Class of 2013: Emotional Intelligence Matters
Daniel Goleman
Director of Daniel Goleman Emotional Intelligence Online Courses and Senior Consultant at Goleman Consulting Group
Here’s a bit of heresy to send you on your way in life. You’ve been told throughout your academic years that your grades and your IQ are crucial for life success. That’s not the whole truth.
Your intellect does matter – to an extent. It determines what kind of job you can hold – how much cognitive complexity you can handle. You need an IQ of roughly 110-115 to be a professional or a top executive.
But after you are in that position, your intellect has little to do with how successful you will be, or whether you will emerge as a leader. The reason is what’s called the “floor effect”: everyone else you are competing with is about as smart as you are.
Once you’re in your job, what will matter more for success is how you manage yourself and handle your relationships. That’s called emotional intelligence.
When companies do analyses of the specific competencies that make people their star performers, they generally find that emotional intelligence-based abilities matter more than those based on intellect. Technical and reasoning skills are mainly threshold abilities – what you need to get and keep the job.
But your self-discipline and drive, resilience and achieving goals, empathy and communication skills, collaboration and teamwork, are among the emotional intelligence-based competencies that distinguish star performers from average.
So as you continue on in life, pay attention to the human side of your game. And good luck.
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Emotional Intelligence author, Daniel Goleman lectures frequently to business audiences, professional groups and on college campuses. A psychologist who for many years reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times, Dr. Goleman previously was a visiting faculty member at Harvard.
Dr. Goleman’s most recent books are The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights and Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence – Selected Writings. (More Than Sound). Goleman’s latest project, Leadership: A Master Class, is his first-ever comprehensive video series that examines the best practices of top-performing executives.
VP, Growth Strategy, Veradigm Payer
10 年Emotional intelligence is a highly underrated and undervalued skill set. Great article.
Career & Professional Development Specialist
10 年Thanks for the feedback on my comments regarding EQ. It inspired me to write a new entry on my blog, "Why Your EQ Matters More Than Your IQ," can be read here: https://www.thegrowthtree.blogspot.com/2014/04/why-your-eq-matters-more-than-your-iq.html
We help you get from where you are - to where you want to be.
10 年Wondering if any universities offer courses in EI? It can be taught and developed, if practiced. What a great opportunity for college students if it were required in the core curriculum! Thoughts?
Principal at Wilbur Watts Intermediate School The things I do for my school! I’m an “Animal!”
10 年I couldn't agree more! I would go so far as to say that Colleges & Universities should look at E.I. more and standardized test scores less ( especially for Grad School level).
Principal Partner:AIA Professional Services (Governance, Regulatory & Compliance Services)
10 年The human side of life is emotional intelligence while the technical side is the intelligence quotient. We have given this several names, such as attitude, Personalty, interpersonal relationship, etc, etc. In my opinion, this is all about having a clear understanding and ability to manage things like Anger, Greed, Fear, Insecurity, Intolerance and many others that can do and undo a person aspiring to leadership.