Four Key Benefits of Developing Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is now widely recognised as a key determinant of our professional success, particularly in the areas of leadership and management.  Our EQ is also a key factor in helping us in our personal lives as well, through the development of our resilience and wellbeing.

We tend to be more familiar with the concept of our intellectual quotient (IQ) which relates to our ability to learn; to use knowledge, reasoning and logic to answer questions and make predictions. High IQ is a strong predictor of academic success , which is why most people practising in the professions will have above average IQ.

Our EQ is a more intangible concept and is a measure of our ability to recognise and understand emotions in ourselves and others, and of our ability to use this awareness to manage our behaviour and relationships with others. High EQ is a predictor of a much broader range of success factors including in business, financial and relationship contexts.

So what benefits can be achieved through developing our EQ?

Improved self-awareness

Our EQ helps us gain a better understanding of the emotions and moods we are experiencing, and it guides us as to what is driving these emotions.  For instance someone with high EQ would be able to distinguish between feelings of anger, frustration or anxiety, whereas someone with a lower EQ might just identify they were feeling down. With a better understanding of our emotions, we can then determine what might have caused such feelings and consider what we can then do to help manage them.  EQ also provides us with insight into our strengths and limitations and thereby helps us leverage those strengths and mitigate the impact of our weaknesses.  EQ also helps us understand our values (both in terms of our careers but also in terms of our personal lives and the people we choose to spend our lives with) and what is important to us, which again can help us in our decision-making.

Enhanced relationships

Our EQ enhances our ability to understand and empathise with other peoples’ emotions, appreciate what is causing their emotions and adapt our behaviour accordingly. For instance someone with a high EQ would recognise when a colleague or client who is normally outgoing or extrovert was behaving in a more withdrawn manner and would enquire appropriately about how the other person was feeling.  This can help strengthen the relationship between the two parties as it demonstrates to the colleague or client that the person knew them well enough and cared enough about them to enquire about their wellbeing.

Effective leadership

Effective leaders are able to motivate and inspire their team members to achieve personal and business goals.  The leader will achieve this through using their EQ to gain a clear understanding of their team members’ personal motivators at any particular point in time. The high EQ leader will invest the time in getting to understand their team members’ emotional needs through enquiry, observation, listening to them and trying things out with them to see how they respond.  In return they will usually be rewarded by higher levels of performance and commitment from their team members.

Improved resilience and wellbeing

Through well-developed EQ we are able to deal more effectively with the challenges, pressures and setbacks we encounter in our professional and personal lives.  Our EQ enables us to evolve helpful thinking patterns in addressing our emotional reactions to such difficult situations and thereby encourage the adoption of assertive behaviours as opposed to unhelpful passive or aggressive behaviours.  Higher levels of EQ encourage a growth mindset, self-reflection and the ability to learn from both success and failure, all of which lead to improved mental resilience and emotional wellbeing.

At the 3Qhub Summer Conference ‘Developing Your Emotional Intelligence’ on 6 July 2023, we have engaged a panel of expert speakers who will provide delegates with a comprehensive understanding of emotional intelligence (EQ) and offer practical techniques for building and applying EQ in their personal and professional lives.

It will also give them the opportunity to network with other managers and learn from their respective experiences.

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