Intellectual Intelligence (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to be successful in life. You probably know people who are very good in analytic thinking and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Emotional intelligence is needed for navigating the social complexities of the workplace and for influencing and motivating others.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) is the ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. There are various models, but they all include three important capabilities:

Perceiving Emotions: this includes sensitivity and observation of one's own state and nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions of others.

Understanding Emotions: this means interpreting the meaning and understanding the reason of the emotions, and understanding how the emotions influence our thinking and behavior.

Managing Emotions: this means being able to change our emotional states, and responding appropriately to the emotions of others in order to have a positive influence on their emotional states.

How to measure it?

The most effective way to measure EQ is a questionnaire filled by others, compared with one's own self-evaluation. HRO developed a multi-rater questionnaire called EQ SWOT, probably the most efficient EQ questionnaire in the industry, which takes fraction of the time needed compared to other instruments, yet accurate and provides powerful feedback.

How to develop it?

Reading a book or listening to an academic speech on Emotional Intelligence may be the needed first step, but it doesn't help much by itself. EQ can be developed the fastest in a group training with experiential exercises. It is crucial that the trainer has very high level of EQ, can "open the eyes" of others and can serve as a role model. It may make sense to combine the topic of Emotional Intelligence with other training such as Presentation, Negotiation, Leadership, Influencing Skills, Customer Service, etc in order to close competency gaps required by your business. Contact us for exploring how we can best help you.