EQ Wins!

EQ Wins!

“There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread”, Mother Theresa

As business owners, we need to heed these powerful words. Emotionally intelligent leaders are able to evoke the best out of their staff and subsequently build profitable businesses.

Howard Book, in his work as an organisational consultant, was struck by the fact that many of the issues confronting firms that sought his advice had nothing to do with accounting or strategic planning or even budget sheets. Rather, they were the result of faulty communication, of people’s inability to understand how they and others functioned and of a failure to see matters from someone else’s perspective or grasp the impact of their own actions. He hadn’t yet heard the term emotional intelligence, (this was only defined in 1995), he was just aware of his own observations. When he did, he realised that the term emotional intelligence captured what he had been dealing with.

People are excited and relieved to receive confirmation of what they’ve instinctively known all along: that IQ needn’t be taken quite so seriously as before and that other factors are at least as important when it comes to success in life. In fact in order to take advantage of, and flex our cognitive intelligence to the maximum, we first need good emotional intelligence. Why? Because regardless of how brainy we are, if we turn others off with abrasive behaviour, are unaware of how we are presenting ourselves or cave in under minimal stress, no one will stick around long enough to notice our IQs!

Thomas Stanley’s book, The Millionaire Mind, included a survey that was taken of 733 multi-millionaires throughout the US. When asked to rate the factors (out of 30) that were most responsible for their success, the top five were:

Being honest with all people
Being well disciplined
Getting along with people
Having a supportive spouse
Working harder than most people
All five factors are reflections of emotional intelligence. Cognitive intelligence or IQ was only 21st on the list! And only endorsed by 20% of the millionaires!

Are you an emotionally intelligent leader?