5 reasons why you need to care about Emotional Intelligence (EQ) at work – particularly if you’re a leader (or aspiring leader)

Emotional Intelligence has increasingly been written about as an essential set of skills for successful leaders, but how many are committed to working on their EQ? And if you’re a leader, what’s in it for you? Here are some of the reasons you might want to brush up on your EQ skills if you’re not already doing so:

  1. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is now understood to be more important than IQ in predicting success of leaders and employees and is a key aspect in choice of the right person for the job. Looking for that promotion? Work on your EQ. 
  2. EQ is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs (TalentSmart)
  3. 90% of top performers have high EQ
  4. People with high EQ make $29.000 more annually than their low EQ counterparts. The link between emotional intelligence and earnings shows that every point increase in EQ adds $1300 to an annual salary (true for people in all industries, at all levels, in every region of the world, according to TalentSmart research). 
  5. Your emotional intelligence impacts almost everything you do and say each day. And the good news is that, unlike IQ, which is fixed, EQ can be developed and tends to improve as we age and gain experience. 

If you’d like to find out more about assessing and/or developing your emotional intelligence, contact me for a no-obligation chat today.