Authored by: Roger Pearman
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) combines some innate capabilities and developed skills and plays an essential role at all career stages. We have the capabilities to identify and manage our emotions, to read the emotions of others, and to respond in ways that use this understanding productively. There are skills that develop over time that demonstrate our recognition and management of emotional energy. There are skills that can be learned and refined over time. For example, being an active listener is associated with being emotionally intelligent. Demonstrating empathetic regard for others takes empathy to a more complex level of understanding. There are 54 known skills associated with EQ, and they are based on how we use our innate capabilities to understand and use the information in emotions.
EQ at 3 Career Levels
Unless you plan on living entirely alone and working exclusively where human contact is minimal to your work product, you may not consider EQ as an important quality to develop. Otherwise, in every step of a career, from individual contributor, to supervisor/manager, and to leader, EQ is critical to the work you do. For example, individual contributors learn early that how effectively they work with others will dictate work satisfaction and future opportunities that will be made available. Managers know that getting work done through others requires the strongest and most trusting relationships they can develop. Executives who make great things happen know that their business acumen and business planning are simply the basic price of admission capabilities to the C-suite. EQ is the key player beyond our specialties, competencies, and capabilities to use our expertise.
EQ for Individual Contributors
Imagine you are about to start a career as an accountant in a well-established company. You arrive in a group where many relationships have already been established, and alliances are already at play. You may have graduated at the top of your class and were heavily recruited. None of those facts are relevant in working with your peers. They know things about the culture, the unwritten rules for success in the operation, and the behaviors of bosses and executives. You will need that information to avoid minefields. Being interpersonally savvy and skillful will build the bridges you need to access the information that will make you more effective and prevent spending time on unnecessary interpersonal noise.
EQ for Managers
Perhaps you have just been promoted to the manager of a department. You now have five teams to work with, a new boss, and the metrics of accountability have significantly changed. The roles of effective communication, facilitating workflows, team selection and nurturance, managing conflict, and working collaboratively all become vital behaviors. All are anchored in our EQ. If we put these behaviors on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of importance for success, they would all be a 10. There is a good chance that our demonstration of these will vary greatly. The good news is with focused attention and developmental effort, these can be improved.
EQ for Leaders
Recent headline are showing that CEOs are being let go after very short periods of time. When we dig into the story, we find their business acumen and financial competencies were not the problem. They simply did not have the skills to get the enterprise talent working toward specific business objectives. They were so busy with the numbers they forgot the people who work in the enterprise make the magic happen. Those who are successful have demonstrated that they read and understand others. They know that change requires transition management, and that motivating and influencing teams is ultimately related to cultivating culture. All of these critical behavior sets are anchored in EQ.
If you want to get from “here to there” in your current career development, there is a high probability that energy spent on enhancing your EQ skills will make the difference.
