Emotional Intelligence and How it Helps you Excel in Life
A high Emotional Quotient (EQ) enables you to make better use of your Intelligence Quotient (IQ). How? Imagine a time when you were very angry or felt envious. Now ask yourself if these emotions influenced your ability to think clearly, analyse and make sensible decisions.
Most of us must have heard people say, “Leave emotions out of it”. The truth is, we cannot. Emotions are ever present. However, what is needed is to identify and manage these emotions both for yourself and for others around you. This is where your Emotional Intelligence and EQ come in.
When we talk about Emotional Intelligence or EI, it generally includes a suite of competencies under four broad domains, including:
- Self-Awareness
- Self-Management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Management
For a leader to excel, the need to strike a balance between all these strengths is inevitable. To gain a better understanding, I spoke with Rahila Narejo, a sought-after consultant and executive coach who champions emotional intelligence and helps leaders to find the perfect blend of competencies to succeed. Rahila tells us that several studies on EQ and IQ have concluded that 80% of our success is dependent on EQ-type competencies while only 20% derives from our IQ-related competencies.
Here are some excerpts from our conversation:
Mental Conditioning and Emotional Intelligence
Behavioral psychology suggests that our behaviors and the way we respond to our situations or environmental stimuli are a result of our mental conditioning. The extent to which our emotional intelligence is developed is also strongly dependent on our upbringing and how we were conditioned while growing up. This doesn’t necessarily mean that individuals cannot train themselves on various dimensions of emotional intelligence later in life.
Rahila explains this concept more in the excerpt.
Understanding EQ and IQ
To be able to function well in our personal and professional lives, there is a need to have a command over both, EQ and IQ. The question is what defines IQ and how does that differentiate from the EQ components.
Rahila, in this video, elaborates on the technical aspects of IQ, while explaining how emotional intelligence helps us with our ability to inspire, lead and manage effective relationships.
Hearing, Listening and Active Listening
To have a command over the four broad domains of EI discussed earlier, one of the most important traits is to ‘listen’ and not merely listen, but to ‘actively listen’. Active listening allows us to listen, process, reflect and respond at the same time. This is when we are able to be completely aware of the situation, empathise and inspire, which in turn help us to be thoroughly in control of our emotions and our present self.
How emotionally intelligent do you think you are?
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