Is CQ the new EQ?

Most people will agree that EQ—emotional intelligence—is a critical skill in work and in life. Now, we are starting to hear that we also need CQ—cultural intelligence—to navigate the diversity that is all around us.?

But why do we need CQ if we already have EQ??After all aren't self-awareness and empathy (building blocks of EQ) important to build better relationships with people from other cultures? Of course they are!?

So what’s with CQ? Is CQ trying to replace EQ? Can we directly jump to CQ and forget about EQ? In other words, is CQ the new EQ??

In this article, we attempt to bring some clarity in all this confusion to so you can decide which one you need the most.

CQ, EQ: Same, same but different

Imagine the following scenarios…?

• You were just appointed to lead a global team with members based in Brazil, Israel, Qatar, South Africa, and the Philippines.
• You are negotiating for the first time with clients in Japan.
• Your company just merged with an American multinational company.

Now imagine that you have spent years sharpening your EQ or emotional intelligence. You know how to regulate your emotions, and you feel confident that you can notice and work with the emotions of others. What would CQ bring to the table that EQ doesn’t already provide?

To understand the difference between EQ and CQ, we must first revisit how new forms of intelligence emerge.?

?

CQ and EQ, two forms of intelligence

In psychology, ‘intelligence’ refers to adaptability. It is the capability to learn and adapt to the needs and demands of specific situations and environments. In an earlier article , we described how EQ and CQ were born out this work through decades of rigorous scientific enquiry and research.?

One condition for a new intelligence to be accepted by the scientific community is to prove that it is distinct from already existing forms of intelligence.?As CQ came after EQ, CQ researchers had to demonstrate both theoretically—using logical reasoning and theoretical arguments (see below 'the theory')—and empirically—using measurement and data (see below 'the evidence')—that CQ is different from EQ.

They identified two important differences:

Difference 1: EQ and CQ are different forms of intelligence

The theory: EQ and CQ are different forms of intelligence.

EQ is the intelligence of emotional experiences that permits individuals to adapt to their own emotional experiences and to the emotional experiences of others. If you have high EQ, you demonstrate these four qualities:?

• Notice your own emotions—For example, when you can recognize that you feel sad, stressed or angry.
• Notice the emotions of others and empathize with them—For example, when you can recognize that others feel sad, stressed or angry, and you feel for them.
• Regulate your emotions—For example, when you can soothe yourself when feeling angry or stressed so you don’t lose your temper or burnout.
• Direct your emotions to achieve positive goals—For example, when you can channel your anger towards creating change.

CQ is the intelligence of cross-cultural situations that provides the qualities and skills needed to learn and adapt to situations where there is cultural diversity.?If you have high CQ, you demonstrate these four qualities:?

• Feel attracted to and motivated by cultural diversity—For example, when you prefer working with people who are different over those more similar to you.
• Know how cultures are similar and different—For example, when you can describe how to motivate people in a particular culture and how these strategies are similar and different from your own culture.?
• Think about culture when working with people from diverse backgrounds—For example, when you think of strategies to encourage more communication from team members with different cultural mode of communication.?
• Vary the way you behave and communicate with people from other cultures—For example, when you nuance your feedback to accommodate someone from a culture where communication is more indirect and relational.??

Now, that is in theory... If the theory is true, then we should be able to measure EQ and CQ. Not only that, but these measures should be distinct, that is, the measure used for EQ should measure EQ but not CQ, and vice versa.

The evidence: To date, many studies have proven that EQ and CQ, when measured as described above, are different qualities. The first test was conducted in the first research paper on CQ by Professors Soon Ang from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Linn Van Dyne from Michigan State University, USA, and their colleagues, published in 2007.

In that study, the research team established that CQ was distinct from EQ as well as other personal qualities including IQ, personality, and cross-cultural experience.

Difference 2: EQ and CQ work differently in different environments

The theory: EQ and CQ work differently in different environments.?

In its original formulation, the theory of emotional intelligence didn't specify the cultural context in which EQ would operate. By contrast, the theory of cultural intelligence specifically states that CQ applies to situations where there is cultural diversity. When speaking about emotions, the cultural context is important because most of us learn to recognize, express, and respond to emotions in the cultural environment that we are the most familiar with. This is our culture.??

In her 2022 book “Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions” Batja Merquita, Professor of Psychology at the University of Leuven in Belgium, argues that emotions are deeply social and that culture, through its role to structure our relations with others, profoundly shapes our emotional experiences. In other words, we may all feel the same emotions, but the situations that make us angry, happy, or sad; how we express these emotions; and how we respond when people show emotions, are not the same depending on if we grew up in Montreal, Marrakech, or Manilla.

Take anger for example. How do you know someone is angry in your culture? Generally speaking, most people can tell when someone is angry. The furrowed eyebrows, tense lips, clenched jaw, are recognized universally.?Yet, how we communicate anger depends on what our society considers acceptable. In expressive cultures, it is acceptable to raise our voice, or gesture energetically. In restrained cultures, these same behaviors are considered immature and inappropriate and people prefer to convey their displeasure more subtly.?

This means that a person with high EQ in one culture will not necessarily be emotionally intelligent in another culture because they may not recognize the emotional signals or interpret them correctly. CQ, on the other hand, provides the motivation, knowledge and skills to learn the new emotional rules and respond in culturally appropriate ways even when we know relatively little about the culture.?

The evidence:?Several studies have shown that CQ is critical in cross-cultural situations, beyond EQ.?The first study to do so was conducted by Thomas Rockstuhl from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, Stefan Seiler from the Swiss Military Academy at ETH Zurich, and their colleagues. They looked at two groups of military leaders: 1) commanders of Swiss battalions (culturally homogenous), and 2) commanders of international peacekeeping forces (culturally diverse). They measured their EQ and CQ and examined how EQ and CQ related to the commanders’ effectiveness as a leader as reported by the people under their command.

They found that in Swiss battalions (culturally homogenous), the commanders with high EQ scored 6% higher than those with low EQ in leadership effectiveness. Meanwhile, there was no difference in leadership effectiveness according to their CQ. In international battalions, the results were reversed. The commanders with high CQ scored 7% higher than those with low CQ in leadership effectiveness while EQ did not make a difference.?

CQ and EQ are better together

If you are familiar with CQ, you may have heard that “CQ picks up where EQ leaves off.” The key idea is that CQ complements EQ, rather than replaces it.?In theory, this makes sense and I have experienced it first hand in my early days working in China.

One day, the manager asked our small team of eight—all Chinese and myself (French)—to plan a teambuilding. He had suggested seeing a movie together and we were all trying to decide where to go and what to see. After a good 10 minutes of going around in circles, I started feeling impatient. What could be so hard about choosing a movie?

Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head: “Stop talking and watch!”?When I took a step back, it became clear that the decision could not be made.?In a culture where respect and deference to authority were valued and expected, no one wanted to make a decision that the boss might dislike. Yet nobody wanted to communicate this directly so everyone was patiently waiting for me to move on to the next topic.

Yet, I couldn’t see it. In my culture, people communicate directly and assertively, and they tend to worry less about making decisions that the boss might dislike. It is also relatively more acceptable to express impatience openly.?By pushing my colleagues for a decision, I was following my own cultural script–responding to my own frustration–instead of the cultural script that would have been appropriate in the Chinese context–to keep quiet and wait for the boss to get the hint that nobody wanted to make the decision.?

While the quality to notice and regulate my emotions may have come from EQ—or lack thereof—the ability to make sense of the situation and decide on the best course of action from a cultural perspective came from CQ.?

The evidence: The complementarity of EQ and CQ was demonstrated recently in a meta-study of more than 18,000 individuals by Christopher Schlaegel from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Nicole Franziska Richter from the University of Southern Denmark, and Vasyl Taras from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The researchers were interested in studying how EQ and CQ relate to things like job performance, international adjustment, job satisfaction, and expatriation intentions in international work environments. As expected by now, they found that CQ was a better predictor of these outcomes than EQ. However, that is not to say that EQ didn’t matter. In fact, they found that the effect of CQ adds on to EQ so that more benefits can be achieved by having both EQ and CQ.??

So, is CQ the new EQ??

As we tried to demonstrate above, EQ and CQ are two pieces of a puzzle that when put together provide the foundations for successful cross-cultural collaborations.??EQ provides you the tools to notice and manage emotions in collaborations. CQ brings the tools to apply your EQ to other cultural environments.?

EQ and CQ can work alone but they do better together.

That being said, life is short and resources are often limited, so which one should you first invest in for your team?

Well, it depends.?

If you were just appointed to lead a global team with members in every corner of the world; if you are negotiating with clients from cultures that you have little experience with; if your company just merged with a foreign partner, then learning CQ will almost certainly be a better choice to quickly bring you up-to-speed and facilitate adapting to these different communication styles, expectations, and cultures.

Of course, if you are already familiar with these cultures or if you are mostly dealing with people from your own cultural background, then brushing up on your EQ will certainly add value in creating deeper connections and more psychological safety.

Want to know how to develop CQ in your team? Please reach out.

If you liked this article, don’t keep it to yourself! Share it with someone who will find it useful :-)?

About the authors:

Dr. Catherine Wu is a teacher, trainer, and coach. She is passionate about sharing cultural intelligence with the world through speaking and writing. She holds a PhD from the Center for Leadership and Cultural Intelligence at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She is based in Singapore.

Karine Duranty is a cultural intelligence facilitator, coach, and trainer. With more than 20 years of corporate experience in export and international relations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, she helps teams and individuals thrive in multicultural and diverse environments. She is currently based in Dubai.

Together they join forces to help the world discover all that CQ has to offer.

Selected references:

Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., Koh, C., Ng, K. Y., Templer, K. J., Tay, C., & Chandrasekar, N. A. (2007). Cultural intelligence: Its measurement and effects on cultural judgment and decision making, cultural adaptation and task performance . Management and Organization Review, 3(3), 335-371.?

Rockstuhl, T., Seiler, S., Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., & Annen, H. (2011). Beyond general intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ): The role of cultural intelligence (CQ) on cross‐border leadership effectiveness in a globalized world . Journal of Social Issues, 67(4), 825-840.?

Schlaegel, C., Richter, N. F., & Taras, V. (2021). Cultural intelligence and work-related outcomes: A meta-analytic examination of joint effects and incremental predictive validity. Journal of World Business, 56(4), 101209.