Importance of Emotional Quotient vs Intelligence Quotient

Intelligence Quotient is normally referred to establish how intelligent we are. The moment someone is said to have high IQ, it is assumed that he/she is a person blessed with high intellectual prowess and so the person is supposed to have higher ability to reason and tackle logic. But how helpful is high IQ in order to succeed in life?

If we know what to do in a particular situation but can’t do it because of fear, uncertainty, lack of conviction, commitment or any other reason? What is the use of your knowledge here, if you can’t move ahead? Many times you see that someone has a superior intellect but he/she can’t get along with people in his/her office or not even with their family members.  Management Gurus quote the example of chess master Bobby Fisher, who had an extremely high IQ of the level of 187 compared to the 160 of Albert Einstein. Yet, if you look at the personal and social life of Bob Fisher, he can’t be considered as a happy man as he had a lot many troubles with a lot many people and even the governments because of his inferior social skills.

Just like IQ (Intelligence Quotient), there is another very important aspect of a human being, and that is his/her EQ (Emotional Quotient), which measures the ability to use, comprehend, and control our emotions in positive and productive ways. EQ has mainly five dimensions:

1. Self Awareness: It implies the ability to be aware of what you feel and how you feel about various things in life.   

2. Self Management: It is the ability to manage one’s emotions and impulses. How we react or respond to different types of triggers in our day to day life?

3. Self Motivation: It is the ability to motivate yourself and persist in the face of failures, obstacles and setbacks.

4. Empathy: It is the ability to sense the feelings of others. It is the ability to put yourself in the others’ shoes and then see things from their perspective.

5. Social Skills: It is the ability to understand the emotions of others and handle them in a socially acceptable, decent manner to create a conducive environment around you.

Although Bobby Fisher may be considered a giant as far as the IQ part is concerned and as a great chess player the world ever produced, yet he was a dwarf, he was a failure among the emotionally and socially well-adjusted people of his times.

There is a saying,

“A high IQ guarantees your success in School while a high EQ guarantees your success in Life.”

Another difference between EQ and IQ is that we can always increase our EQ, but our IQ, more or less, remains constant as we mature.

“Anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, this is not easy.”
                                                - Aristotle 384 BC-322 BC

What a great understanding about ‘Anger’? Eliminating Anger totally is very rare. The Indian history is full of references where the highest level of sages and ‘Rishis’ used to get fits of anger. At times, you have to just demonstrate ‘Anger’ to a person at office or at home, though at heart you may be actually ‘Cool’. Aristotle says that ‘This is not easy’ but it is not very difficult also if practiced with patience and resolve over a period of time. One should be able to set your internal thermostat of anger as per your will and completely switch it off as per your will. The best is to avoid anger all together. Be cheerful, keep smiling. Controlled anger is not that bad but uncontrolled anger is the worst enemy of man.

Daniel Goleman wrote “Emotional-intelligence-based capabilities are twice as important for star performance as IQ and technical skills combined.”  He further wrote, “If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.”

Today, in the net connected world, people are armed with smart phones, tablets and phablets and therefore are virtually on duty almost 24 hrs. Pay packets have increased and so are the danger of losing a job and that has caused insurmountable anxiety, stress and uncertainty in our lives. The philosophy of ‘Survival of the Fittest’ in the corporate world at times creates unhealthy competition and makes people irritable and introduces friction among colleagues in the same organization/department. So, it is expected that in addition to coping with their heavy workload, employees in an organization must try to win the cooperation of their team mates also to lead a balanced and happy life. They should try to cultivate a culture of mutual appreciation and collaboration rather than criticism and collision. And this will be possible by the employees with higher EQ and not necessarily with high IQ.

Benefits of emotional intelligence, lead to achievement of excellence. This in turn leads to increasing productivity and therefore profitability and also harmony in the workplace. It is believed that sales people with higher emotional intelligence become better sales persons. Managers with higher EQ are comparatively better managers and the turnover of their staff is comparatively much less in their departments.

Here are seven skills considered to be most essential for the emotionally intelligent people and my suggestion is that you give a thought minutely to each one of them so that you try to focus on the ones where you may be lacking a bit:

1. Ability to be flexible.
2. Ability to be optimistic.
3. Ability to be empathetic.
4. Ability to resolve conflicts.
5. Ability to use humour to lessen stress.
6. Ability to recognize and manage one’s emotions.
7. Ability to connect with others using non verbal communications.

If we are able to cultivate the above mentioned skills, our EQ will definitely improve that means our ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions will go up. It is strongly believed that we can win people, we can win their hearts and we can win their confidence without being aggressive or intimidating through emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence can become our key to success whatever we want to do in our life. I am of the strong opinion that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while there are some who claim that it is an inborn characteristic. A number of testing instruments have been developed to measure emotional intelligence, although the content and approach of each test varies. You can go to Google and try some of the tests to check your EQ and take appropriate actions thereafter.