional intelligence, and a true example of emotional intelligence is considerably more motivating than words alone.
To be effective with emotional intelligence, you must first start with yourself. You can’t distill or strengthen someone’s well-being, improvement, or sense of self without first understanding how they work emotionally. Leaders are often distinguished by their level of interpersonal maturity, and it is these skills that contribute to a more productive workplace. We live in an era where, because of technological advancements, we can acquire certification in a variety of areas to advance our jobs, but we can’t get one in emotional intelligence. This is something we need to talk about as a society, to recognize it as vital, to choose to strengthen it and to work on it for the rest of our lives. However, the advantages outweigh the costs as we become happier workers, better couples, and better people.
Thank You
Yashna Bhagchandani
PGDM – Div A
Vivekanand Business School