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Emotional Intelligence has been a hot topic for some time now. To my mind, this focus on emotional intelligence is recognition that it isn’t just what you can do for your employer that is valuable, but rather how you do it. How you show up for your coworkers, your boss, your direct reports, your customers, your vendors.

I’m pulling heavily today from “Leading with Emotional Intelligence” by Reldan S. Nadler, Psy.D.

Let’s start with the difference between IQ (Intellectual Quotient) and EI (Emotional Intelligence). We’ll also introduce Technical Expertise into the mix – and how each of these play out as we progress through our chosen careers.

Here’s a definition of each: IQ “A number used to express the apparent relative intelligence of a person.”

Harvard Health Publishing defines EI as follows: “Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and regulate our own emotions, to recognize the emotions of other people and feel empathy toward them, and to use these abilities to communicate effectively and build healthy, productive relationships with others.”

Technical Expertise is “The capability to perform the duties of one's profession generally, or to perform a particular professional task, with skill of an acceptable quality.”

Research shows that as performers move up in their organizations, more of their success comes from leadership skills and EI than their IQ or technical acumen. We all know of people who were great at their lower-level jobs and so were promoted to a leadership role for which they had no experience, training, or natural ability. This often times is a source of job dissatisfaction.

In the book, “Leading with Emotional Intelligence,” the author provides an EI assessment. This assessment can be used on yourself, your direct reports, in 360 evaluations, and in establishing goals with your direct supervisor.

Here’s how I want to use this profile: As I describe the 20 facets of emotional intelligence, identify the 10 that are most important in your career and industry.

Next, think about how often you display that competency, on a scale of 1-10. 1 means you display that competency 10% of the time; a 5 would mean you display that competency 50% of the time, and so on. Feel free to stop and start the podcast so you can give some thought to each, or listen to this list multiple times.

Finally, identify just 1 of the competencies that you want to give particular attention to over the next 30 days. It could be one of your weaker ones that is very important to your career; it could be one you rated yourself fairly high on but want to display even more frequently.

Set some specific goals as to how you will improve that competency. Who do you need to speak to? What do you need to do? How will you measure success?

Note that these competencies are important to develop throughout your career. It is never too early to being consciously working on competencies…and it is never too late.

Here are those competencies (note that other experts will have a slightly different list):

The first three competencies fall under the general category of Self Awareness.

1.    Emotional Self-Awareness: Recognizing your feelings and how those feelings affect you in your job

2.    Accurate Self-Assessment: Recognizing your strengths and shortcomings and focusing on how to improve your shortcomings

3.    Confidence: Presenting yourself in an assured, forceful, impressive, and unhesitating manner

The next general category is Self-Management.

4.    Emotional Self-Control: Staying calm, unflappable, and clear-headed in high-stress situations

5.    Trustworthiness: Openly admitting your faults or mistakes and confronting unethical behavior

6.    Adaptability: Being comfortable with ambiguities and adapting to new challenges and situations

7.    Conscientiousness: Taking personal responsibility to make sure tasks are completed

8.    Achievement Orientation: Working through obstacles and taking risks to meet challenging goals and continually improving

9.    Initiative: Seizing or creating opportunities for the future

Next we have Social Awareness.

10.Empathy: Understanding others’ perspectives; being open to diversity

11.Organizational Awareness: Understanding the political forces and unspoken rules of work

12.Service Orientation: Being proactive about customer satisfaction and addressing underlying customer needs

The final category is Relationship Management.

13.Developing Others: Giving timely and constructive feedback and mentoring

14.Inspirational Leadership: Communicating a compelling vision and inspiring others to follow

15.Influence: Finding the right approach to build buy-in; developing a network of influential people

16.Change Catalyst: Leading change efforts and championing new initiatives

17.Communication: Effectively giving-and-taking with others; continually fine-tuning your messaging and delivery

18.Building Bonds: Building strong networks and using them for answers and support

19.Conflict Management: Understanding all sides and finding common ideals to endorse

20.Teamwork and Collaboration: Being encouraging; drawing others into an active commitment for the collective effort

In the spirit of full disclosure, I decided to take this assessment myself. Here are the 10 I believe are most important in my career as an entrepreneur and subject matter expert:

1.    Emotional Self-Awareness: Sometimes people say something negative about me or are critical of my work. It is important for me to give those comments the proper place without derailing me. 7

2.    Accurate Self-Assessment: This one goes hand-in-hand with Emotional Self-Awareness. Can I take feedback and make improvements? Am I in continuous improvement mode? 6

3.    Confidence: Confidence is essential as an entrepreneur. If I don’t believe in myself, how can I expect anyone else to? 9

4.    Emotional Self-Control: I live my business life on deadlines and manage multiple projects simultaneously. I have to remain calm and level-headed no matter what. 5

5.    Trustworthiness: I’m not perfect, and my clients need to know when I missed something or messed something up. 8

6.    Conscientiousness: This one is a particular challenge as I build my team; everything is still my responsibility, even if I’m not the one personally doing the task. 6

7.    Achievement Orientation: No matter what obstacles are in my way, I have to meet my goals. 9

8.    Empathy: I have to be able to listen to my clients and understand their concerns – while still relying on my expertise. It’s a delicate balance. 6

9.    Service Orientation: My clients know they can trust me to do what I say I’m going to do, when I say I’m going to do it. 8

10.Communication: As my team and clientele is growing, I am continually evolving my communication methods and tools. 7

Conscientiousness is the one I plan to work on for the next 30 days – and for the rest of 2022. As I grow my team and expand my business, I will keep a close eye on making sure all the systems and process I have in place or put in place serve a purpose of creating a delightful experience for my clients and my team members.

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