Elevating your Influence with Emotional Intelligence

Think about all the “best boss I ever had” stories you’ve heard throughout your life. What are the common threads in them?

As you take inventory of what people say makes a great boss (including what you’ve encountered in your own experiences), I think you’ll find that these narratives rarely focus solely on someone’s business acumen or technological know-how. What stands out to most people who tell these stories is how their bosses relate to other people.

I’ve had a lot of bosses over the course of my professional life, but one experience in particular stands out. My first job out of college was as an engineer at Rolls-Royce, and somehow my first four years there passed and I had yet to even consider taking time off for a long vacation. Finally, my boss insisted that I get out of the office and go on one of the big international trips I’d been dreaming of. Honestly, I was darn good at my job, so my absence wouldn’t exactly benefit the company’s bottom line (at least not in the short term). But this boss recognized me as a human being with a unique personality and my own interests outside of work—and by relating to me on that level, he strengthened our connection as work colleagues1 .

Someone’s ability to inspire, encourage, and challenge employees can have a tremendous impact on how others perceive—and interact with—them. This ability is shaped in large part by that leader’s emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Defined

Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by emotional intelligence.

– Adam Grant

Before we dive into a big discussion of emotional intelligence, let’s establish what it is. One of the earliest definitions comes from Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, who offered a formal definition of the term in 1990: “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.”2

They weren’t necessarily describing something new, but they were among the first to put a name to it—and having a name made it a lot easier for other people to explore this topic and share their findings about it. People started thinking about how to apply emotional intelligence to various aspects of their lives, and before long researchers were shining a light on the role of emotional intelligence in the business world.

Then in 1995 science journalist Daniel Goleman published the landmark book? Emotional Intelligence , which drew a direct line between emotional intelligence and professional success.Over the past quarter century, Goleman’s work has done a lot to help the business world see the value of emotional intelligence. He’s such a leader in this field that if you’ve read anything about emotional intelligence before, I’d be astonished if Goleman’s research wasn’t at least mentioned in it. In fact, in the introduction to the tenth-anniversary edition of his seminal book, Goleman writes:

The phrase?emotional intelligence, or its casual shorthand?EQ, has become ubiquitous, showing up in settings as unlikely as the cartoon strips?Dilbert?(see below) and?Zippy the Pinhead?and in Roz Chast’s sequential art in?The New Yorker.?I’ve seen boxes of toys that claim to boost a child’s EQ; lovely personal ads sometimes trumpet it in those seeking prospective mates. I once found a quip about EQ printed on a shampoo bottle in my hotel room. And the concept has spread to the far corners of our planet.?EQ?has become a word recognized, I’m told, in languages as diverse as German and Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Malay.3

In one of his more recent works, Goleman offers a very succinct definition of emotional intelligence: “how leaders handle themselves and their relationships.”4 ??This perfectly encapsulates the key factors I want to address today.

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