The Dark Force of Emotional Intelligence

In some jobs, it is essential to be in touch with emotions. In others it can be a disadvantage if we cannot disconnect from other people's emotions. And like any competence, being able to understand our emotions and those of others can be used for good or for evil.

Many moments in world history were driven by personalities who dominated this characteristic, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler. They all recognized the power of emotions, it is true that they communicated in different styles, but they all captivated the intended audience.

Emotional intelligence is important, but the unbridled enthusiasm has obscured a dark force.

Recent evidences were documented by sociologists and psychologists showing that when people train and improve their emotional skills, they become better at manipulating others. When we are good at controlling our emotions, we can also be good at disguising them and if we know what others are feeling, we can pull their hearts out and motivate them to act against their own interests. Leaders who master emotions can rob us of our capacities to reason. If their values are out of step with our own, the results can be devastating.

There is a reflection that says that Hitler's persuasive impact came from his ability to express emotions strategically - he would “tear open his heart” - and those emotions affected his followers to the point that "they would stop thinking critically and just be moved".

The trend nowadays is to put almost all the non-cognitive qualities under the umbrella of emotional intelligence: Daniel Goleman mentioned the following characteristics as main key Emotional Intelligence qualities, like Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Motivation, Empathy, Social skills, however, there are other authors or researchers who still add another range of characteristics to this set.

Today psychologists community considers that Emotional Intelligence includes at least three skills: emotional awareness, or the ability to identify and name one’s own emotions; the ability to harness those emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes both regulating one’s own emotions when necessary and helping others to do the same.

The main problem is there is no validated psychometric test or scale for emotional intelligence as there is for the general intelligence factor—and many argue that emotional intelligence is therefore not an actual construct, but a way of describing interpersonal skills that go by other names.

Of course, people aren’t always using emotional intelligence for nefarious ends. More often than not, emotional skills are simply instrumental tools for goal accomplishment.

In settings where emotions aren’t running high, emotional intelligence may have hidden costs. Recently, psychologists Dana Joseph of the University of Central Florida and Daniel Newman of the University of Illinois comprehensively analyzed every study that has ever examined the link between emotional intelligence and job performance. Across hundreds of studies of thousands of employees in 191 different jobs, emotional intelligence wasn’t consistently linked with better performance. In jobs that required extensive attention to emotions, higher emotional intelligence translated into better performance. Salespeople, real-estate agents, call-center representatives, and counselors all excelled at their jobs when they knew how to read and regulate emotions—they were able to deal more effectively with stressful situations and provide service with a smile.

However, in jobs that involved fewer emotional demands, the results reversed. The more emotionally intelligent employees were, the lower their job performance. For mechanics, scientists, and accountants, emotional intelligence was a liability rather than an asset. Although more research is needed to unpack these results, one promising explanation is that these employees were paying attention to emotions when they should have been focusing on their tasks. If your job is to analyze data or repair cars, it can be quite distracting to read the facial expressions, vocal tones, and body languages of the people around you. In suggesting that emotional intelligence is critical in the workplace, perhaps we’ve put the cart before the horse.

So, when we are seeking for the hidden skills of iceberg theory we must take in account if they are really needed for the job or are we letting ourselves be led by the trending. Finally we must question our selves and infer what are the other part true motivations, (almost impossible to discover) because in most cases when we asked directly we will obtain a politically correct answer.

Alexandre Costa