The technical skills that helped secure your first promotion might not guarantee your next. If you aspire to be in a leadership role, there’s an emotional element you must consider. It’s what helps you successfully coach teams, manage stress, deliver feedback, and collaborate with others.
It’s called emotional intelligence, and it's one of the most sought-after interpersonal skills in the workplace. In fact, 71 percent of employers value emotional intelligence more than technical skills when evaluating candidates.
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DOWNLOAD NOWWhat Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you. The term was first coined in 1990 by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey but was later popularized by psychologist Daniel Goleman.
More than a decade ago, Goleman highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership, telling the Harvard Business Review, “The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but...they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions.”
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Over the years, emotional intelligence—also known as EQ—has evolved into a must-have skill. Research by EQ provider TalentSmart shows that it's the strongest predictor of performance, further illustrating why emotional intelligence is important. Employees with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to co-workers with empathy.
How to Identify a Lack of Emotional Intelligence
A lack of emotional intelligence skills often results in workplace conflicts and misunderstandings. This dynamic often stems from an inability to recognize or comprehend emotions.
One of the most common indicators of low emotional intelligence is difficulty managing and expressing emotions. You might struggle with acknowledging colleagues' concerns appropriately or wrestle with active listening.
Consider the relationships you have with your co-workers. Ask yourself:
- Are your conversations strained?
- Do you repeatedly blame others when projects don’t go as planned?
- Are you prone to outbursts?
These are all signs of a lack of emotional intelligence.
It's important to cultivate social skills by understanding and practicing empathy and the core components of emotional intelligence.
The Four Components of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is typically broken down into four core competencies:
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
To develop your emotional intelligence, it’s important to understand what each element entails. Here's a deeper dive into the four categories.
1. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is at the core of everything. It describes your ability to not only understand your strengths and weaknesses, but to recognize your emotions and their effect on you and your team’s performance.
According to research by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich, 95 percent of people think they’re self-aware, but only 10 to 15 percent actually are, and that can pose problems for your employees. Working with colleagues who aren’t self-aware can cut a team’s success in half and, according to Eurich’s research, lead to increased stress and decreased motivation.
To bring out the best in others, you first need to bring out the best in yourself, which is where self-awareness comes into play. One easy way to assess your self-awareness is by completing 360-degree feedback, in which you evaluate your performance and then match it up against the opinions of your boss, peers, and direct reports. Through this process, you’ll gain insights into your own behavior and discover how you’re perceived in the organization.
2. Self-Management
Self-management refers to the ability to manage your emotions, particularly in stressful situations, and maintain a positive outlook despite setbacks. Leaders who lack self-management tend to react and have a harder time keeping their impulses in check.
A reaction tends to be automatic. The more in tune you are with your emotional intelligence, however, the easier you can make the transition from reaction to response. It's important to pause, breathe, collect yourself, and do whatever it takes to manage your emotions—whether that means taking a walk or calling a friend—so that you can more appropriately and intentionally respond to stress and adversity.
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3. Social Awareness
While it’s important to understand and manage your emotions, you also need to know how to read a room. Social awareness describes your ability to recognize others’ emotions and the dynamics in play within your organization.
Leaders who excel in social awareness practice empathy. They strive to understand their colleagues’ feelings and perspectives, which enables them to communicate and collaborate more effectively with their peers.
Global leadership development firm DDI ranks empathy as the number one leadership skill, reporting that leaders who master empathy perform more than 40 percent higher in coaching, engaging others, and decision-making. In a separate study by the Center for Creative Leadership, researchers found that managers who show more empathy toward their direct reports are viewed as better performers by their bosses.
By communicating with empathy, you can better support your team, all while improving your individual performance.
4. Relationship Management
Relationship management refers to your ability to influence, coach, and mentor others, and resolve conflict effectively.
Some prefer to avoid conflict, but it’s important to properly address issues as they arise. Research shows that every unaddressed conflict can waste about eight hours of company time in gossip and other unproductive activities, putting a drain on resources and morale.
If you want to keep your team happy, you need to have those tough conversations. In a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 72 percent of employees ranked “respectful treatment of all employees at all levels” as the top factor in job satisfaction.
How to Strengthen Your Emotional Intelligence
As a leader, strengthening your emotional intelligence requires strong self-awareness. There are several ways you can develop self-awareness, including:
- Journaling: Record and reflect daily on how your emotions influenced your decision-making, interactions, and meetings—whether positive or negative—so you know what to repeat or avoid in the future.
- Undergo a 360-degree assessment: Actively seek feedback from your manager, colleagues, and peers while also undergoing an individual self-assessment. Comparing the results will surface any blindspots or leadership gaps.
- Practice active listening: Put away distractions, focus on what the speaker is saying, and show you’re engaged by paraphrasing and using non-verbal cues like nodding.
- Pay attention to your emotions: If you start feeling a particularly strong emotion, reflect on why you’re feeling that way and what prompted the strong emotional response. This will help you become more aware of your emotions and better understand your colleagues’ feelings and perspectives.
- Take an online course or training: Dive deeper into emotional intelligence through a flexible online program, such as HBS Online’s Leadership Principles course, which provides a 360-degree assessment to help you better understand your strengths and weaknesses.
These foundational steps in self-awareness and empathy are essential for building a robust emotional intelligence framework. They set the stage for a deeper exploration of the four core competencies crucial for effective leadership.
How Emotional Intelligence Can Make Leaders More Effective
Leaders set the tone of their organizations. If they lack emotional intelligence, it could have more far-reaching consequences, resulting in lower employee engagement and a higher turnover rate.
While you might excel at your job technically, if you can’t effectively communicate with your team or collaborate with others, those technical skills will get overlooked.
Emotional intelligence can enhance your ability to manage interpersonal relationships, which is crucial for fostering positive team dynamics, empathy, and effective collaboration. By mastering emotional intelligence, you can continue to advance your career and organization.
Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Download our free leadership e-book and explore our online course Leadership Principles to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.
This post was updated on June 11, 2024. It was originally published on April 3, 2019.
