Emotional Intelligence (EI)

We all know about IQ (Intelligent Quotient) which is a measure of a person’s reasoning ability and SQ (Social Quotient) which refers to a person’s ability to understand and manage interpersonal relationships. Nowadays, another critical category called Emotional intelligence (EI) plays a vital role in this stressful personal, social and professional life.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) or Emotional Quotient (EQ) refers to the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you in positive ways to relieve stress and communicate effectively. The major emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, trust, distrust, anticipation, etc. Emotional Intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at work, and achieve your professional and personal goals. Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, and author of the New York Times (bestseller of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence) introduced a framework of five components of emotional intelligence. Building emotional intelligence needs to increase those five components of EI within us. The five components are:

1. Self-awareness – Knowing one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and goals—and their impacts on others
2. Self-regulation – Controlling or redirecting disruptive emotions and impulses
3. Motivation – Being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement
4. Empathy – Considering others’ feelings, especially when making decisions
5. Social skill – To communicate effectively with the public domain

• Self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation are personal skills (with self).
• Empathy and social skills are interpersonal skills (with others).
• Empathy is one of the essential qualities of successful leaders as it influences others (Influencing skill).
• Research indicates that even if you have less IQ (say 20%), but more EI/EQ (say 80%) then you can succeed in life. 

Being EI is very critical in stressful human life, the organizations should provide EI workshops to their employees to create a better ambiance and increase productivity. Moreover, universities, educational institutions, colleges, and schools also should include EI as one of the topics in their curriculum – both theory and real-time practice.