Emotional Intelligence: Use It Like Tim Cook Every Single Day And Watch Your Successes Grow

Tim Cook has more than Apple’s success figured out. He’s pretty clued into one of the core elements of Emotional Intelligence — admitting when you are wrong.

“So many people, particularly, I think, CEOs and top executives, they get so planted in their old ideas, and they refuse or don’t have the courage to admit that they’re now wrong,” Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in an interview with Inc.

Humility taps into a growing reservoir of emotions that run throughout people’s lives every single day. According to Psychology Today, “Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.”

The publication also pointed out three core skills involved: one, emotional awareness; two, the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and three, the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions and cheering up or calming down other people.

It’s been proven that having a lack of inner understanding of yourself and your employees can totally mess up future plans.

“Most people make mistakes around Emotional Intelligence because they don’t understand what’s going on with other people,” Travis Bradberry, president of TalentSmart in San Diego, said in an interview with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). “They don’t even necessarily understand what’s going on with themselves.”

According to TalentSmart, researchers found in assessments of more than 2 million workers that “just 36 percent of people are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen,” Bradberry said to SHRM.

Go back to Cook’s comment. Business leaders, especially those of multibillion-dollar corporations, find themselves lacking the capacity to say “my bad” and “I’m sorry” when mistakes are made. You don’t have to look too far to see where a lot of hubris can cause damage. Case in point: Enron and the “Too Big To Fail” guys. Even Cook admits that mindset is still alive and well in today’s companies.

Bill Gates had to change. The Microsoft founder admitted in an interview with the Times of India, “In my youth, I completely overvalued intelligence. There’s that kind of intelligence that if I gave you a 500-page book on, say, geography and you memorize it and tell me everything I need to know about weather systems, then as a young boy, I thought that this was all you needed.”

It turns out that Gates discovered later in life that Emotional Intelligence, especially the quality of empathy, plays a vital part in growth and change. Businesses and their leaders must adapt not only to markets but to what is going on inside themselves.

Jack Welch grew to understand the need for EI in leadership. The former chairman of General Electric said in a story for The Wall Street Journal, “A leader’s intelligence has to have a strong emotional component. He/she has to have high levels of self-awareness, maturity, and self-control. He/she must be able to withstand the heat, handle setbacks and when those lucky moments arise, enjoy success with an equal part of joy and humility. No doubt emotional intelligence is rarer than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it.”

It might feel — a first step in activating one’s Emotional Intelligence — like it’s something weird to do when it comes to feeling your emotions. Shame, fear, guilt, resentment, joy, and happiness are all inner guides that businesses can use effectively on a daily basis.

Intellect is a part of every smart business’ life. It starts with leadership on down through employees. Those who are “high thinkers,” or really thinking a lot of thoughts all the time, usually prove to be successful. What about the “high feelers,” people whose emotions and intuition guide them a lot? More and more, this type of intelligence — Emotional Intelligence — has been getting attention in recent decades.

Intellectuals are still needed in business. They come up with incredible ideas and strategies that are outside the norms. Imagine if they connected to their emotional states a little bit more. Creativity and ingenuity go hand in hand. Just look at all the types of inventions — computers, smartphones, medical breakthroughs, etc. — that actually begin with a spark of inspiration.

Anthony Robbins reminds people that the word “inspiration”, when broken down to its core word, means “in spirit,” connected to something within people. That “something” also carries an emotional connection, too.

Cook’s ability to tap into his own EI has made a world of difference at Apple. He definitely tips his cap to all the work and effort late Apple founder Steve Jobs did, but his own style is very different. Cook is willing to go down to Apple stores, walk through them, talk to employees and customers and actually get a “feel” for what is going on at the ground level. He’s not just sitting in a golden palace waiting for the next earnings report to drop in his lap.

When managers are too caught up in the “rules” of the business and not the people, then you are going to have lots of problems. There are still too many old-playbook managers running corporations all over the world.

By following Cook’s footsteps, more businesses can start walking their own golden road of success by connecting with the power of their emotions.