Why is emotional intelligence (EI) so important, and how do we build it?

Why is emotional intelligence (EI) so important, and how do we build it?

People give Competitive Advantage
People, and your relationship with them, are what set you apart from the competition. Whether it is within an organisation, or with external clients, your ability to connect with others is your unique point of difference. When it comes to emotional intelligence, three decades of scientific and business research shows that overwhelmingly the value of EI is about developing and experiencing quality interpersonal relationships.

Emotions Help You Think
Every individual experiences emotions and they fill our daily lives – flowing over, into and influencing teams and organisations. Basic emotion theory posits that a trigger sits behind every emotion. The causes or triggers of these emotions provide essential data that helps individuals and leaders learn to work well with others, increase engagement with their work, build psychological safety in their organisation, manage stress, handle conflict and make fast and effective decisions.

Yet productively harnessing emotions takes a very high level of skill that many leaders do not have and are not taught. This skill is known as emotional intelligence.

“Far from interfering with rationality, the absence of emotion and feeling can break down rationality and make wise decision making almost impossible.”
 – A Damasio

While there are several different definitions of EI, Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey defined EI in 1990 as:

“The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.”

People high in EI are pro-social, create positive and respectful environments, have better overall psychological wellbeing, and have greater sensitivity and empathy. EI predicts high performance and is a critical skill set in business; a skillset that is essential in today’s fast-paced and increasingly disconnected world.

EI is Critical to Business Outcomes
The World Economic Forum placed Emotional Intelligence in the top ten skills required in the workplace in 2020.

1. Complex Problem Solving
2. Critical Thinking
3. Creativity
4. People Management
5. Coordinating with Others
6. Emotional Intelligence
7. Judgement and Decison Making
8. Service Orientation
9. Negotiation
10. Cognitive Flexibility

Reviewing the other skills in the list and knowing how emotions influence the brain and our cognitive processes, all ten skills are, in fact, linked to EI and it is critical to positive outcomes in these areas. This is why EI is such an essential skill for the future.

However, many people overestimate their abilities in this area, and this has a number of implications. For example, you may believe you are connecting with others and helping your staff to manage difficult situations, yet your team may see you as lacking empathy, or being ineffective in dealing with interpersonal conflict.

How You Feel Impacts How You Think
All emotions are plotted on two dimensions: energy and pleasantness. Next time someone asks how you are, take a moment to reflect on which of those two dimensions your emotions are currently sitting. This will help you match mood to the task.

High energy unpleasant emotion (e.g. frustration, anger, anxiety) can be very helpful. It can motivate you to fight injustice or analyse critically. High energy pleasant emotion (e.g. joy) can assist with creative planning or generating enthusiasm in others.

Low energy unpleasant emotion can help you focus on details and comfort others. Low energy pleasant emotion can support you in gaining agreement or self-reflection.

Yet if the emotion you are experiencing is not serving you in the moment, you can use one of your emotional management strategies to change your energy and the pleasantness of your emotion.

EI is a Set of Hard Skills
Rather than being a ‘soft skill’, EI is a set of essential skills, or abilities, that are teachable and measurable.

Developed by David Caruso himself, alongside other pioneers in the field of EI, Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Model suggests that EI is made up of the below four abilities. Each ability was discussed in detail during the webinar, yet in summary:

1. Perceiving emotions (accurately identifying your emotions and the emotions of others)
2. Using and leveraging emotions to facilitate thought (generating emotions to solve problems)
3. Understanding emotions (their causes and their changes)
4. Effectively managing emotions (integrating emotional data to make ideal decisions towards an outcome)

This model serves as an emotional blueprint for any situation i.e.

1. What emotions are you or others experiencing?
2. How are these emotions directing and influencing thinking?
3. What caused these emotions? How might these emotions change?
4. How will you manage your and others’ emotions?

Learning and practising these abilities is possible, and important, so while you can hire individuals who are high in EI, you can also build the EI abilities of those already within your organisation.

EI Supports Mental Health
There is a lot of research now linking EI and mental health. Training in EI is still being shown to improve wellbeing over interventions based solely on positive psychology, as EI focuses on ALL emotions. People high in EI cope better with the emotional demands of their life, which means they are more likely to improve in their psychological and physical health.

“Emotional intelligence isn’t a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. It’s a basic tool that, deployed with finesse, is the key to professional success.”
- Harvard Business Review

If you don’t have high levels of EI, don’t despair! You just need to work at it – like most things in life.

These were the questions posed in a recent webinar facilitated by world-renowned emotional intelligence experts, David Caruso and Sue Langley. David is co-founder of the world’s only abilities-based EI psychometric tool, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Sue is CEO of the Langley Group and is a global business consultant, researcher and leading advisor on the practical workplace applications of emotional intelligence, positive psychology and neuroscience.