Usefulness and Application of Emotional Intelligence in Developing Leaders and Impacting Organization’s Financial Performance
The corporate world has long recognized that the greatest and most effective leaders offer more than traditional intelligence, relevant experience and good business acumen. Many employee engagement surveys, such as Gallup’s and Sirota’s, have shown that bad managers are the major cause of employee disengagement and stress and have been shown to be major inhibitors of productivity and retention.
Indeed, countless “smart” leaders have fallen from grace in recent years, during a time when maintaining composure and keeping emotional reactions in check have never been more important.
EQ has become the new IQ – meaning that while IQ is important and may get you in the door, it is your EQ skills that will get you promoted.
What the Research is Telling us?
Kandidata Asia found in a study on Executive Derailment that 8 out of 9 reasons that leaders fail are due to lack of Emotional Intelligence
A recent global study of more than 500 organizations worlwide from HCI (Human Capital Institue) found that:
- Emotional Intelligence assessments are a cost effective and a very effective way to impact leadership development
- Incorporating Emotional Intelligence as a part of leadership coaching supports higher performance
- Using assessments to track or measure Emotional Intelligence helps support positive revenue growth rates.
- Emotional Intelligence remains an untapped resource for nearly 1 in 3 organizations.
While IQ is important, it is by no means a guarantee to success. As a matter of fact, a growing body of research suggests that Emotional Intelligence, measured by Emotional Quotient (EQi), is a better predictor of “success” than the more traditional measures of cognitive intelligence (IQ)
What is EQ?
Emotional Intelligence is not about being soft, emotional and nice. Rather, it is about being effective, and knowing how to communicate and work effectively. Emotional Intelligence reflects one’s ability to deal with daily challenges and it also includes internal skills necessary to manage and control oneself in different situations.
Since 1997 Kandidata Asia has used the EQi, a globally leading EQ assessment tool that accurately can both assess, predict and be used for developing performance.
The tool is based on over 20 years of research and has been independently validated by numerous research studies at leading Universities. The EQi is used by many major companies and government organisations around the world.
Studies have shown that a high EQ boosts career success, entrepreneurial potential and leadership. It is also the best antidote to work stress and it matters in every job — because all jobs involve dealing with people, and people with higher EQ are more rewarding to deal with.
While IQ is stable over life and hard to change, the good news is that EQ can increase with deliberate practice and training.
Can EQ be Developed?
Consider the following points:
- Your level of EQ is firm, but not rigid. Our ability to identify and manage our own and others’ emotions is fairly stable over time. Everyone can change, but it takes hard work.
- Good coaching programs do work. While no program can get someone from 0 to 100%, a well-designed coaching intervention can achieve improvements of 25% with up to 50% improvements for interpersonal skills.
- You can only improve if you get accurate feedback. While many ingredients are required for a good coaching program, the most important aspect of effective EQ-coaching is giving people accurate feedback.
- Thus, any intervention focused on increasing EQ must begin by helping people understand what their real strengths and weaknesses are.
Although fewer than 15% of organizations evaluate the effectiveness of their coaching initiatives, there is strong evidence that using reliable and valid assessment methods, such as EQ tests or 360-degree feedback, produces the best outcomes.
For example, a controlled experimental study of 1,361 global corporation managers showed that feedback-based coaching increased managers’ propensity to seek advice and improved their performance (as judged by their direct reports) one year later.
There are also studies that show that the ROI of developmental coaching is 6 times the cost of the coaching.
With the accumulated research and based on more than 15 years experience the conclusion is that most organizations would benefit by working on improving their collective EQ.