I have a simple definition of emotional intelligence, and it is not the textbook one.
Making emotions work for you, instead of against you.
That is it. Everything else is detail.
The formal definition — the ability to identify, understand and manage emotions — is accurate, but it sounds like something that belongs in a diagnostic manual. The working definition is the one leaders actually use at four o'clock on a difficult afternoon.
Three capabilities, and why we over-invest in two of them
If we look at our capabilities as human beings, there are three categories.
- Cognitive: analytical and reasoning ability.
- Technical: accounting, engineering, medicine, law, whatever craft we trained in.
- Emotional: the ability to identify, understand and manage emotions — our own and other people's.
Every education system I know of invests heavily in the first two and almost nothing in the third. Then we promote people on the strength of the first two and are surprised when they struggle at a level where only the third matters.
The research has been clear on this for a long time. Studies of successful leaders and star performers consistently find they score higher on emotional capabilities than cognitive ones. Gerald Mount put it bluntly: emotional intelligence has roughly twice the power of IQ to predict performance, and it is a better predictor than skill, employee knowledge or expertise.
Daniel Goleman brought the term into the mainstream in 1995 and was the first to apply it seriously to business. Thirty years later, most organisations still treat it as the soft part of the agenda.
What low emotional intelligence actually costs
I ask executives to price this, because when it stays abstract nothing changes. The costs are real and most of them are already sitting in your budget, unlabelled:
- Time wasted in unresolved conflict.
- Potential locked away in people who never open up.
- Lost customers, lower market share, lower referral rates.
- Costs associated with stress-related illness.
- And the slow behavioural drift — people become more critical, aggressive, judgemental, closed-minded, impatient and inflexible.
That last one is the expensive one, because it is cultural. It spreads. And nobody puts it on a P&L.
A short detour through the brain
Professor Colin Blakemore of Oxford described the brain in three parts, and I find this framing useful for leaders because it explains something people experience but cannot name.
The thinking brain, the neocortex, governs technical and analytical ability. It grasps concepts and logic. It is the part we bring to the meeting.
The limbic brain, the emotional centre, regulates our emotional states and drives, our motivations, our needs, the extreme ends of passion — anger, aggression, love, affection.
And beneath both, the first brain, which handles autonomic function and asks nobody's permission.
Here is the point that matters. Under threat, the emotional centre responds before the thinking brain has finished reading the room. That is not a character flaw. That is architecture.
The good news is that our brains were designed for clarity of thought, analysis, expression and creativity. We do not need to install anything new. We need to stop drowning what is already there in a chemistry of chronic stress.
The five components
Goleman describes five components. I want to give each one the practice I actually use with clients, because knowing the list has never changed anyone's behaviour.
1. Self-awareness — understanding your moods, emotions and drives, and their effect on others.
The practice: in every situation you go through, ask yourself two questions. How am I feeling right now? And why?
That is the whole discipline. It looks too simple to be serious. Do it for thirty days and you will notice you have started catching the feeling before it becomes a sentence.
2. Self-regulation — the ability to control or direct disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgement and think before reacting. It includes self-control, trustworthiness and integrity, comfort with ambiguity, openness to change, and innovation.
The practice: write a list — an actual written list — of everything that helps you control your reaction to your negative triggers. Not in the moment. Now, while you are calm. In the moment you will not invent it.
3. Motivation — a passion to work for reasons beyond money or status, and pursuing goals with energy and persistence. Strong drive to achieve. Optimism in the face of failure. Commitment.
The practice: write down the ultimate goal. Read it daily. Motivation is not a mood you wait for; it is an attention you maintain.
4. Empathy — understanding the emotional make-up of other people, and skill in treating them according to their emotional reactions. It includes cross-cultural sensitivity, service to clients, and political awareness.
The practice: listen with the intention to understand the point from their perspective, without judgement. Then ask yourself the only question that matters: if I were that person, how would I feel?
5. Social skills — proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and the ability to find common ground and build rapport. Effectiveness in leading change. Persuasiveness. Expertise in building teams.
The practice: socialise, listen well, stay positive, be flexible, respect others, be patient, and find the common interest. There is no shortcut and there never was.
Can it be learned?
This is the question I am asked in every workshop, and usually by the person who most needs the answer to be yes.
Yes.
Some people have it as a natural talent. But the research supports something more useful: emotional competencies are not innate talents. They are learned capabilities that must be worked on and can be developed to achieve outstanding performance.
Goleman's own position is that we are born with a general emotional intelligence that determines our potential for learning emotional competencies. Potential, not outcome.
There is one condition, and it is non-negotiable. The individual has to be personally motivated. I have never once seen emotional intelligence improve in someone who was sent.
The helicopter
Of everything in this chapter, this is the practice people come back to me about years later.
What matters enormously is your ability to emotionally detach yourself from the challenge in front of you.
Think about your experience as if you were a helicopter — an observer from a distance. This idea will keep you from being chained to your negative emotions.
Try it properly, now, rather than agreeing with it and moving on.
Recall a specific conflict you had with someone. A stressful one. One where you were genuinely upset or worried, or where you did not know how to sleep that night.
Now detach. Become the helicopter, or the external observer watching a film of that moment. Assess the situation from that angle.
As an observer, can you follow the disagreement? Can you understand why the people in the clip are upset? Is the issue really as serious as it felt? Was it worth the energy that was spent on it?
Do you see a simple solution that neither person in the clip could see?
Then, and only then, you will feel — as an outsider — that the reactions could have been far less intense.
I am not asking you to become detached from your life. I am asking you to be able to step out of the frame at will, and then step back in.
Not all negative emotion is a problem
Is it necessary to have positive emotions all the time?
Not really.
Negative emotions are normal and healthy. They are triggers to think differently, to find creative solutions to our problems, to apply change and transformation to our lives. The leader who feels nothing uncomfortable is usually the leader who has stopped noticing.
The discipline is not to eliminate the emotion. It is to extract what it came to tell you.
A quiet moment for you
Reflect on the experience you just watched from the helicopter.
Is there a positive outcome you can now identify that you could not see at the time?
And what would have been different if, on that day, you had been able to rise five hundred feet before you answered?
Adapted from the Emotional Intelligence chapter of my book, "Take The Lead: 10 Disciplines To Get You Where You Want To Be In Business & In Life."
References: Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (1995); Gerald Mount, "The role of emotional intelligence in developing international business capability," in Druskat, Sala & Mount (Eds.), Linking Emotional Intelligence and Performance at Work (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), pp. 97–124; Colin Blakemore, University of Oxford.