Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to

Succeed
Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical
skills—and it impacts most everything you do and say.
Travis Bradberry, January 25, 2016
Decades of research point to emotional intelligence as the critical
factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. In this
article originally published on LinkedIn Pulse, Dr. Travis Bradberry explains.
When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding:
People with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. This anomaly threw a
massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success—IQ. Decades of
research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of
the pack.
Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior,
navigate social complexities and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Emotional intelligence is
made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary competencies: personal competence and social
competence.
Personal competence comprises your self-awareness and self-management skills, which focus more on you
individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence is your ability to stay aware of
your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies.
• Self-awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they
happen.
• Self-management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct
your behavior.
Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills; social competence
is your ability to understand other people’s moods, behavior and motives in order to respond effectively and
improve the quality of your relationships.
• Social awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what
is really going on.
• Relationship management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others’ emotions
to manage interactions successfully.
Emotional Intelligence, IQ and Personality Are Different
Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior
that is distinct from your intellect. There is no known connection between
IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can’t predict emotional
intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to
learn, and it’s the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence,
on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and
improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more
emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional
intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.
Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. It’s the stable “style” that defines
each of us. Personality is the result of hard-wired preferences, such as the
inclination toward introversion or extroversion. However, like IQ,
personality can’t be used to predict emotional intelligence. Also like IQ,
personality is stable over a lifetime and doesn’t change. IQ, emotional intelligence and personality each cover
unique ground and help to explain what makes a person tick.
Emotional Intelligence Predicts Performance
How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short answer is: a
lot! It’s a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous result. TalentSmart tested
emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills and found that emotional intelligence is the
strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58 percent of success in all types of jobs.
Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skills—it impacts most everything you do and
say each day.
Of all the people we’ve studied at work, we've found that 90 percent of top
performers are also high in emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20 percent
of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. You can be a top
performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim.
Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more
money—an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of
emotional intelligence. The link between emotional intelligence and earnings is so
direct that every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual
salary. These findings hold true for people in all industries, at all levels, in every
region of the world. We haven’t yet been able to find a job in which performance
and pay aren’t tied closely to emotional intelligence.
You Can Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
The communication between your emotional and rational “brains” is the physical source of emotional intelligence.
The pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain, at the spinal cord. Your primary senses enter here and
must travel to the front of your brain before you can think rationally about your experience. However, first they
travel through the limbic system, the place where emotions are generated. So, we have an emotional reaction to
events before our rational mind is able to engage. Emotional intelligence requires effective communication
between the rational and emotional centers of the brain.
Plasticity is the term neurologists use to describe the brain’s ability to change. As you discover and practice new
emotional intelligence skills, the billions of microscopic neurons lining the road between the rational and
emotional centers of your brain branch off small “arms” (much like a tree) to reach out to the other cells. A single
cell can grow 15,000 connections with its neighbors. This chain reaction of growth ensures it’s easier to kick a
new behavior into action in the future.
As you train your brain by repeatedly practicing new emotionally intelligent behaviors, your brain builds the
pathways needed to make them into habits. Before long, you begin responding to your surroundings with
emotional intelligence without even having to think about it. And just as your brain reinforces the use of new
behaviors, the connections supporting old, destructive behaviors will die off as you learn to limit your use of
them.
5 Reasons to Beef up Your Emotional Intelligence
Why every leader needs to master emotional and social abilities Karima Mariama-Arthur , March 12, 2015
Are you a leader? Do you want to be one? Then know this: You will need more than cognitive intelligence and
technical expertise to get there and be successful at it. You also need emotional intelligence—maybe even more
so than that impressive IQ. And you might be surprised at how vital mastering EI can be to your overall success.
So listen up.
What, really, is emotional intelligence? It’s your ability to be aware of, influence, and express your own emotions,
and perceive and influence those of others in the context of interpersonal relationships.
Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman enumerates the specific components
of emotional intelligence as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation,
empathy and social skills in his Harvard Business Review article, “What
Makes a Leader?” These components can help you to perceive nuance,
communicate, and behave more intelligently. They can also make or break
your ability to lead with clarity and competence.
Here are five reasons that every leader must master emotional intelligence:
1. The ability to develop strong relationships is critical.
As a leader, your ability to cultivate relationships by developing rapport and managing long-term interactions will
determine whether people feel drawn to you—and ultimately desire to work with you now or in the future. This
is the “social skill” component of emotional intelligence.
We were literally created to connect, so the ability to develop healthy relationships is an important aspect of the
human experience. You need this charismatic appeal to successfully connect, influence and lead others.
2. Communication impacts everything.
“It is simply impossible to become a great leader without being a great communicator,” says Mike Myatt, a
leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and Forbes columnist.
Without the ability to effectively communicate your vision and the way forward, it is very difficult to lead or
empower others to embrace change. As a leader, you are always poised to communicate—something. A keen
awareness of your emotions, motivation and the susceptibility of others to your message is necessary to advance
your value proposition and inspire others to take decisive steps forward.
3. Managing crises is par for the course.
Emotionally intelligent leaders not only perform well in crisis situations, they flourish.
Because others depend on you for guidance and expertise—especially in times of uncertainty—understanding
how your emotions affect your thinking and behavior is absolutely essential and will influence how well you
navigate turbulence. Your ability to self-regulate, exercise flexibility and make good decisions in highly charged
scenarios is the cornerstone of effective leadership.
4. Leaders develop others.
To effectively develop others, you must be able to identify nuances in behavior, discover blind spots and prescribe
relevant solutions. But you cannot do any of these without self-awareness and empathy. Demonstrating these
strong perceptive abilities can help you to establish and maintain credibility as you develop others.
Emotional intelligence also helps to create the context for modeling the behavior you seek to develop in your
team. By confronting your own strengths and weaknesses, you can create a more accurate blueprint for reflecting
excellence.
5. Good decisions produce optimal results.
Leaders are always making critical decisions. But no decision is good if it’s not well-informed. And well-informed
decisions are rooted in the tenets of emotional intelligence.
By peeling back the layers of pretense and taking a closer look at elements that influence thinking, behavior and
results, leaders will always have an opportunity to make better decisions that lead to optimal results.

7 Qualities of People with High Emotional Intelligence

EI determines how well you do at work. Do you have the traits that define it? Rhett Power , April 2, 2015
“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your
distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you
are, you are not going to get very far.”
At least that’s what Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., well-known writer and researcher on leadership who wrote the best-
seller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, says. Goleman has dedicated his work to finding
out what makes people successful. And, his title spoiling the surprise, he says it comes down to their emotional
intelligence. That’s what drives a person to excellence.
What exactly is emotional intelligence (EI)? Psychology Today says it’s:
1. The ability to accurately identify your own emotions, as well as those of others
2. The ability to utilize emotions and apply them to tasks, like thinking and problem-solving
3. The ability to manage emotions, including controlling your own, as well as the ability to cheer up or calm
down another person
The concept of emotional intelligence has been around since 1990, when Yale psychologists John D. Mayer and
Peter Salovey presented the concept to the academic world. But Goleman has gone on to study it further—and he
found a direct relationship between the EI of a company’s staff and the company’s success:
• Employees with a high level of EI have self-awareness that helps them understand co-workers and meet
deadlines.
• When people have high EI, they are not bothered by client criticism; they remain focused on outcomes,
rather than feeling offended.
• If two job candidates have similar IQs, the one with the higher EI will likely be a better fit for the
company.
Like Goleman said, no amount of smarts will make up for a lack of the ever-important emotional and social
abilities, especially as part of the professional world. Not sure how to recognize this essential trait? Here are seven
characteristics of emotionally intelligent people:
1. They’re change agents.
People with high EI aren’t afraid of change. They understand that it’s a necessary part of life—and they adapt.
2. They’re self-aware.
They know what they’re good at and what they still have to learn— weaknesses don’t hold them back. They know
what environments are optimal for their work style.
3. They’re empathetic.
The hallmark of EI, being able to relate to others, makes them essential in the workplace. With an innate ability
to understand what co-workers or clients are going through, they can get through difficult times drama free.
4. They’re not perfectionists.
While extremely motivated, people with EI know that perfection is impossible. They roll with the punches and
learn from mistakes.
5. They’re balanced.
Their self-awareness means that they naturally know the importance of and how to maintain a healthy
professional-personal balance in their lives. They eat well, get plenty of sleep and have interests outside work.
6. They’re curious.
An inborn sense of wonder and curiosity makes them delightful to be around. They don’t judge; they explore the
possibilities. They ask questions and are open to new solutions.
7. They’re gracious.
People with high EI know every day brings something to be thankful for—and they don’t see the world as “glass
half-empty” as a lot of people do. They feel good about their lives and don’t let critics or toxic people affect that.
Emotionally intelligent people know how to make work, and the world, a better place. Are you one of them?
- See more at: http://www.success.com/article/7-qualities-of-people-with-high-emotional-intelligence#sthash.Gg3ePHtt.dpuf