What is EQ (Emotional Intelligence)?

Does personality determine your destiny? In truth, there are strengths and limitations for each personality type, and there are many successful and unsuccessful stories for each. The real important factor is not personality per se, but how you manage your unique personality---- we call that Emotional Intelligence.

Furthermore, EQ (emotional quotient, a measurement of emotional intelligence) is found to be a better predictor of success than IQ, personality, experience or any other factor one commonly thinks of.

However, emotional intelligence as a concept is frequently incorrectly understood or simplified. In fact, emotional intelligence is defined as ‘a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.'

An EQ assessment report usually consists of 15 dimensions. It’s like a blood test, which contains a number of indicators. It would be wrong to look at any one indicator to conclude that a patient has blood problems! A correct diagnosis would be that the specific indicator needs attention.

Many people mistakenly believe emotional intelligence to work like a number on a scale. For example, if you meet a charismatic person, you will likely conclude that he is emotionally intelligent. But he can only be described as “empathetic” or “people smart”. After working with him for a while, you realize that he is indecisive, slow to act, and easily stressed out. In other words, he lacks important aspects of emotional intelligence such as “decisiveness”, “impulse control” and “stress management”. It is like how the public views thin people in our Hollywood swooned era; no one ever realizes that beneath a beautiful body lies a host of illnesses.

On the other hand, what would you say about a person who is easily angered, with a booming loud voice and a temper to match? Steve Jobs, for example? Would someone like that be considered emotionally intelligent? If your definition of emotional intelligence is being “empathetic” or “people smart”, then there is no way someone like that would pass the test. But if you consider emotional intelligence to include “influence”, “decision making”, ‘problem solving’ and “flexibility”, then you might consider our quick tempered friend a genius! Of course, this is simplifying emotional intelligence for ease of communication, like how you would describe a scrumptious dose of BBQ sauce as simply “sweet”.

Picture Source: http://blog.meraevents.com/2014/07/30/workshop-on-emotional-intelligence-at-workplace/