"Emotional intelligence is twice as important as technical skills or IQ in determining top management performance."
In 1990 two American psychologists, Dr. Peter Salovey and Dr. John Mayer, coined a term whose future fame was difficult to imagine. That term is 'emotional intelligence'.
Today, almost ten years after that 'presentation in society', few people in cultural, academic or business circles are unaware of the term or its meaning. And this is mainly due to the work of Daniel Goleman.
In the eighties, a precursor model of emotional intelligence (even without that explicit name) had been proposed by Reuven Bar-On, an Israeli psychologist. And in recent years, other theorists have developed variations on the same theory, for example, Dr. Hendrie Weisinger, with his interesting work 'Emotional intelligence at work'.
But it was Daniel Goleman, researcher and journalist for the New York Times, who brought the issue to the center of attention around the world, through his works 'Emotional intelligence' (1995) and 'Emotional intelligence in the company' (1999).
The new concept, thoroughly investigated in these works, bursts in with unusual vigor and shakes the categories established for the purpose of interpreting human behavior (and therefore of the sciences) that for centuries have dedicated themselves to unraveling it: call them psychology, education, sociology, anthropology, or others.
What is emotional intelligence?
On more than one occasion we have wondered what it is that determines that some people, regardless of their culture, social stratum or personal history, react to problems or challenges in an intelligent, creative and conciliatory way. Never before has it been considered to incorporate a concept as important or more important than IQ, such as emotional intelligence, into the analysis.
- Why do some people have more developed than others a special ability that allows them to relate well with others, even if they are not the ones that stand out the most for their intelligence? Why are some more capable than others to face setbacks, or overcome obstacles and see the difficulties of life differently?
The new concept that answers this and other questions is emotional intelligence, a skill that allows us to know and manage our own feelings, interpret or face the feelings of others, feel satisfied and be effective in life, at the same time as create mental habits that favor our own productivity.
Other skills that characterize emotional intelligence are: sufficient motivation and persistence in projects, resistance to frustrations, impulse control, mood regulation, development of empathy and stress management.
It is remarkable what progress has been made, in just ten years, in terms of emotional intelligence research in different areas of human endeavor: education, health, family and business. But before dwelling on the sphere of the latter, in order to better understand the importance of the subject, we must take a look at the extraordinary world - biological and psychological - of emotions.
The vast and mysterious world of emotions
Emotion is defined as a 'state of mind that is characterized by an organic shock, the product of feelings, ideas or memories, and which can be translated into gestures, attitudes, laughter, crying, etc. ”.
The word emotion comes from the Latin motere (to move). It is what makes us approach or move away from a certain person or circumstance. Therefore, emotion is a tendency to act, and it is frequently activated by some of our impressions recorded in the brain, or through cognitive thoughts, which causes a certain physiological state in the human body.
Charles Darwin was the first scientist to point out that emotions were originally developed to prepare animals for action, especially in an emergency situation.
Each emotion is linked to precise physiological elements: both breathing and muscle tone, heart rate, blood pressure, posture, movements and facial expressions.
The habitual physiological or muscular patterns begin to determine the moods by themselves.
The elements of an emotion are, then, three:
1) A situation, which generates feelings, ideas or memories.
2) The consequent state of mind.
3) The organic shock expressed in gestures, attitudes, laughter, crying…
When you say, 'So and so pissed me off,' you assume that the emotion is the direct result of an external event: what someone did. You become aware of the emotion, but not of the automatic interpretation of what happened. It is not possible to react directly to a certain event, except in dangerous circumstances; With this exception, before reacting to a fact we have to interpret it. Feelings do not arise until the mind has grasped what happened, and decided its meaning. That task is performed by the empirical mind, and it performs it so automatically that we are unaware that the mind is working. All we know is that we emotionally react to something that happened.
Cognitive therapists, such as Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and Donald Meichenbaum, therefore insist that in many circumstances it is thoughts that determine feelings.
But it is also true that most emotional responses are generated unconsciously. Freud was right when he described consciousness as the tip of the mental iceberg.
Non-emotionally charged events, such as thoughts, don't displace emotions as easily (wishing for anxiety and depression to go away is usually not enough for that to happen).
The power of emotions
When people look for situations such as going to the movies, to amusement parks, eating well, drinking or consuming drugs, what we are doing is looking for resources that trigger certain emotional states.
We have little control over our emotional reactions. Anyone who has tried to fake an emotion, or who has perceived this in others, knows that it is a useless task. The mind has little control over the emotions, and the emotions can overwhelm the consciousness.
Finally, when emotions appear, they become important motivators for future behaviors, influencing not only immediate reactions, but also future projections. But they can also cause problems. When fear turns into anxiety, when desire leads to ambition, when annoyance turns into anger, anger into hatred, friendship into envy, love into obsession, pleasure into vice, our emotions turn against us. Mental health is the product of emotional hygiene, and mental problems largely reflect emotional disorders. Obviously, then, emotions can have useful or pathological consequences.
The value of emotions
Our emotions can provide us with valuable information about ourselves, about other people, and about certain situations.
Having unloaded our bad moods on a co-worker can indicate that we are feeling overwhelmed by overwork. Feeling anxious about an upcoming exposure can be a sign that we need to better prepare our facts and figures. Frustration with a customer could indicate that we should find other ways to get the message across.
If we listen to the information that emotions provide us, we can modify our behaviors and thoughts in order to transform situations. In the case of the outburst of anger, for example, we could see the importance of taking measures to reduce our workload or to regulate the process of it.
As can be seen, emotions play an important role in the workplace. From anger to enthusiasm, from frustration to satisfaction, every day we face emotions - our own and others - at work. The key is to use our emotions wisely, which is precisely what we mean by emotional intelligence: deliberately making our emotions work for our own benefit, so that they help us control our behavior and our thoughts for better results..
Emotions define who we are, both from the point of view of our own mind and from the point of view of others.
- Could there be anything more important than understanding what makes us happy or angry, saddens us, scares us or delights us? Why is it often impossible for us to understand our emotions? Do we have control over them, or are they the ones that make us control us? Can we have unconscious emotional reactions and unconscious emotional memories? Can emotional memories be erased, or are they permanent?
All these are questions that this enormous current that emerged a few years ago, and that today we know as 'emotional intelligence', has tried to answer.
The nature of emotional intelligence
The term emotional intelligence is the human capacity to feel, understand, control and modify emotional states in oneself and in others. It describes complementary, but distinct, abilities of academic intelligence, the purely cognitive abilities measured by IQ. Many people of great intellectual preparation, but lack of emotional intelligence, end up working for people who have a lower IQ but higher emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is not stifling emotions, but directing and balancing them. Exercising emotional self-control does not mean denying or repressing true feelings. 'Bad' moods, for example, have their utility: anger, sadness and fear can be an intense source of motivation, especially when it arises from the desire to correct a situation of adversity, injustice or inequity. Shared sadness can bring people together. And the urge born of anxiety (as long as it's not overwhelming) can spur the creative spirit.
IQ determines what an executive knows, but emotional intelligence determines what he will do. The IQ is what allows you to enter an organization, but emotional intelligence is what allows you to grow in that organization and become a leader.
Each role involves a different pattern of emotional intelligence. For example, a person cannot be an effective salesperson if he lacks assertiveness and a tendency for sociability. But another person who lacks the tendency to focus on details and consistency in the task will not shine as a chemist.
