The value of emotional intelligence in business

We may understand the importance of managing emotions in our personal lives, but what about the applicability in business life? After all, business is about business and rational, logical information, right? Wrong! Many studies show that companies that focus on emotional intelligence outperform those that dismiss the ‘soft skills’ to focus only on the ‘hard facts and numbers’.

Google’s research into the dynamics required for effective teams found that who was on the team was less important than how the members of that team interact, structure their work and view their contributions. Google identified five key dynamics for effective teams:

1. psychological safety
2. dependability
3. structure and clarity
4. meaning
5. impact

Of those five, psychological safety was highlighted as the most crucial because this enables people to feel confident about admitting mistakes, asking questions or sharing new ideas. What’s interesting is that each of those traits relates to emotional intelligence much more than they relate to one’s objective ability to perform in a role.

• Read more: Four ways to improve psychological safety at work

Emotions drive motivation

A compilation of studies called The Business Case for Emotional Intelligence, by Rutgers University researcher Cary Cherniss, found repeated evidence that possession of such emotional competencies as cooperation, accurate self-assessment, optimism and the ability to handle stress led to greater productivity, job satisfaction or worker retention. This is supported by a study conducted at a Motorola manufacturing site, which found that after undergoing stress management and EQ training, employees were 93% more productive.

Research that studied 2,000 supervisors and managers shows that 14 of the 16 abilities that distinguished the high performers were directly related to emotional intelligence.

From the work of E. L. Thorndike on social intelligence in the 1920s to the pioneering work of Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence, the business world has seen evidence that emotions drive motivation, which in turn drives engagement of employees, which leads to quality and customer service. In the end, without positive emotions within an organisation, there is no way it will sustain high performance and success.

In Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998), Goleman defines emotional intelligence as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and also in our relationships”.

Four competencies are vital for emotional intelligence

• Self-awareness. This refers to knowing our own emotions and the effect they have on ourselves and others, as well as being confident in our abilities while knowing our limits. This includes awareness of how we charge and discharge emotions and knowing how we act under stress and in conflict situations.
• Self-management. This involves knowing how to manage our emotions, recognising our own triggers or ‘hot buttons’ and learning how to control disruptive impulses, as well as acting to manage our stress and handling of conflict.
• Social skills. This relates to our ability to listen, to influence and be persuasive, to engage in dialogue, to collaborate and to nurture relationships, as well as using our own states to influence the emotions of others.
• Empathy. This refers to the ability to be sensitive to other people’s needs, wants and interests and to be able to sense or read how others are feeling. Empathy also includes showing compassion.