Fresh Thinking

4 When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the sole source of success — IQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply can't predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to learn, and it's the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren't born with it. TalentSmart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found: • Emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. • 90% of top performers have a high emotional intelligence. • On the flip side, 20% of bottom performers have a high emotional intelligence • On average, emotionally intelligent people make $29,000 more per year. Emotional intelligence affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results. Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen. Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behavior. Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on. Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the others' emotions to manage interactions successfully. Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed As you train your brain by repeatedly practicing new emotionally intelligent behaviors, your brain builds the pathways needed to make them into habits. Before long, you begin responding to your surroundings with emotional intelligence without even having to think about it. And just as your brain reinforces the use of new behaviors, the connections supporting old, destructive behaviors will die off as you learn to limit your use of them. Source: Coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Dr. Travis Bradberry. Read the full article and access his book, here.

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