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In Business, as a leader or manager, you need to make a lot of decisions daily and communicate with a lot of people, it is not enough to be Smart with high cognitive intelligence or IQ, you need to consider the other side of being Smart in business to reach your goals easier.
The Other Side of SMART in Business
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is your ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as understand other people’s emotions and know how to deal with them and their needs. High EQ means you are more self-aware and more capable of connecting and communicating with others more effectively influencing their behavior positively. Some research even rates EQ as a higher indicator of business success than IQ. If you can master emotional intelligence, you will be much more successful in business.
Beyond IQ: Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Business World
The business world in general revolves around interpersonal relationships and effective communication. You are dealing daily with your emotions and with other people’s emotions, when you are emotionally intelligent, you know your weak and strength points and what you really want and you are also able to take the time and energy required to form meaningful relationships with everyone around you including your team, clients, and other peers or stakeholders. Psychologist and author, Daniel Goleman, mentioned in his book “Working with Intelligence” that the secret of success is not IQ or a school degree, and not even years of experience, but the most important factor in job performance and advancement is emotional intelligence.
The Key Skills of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence includes a set of skills that you can acquire easily, those skills allow you to have better personal well-being and more meaningful interpersonal relationships. Daniel Goleman also mentioned the five key skills that can help you improve your emotional intelligence.
- Self-awareness: Your ability to understand your own emotions and be more aware of the effect of your emotions and actions on others is a key skill.
- Self-regulation: Emotional intelligence requires you to control your emotions and this means that you need to know when and how to express your emotions.
- Social skills: Learning to listen actively to others understanding their emotions and showing them your understanding in your words and actions is a skill that will raise your emotional intelligence.
- Empathy: This skill can guide how you interact with others, where it involves understanding other people’s points of view and what influences their actions and being able to show your compassion and understanding.
- Motivation: Having intrinsic motivation and not just work to get external rewards like money or recognition will increase your emotional intelligence. People with high emotional intelligence are so committed and seek internal rewards not only external ones.
Emotional Intelligence’s Impact on Decision-Making and Innovation
Emotional Intelligence has been shown in research to be an essential element of high-performance organizations, it can increase productivity and performance. With a better understanding of your emotions, you can improve your emotional intelligence and use it for better decision-making, creativity, and innovation.
Developing EQ for Better Decision Making
Being more self-aware and having deeper insight into other people makes you more able to concentrate and stay calm under pressure so you can make more effective decisions that serve your organization. Understanding how others feel allows you to communicate better with your team, make more appealing decisions, and resolve conflicts effectively. Emotional intelligence also develops emotional agility where you accept your emotions, consider your goals, and make decisions based on what’s most important to you and so you can make better decisions based on your values and goals.
Emotional Intelligence Key Drive for Innovation
People usually attribute one’s ability to innovate to cognitive intelligence or IQ and they forget the power of emotional intelligence. Dr. Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, said that emotions impact your ability to innovate no matter your IQ. Usually, when you have intrinsic motivation, your energy level is higher and your vibes are more positive and you are more likely to think creatively. Emotional intelligence also decreases your stress levels and increases your focus so it makes ideas flow more openly and freely. It also helps you create a more creative and innovative culture at work, when you have better communication skills and listen to others, you increase their confidence levels and encourage them to innovate.
Emotional Intelligence for Business Experts
The business expert, investor, and one of the richest men, Warren Buffet, had an IQ of over 150 which means he is considered a genius. On a study that was conducted recently, Warren Buffet was suggested as smarter and more emotionally intelligent that Elon Musk. Warren Buffet was listed number 3 in a list of the top 10 intelligent CEOs (high in IQ) after him came in number 5 Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg in number 8. And in another study measuring emotional intelligence on CEOs, Warren Buffet was number 5, Mark Zuckerberg was number 9 and Elon Musk came in number 10.
Warren Buffet’s Advice for Business Success
Warren Buffet shared important advice about emotional intelligence’s role in business success. He mentioned that he once heard this advice and followed it for more than 40 years in business. His advice simply revolves around controlling your emotions and knowing what you’re feeling and why before you respond.
Assessing Your Emotional Intelligence
To assess your emotional intelligence, you can ask yourself some questions like:
What makes you feel motivated?
How do you feel when someone criticizes you?
What bothers you most about other people?
What is your strong point?
What are your personal and professional challenges?
What kind of people do you like to work with?
Are you able to listen actively to others?
Do you express your emotions freely?
How do you manage conflicts?
Answering such questions will increase your self-awareness and make you more able to control your emotions and know how to manage your relationship with others.
Some EQ quizzes can measure your emotional intelligence. You can consider this free EQ test which will assess you in five key areas so you can understand how well you manage your own emotions, communicate your experiences, and relate to others.
6 Other Tips for Developing Emotional Intelligence
- To increase your Emotional Intelligence you need to be able to identify how you feel and your emotional reactions. You need to dive inwards and recognize your limitations and strengths points and you may ask for feedback from someone close to you. More self-awareness will also make you more confident in your abilities.
- Learning to regulate your emotions will make you better at managing conflicts. You must also be able to control your reactions when needed. This will require reflecting on your experiences and paying more attention to your thoughts, emotions, and actions. You can also learn to pause before reacting or speaking in sensitive times.
- You need to learn to be more flexible and work on your mindset to view challenges as opportunities and always take responsibility for your actions. You need also to accept criticism, consider any feedback and see how it can help you develop and grow.
- Work on your social skills including communication and active listening. Understanding your emotions and how others feel is important, but emotional intelligence requires you to communicate and interact with others based on your understanding.
- Create two ways of communication where you express and share your emotions openly and make others feel comfortable expressing their emotions and before responding try to understand their point of view from their perspective.
- Set clear goals, take initiatives, and work on your goals with passion regardless of the other extrinsic motivations.
Conclusion
In Summary, Emotional Intelligence is a key indicator of Business success and personal growth. Many business leaders and professionals are starting to recognize its’ importance. High emotional intelligence indicates higher self-awareness and self-management, higher social awareness, and better relationship management. By understanding yourself and understanding others’ emotions, you can make huge progress and influence others.
