You probably know people who started in life blessed with a few great assets. For example having a bright intellect and graduating from a prestigious school. Still they seem to struggle and don’t quite achieve the success one would have expected them to reach. At the same time, some people who started with less, with a more average intellect and academic record for example surprisingly become more successful than one would have predicted. Emotional Intelligence now explains these situations.
Emotional Intelligence Explains
IQ is our cognitive intelligence and explains academic success. But is it not correlated with performance and success in life and at work nor with emotional and psychological well being. On the other hand, Emotional Intelligence, is about our ability to be aware of, understand, and manage our own as well as other people’s emotions in order to adapt to life’s demands and pressures brings us. This framework has brought new depth to our understanding of human intelligence. We now have a more complete picture of human functioning.
There is a huge body of knowledge and research about Emotional Intelligence. It is a field that has been exploding in the last three decades in terms of research, explanatory capability and its practical applications for individuals and companies.
•67% of leadership performance is based on EI
•75% of careers are derailed for reasons related to lack of emotional competencies
•90% of high performers are also high in EI
Emotional Intelligence Predicts
Emotional Intelligence is by design a predictor of performance and success. When Dr. Reuven Bar-On started his research in the early 1980s, he asked two fundamental questions:
– How come some people experience more psychological well being than others?
– What are the competencies that explain performance and success?
As Bar-On’s research brought answers to these questions he coined the term EQ for Emotional Quotient and he created the EQ-i model of Emotional Intelligence, involving 15 different competencies and the Emotional Well Being indicator.
Emotional Intelligence is the single most important predictor of performance and success for individuals and the organizations that they serve, much more than many commonly considered performance predictors such as intelligence, education, experience and personality. Not only do we understand now what are the specific emotional competencies that make people successful but we can also predict the outcome for an individual or an organization if these competencies are developed or missing.
Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed
Emotional intelligence can be learned developed at any stage in life, at any age. Contrary to IQ which is set at an early age and can’t be much changed throughout life, the skills of emotional intelligence can be learned and practiced and should be developed by anyone who aspires to improve their well being and their performance in life and at work.
Coaching to boost Emotional Intelligence
As each individual is unique and different, the coaching process allows a focus on what the client needs and choses to work on. In my practice I use reputable and scientific assessment tools to discover and identify my clients’ unique profile, including strengths as well as areas of development. Together we then develop an action plan on what to focus on.
