How to Unlock Your Career Super-Power, Emotional Intelligence

It took us less than 15 seconds to agree, which is remarkable for two independently-minded veteran entrepreneurs to do.  The question posed to us was, “in any organization, no matter how large or how small, what is the most important element for sustaining success?”  No hesitation.  “It’s the people. It’s always the people.”  The other eight heads all nodded in agreement. 

It was the follow-up question that had us stumped: “what determines how successful people will be in performing their jobs in an organization?”  Some of the usual suspects were offered: culture, drive and desire, fit with the job, a good manager… all of these had merit.  But none was the single overwhelming characteristic for success in any role until we all agreed on emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is a Significant Determinant of Job Success

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is defined as a person’s awareness of, and control over, the emotions and feelings inside themselves, and how to use and guide emotions effectively in interacting with other people.  EQ is both intra-personal (inside the person) and inter-personal (between people), and it is at the heart of who people are.  To learn about more about emotional intelligence, see Emotional Intelligence: Your Career Superpower.

Consider what several acknowledged experts on emotional intelligence say about the relationship between EQ and job performance: 

• Travis Bradberry, president of TalentSmart and co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0: “EQ is so critical to success that it accounts for 58 percent of performance in all types of jobs. It’s the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence. The link between EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1,300 to an annual salary.”
• Joshua Freedman, CEO of Six Seconds, a non-profit dedicated to emotional intelligence: “Emotional intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80 percent of the “success” in our lives.”
• Daniel Goleman, co-director of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations and author of the best-seller, Emotional Intelligence “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.”

Any way you consider it, EQ will be a critical influencer of your career success and trajectory.

Anyone Can Increase Their Emotional Intelligence

One of the best things about EQ is that anyone can raise their EQ over time. Some of the increase will be as a natural result of maturing. Life and experience both teach us better ways of managing ourselves and relationships with others. Experts who study emotional intelligence point out that EQ tends to rise by how long someone has lived, peaking in the decade between 50 and 60 years of age.

Because EQ can be learned and mastered, it has become one of the hottest personal and professional development areas of the 2020s. And like anything that can be learned and mastered, there are best practices that can make it’s learning more efficient to speed its mastery.

How to Develop Your Own Emotional Intelligence

Based on my work with clients on EQ development over the past decade, these steps have proved to be valuable and effective as part of a best practices approach to raise emotional intelligence:

1. Understand the value you receive when you raise your EQ. By taking the time to consider all the benefits of raising your EQ, you will develop the necessary commitment to making it so. After all, it’s nearly impossible to do anything if we really don’t want to do it. Here are five great questions to answer:

2. Measure your current EQ. No journey can be undertaken until you know your starting point. It is critical that EQ be properly measured. Most people cannot accurately self-assess their own EQ; if fact, people with the lowest EQ over-assess their own EQ by 50%. There are several ways you can reliably measure your own EQ starting point:

3. Fill in your knowledge gaps. There are multiple ways to fill your EQ knowledge gaps, including:

4. Build a self-development plan. One you understand your starting point and can gain knowledge on where and how to fill the gaps, you’re able to put together a professional development plan. An effective plan will consist of actions you should take as part of your everyday routine that are aimed at raising your EQ. Here is the approach I take to building a plan with my coaching clients, which has proven to be quite effective:

5. Measure and celebrate your progress. Some of my clients re-take the EQ Assessment after a year in a training and coaching program to measure their progress. Others use a 360-degree version to see if others are noticing the improvement. Progress reports can also come in the form of formal and informal feedback from co-workers and people with whom you work. It is important to reward yourself when you successfully complete a 60-day plan!

Bottom Line

Raising your EQ will have a significant impact on the quality of your relationships and interaction with others. It will also significantly increase your lifetime earnings and improve your career trajectory, and could be worth more than $1 million to you over your career. The stakes are significant! The very best time to start is TODAY! So what are you waiting for?

This post is taken from the best practices taught in our internationally acclaimed leadership and sales training programs, Leading Through People™ 18, Leading With Emotional Intelligence and B2B Sales Essentials™ 15 – Selling With Emotional Intelligence.

I love working with people and organizations who want to improve their effectiveness! Here are several outstanding resources that can help you and your organization to go to the next level:

• Improving your (or your team’s) management and leadership skills: Leading Through People™
• Raising your (or your team’s) selling effectiveness: B2B Sales Essentials™
• Conducting a more effective job search: Get a Better Job Faster™