Emotional Intelligence

What is Emotional Intelligence?

I like the definition given in the student handbook.

"The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” - Salovey and Mayer 1990

A simple way to describe it would be the ability to manage your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you.

How is EQ different to IQ?

At risk of sounding lazy googling 'differences between EQ and IQ' results in a pretty decent explanation of the two.

Your EQ refers to your emotional abilities and social skills, including cognitive empathy, emotional regulation, and motivation.

Your IQ measures your cognitive and intellectual skills, like working memory, analytical thinking, and knowledge retention.

Why is EQ important?

As discussed in the student handbook EQ is important in a much larger percentage of Top performers in the tech world than one might initially think. On top of the things listed in the handbook. A large part of what makes EQ important is being able to work with others and fit in with work cultures.

Something that stuck with me from my aviation days was. 'Air New Zealand doesnt want to change their roster because you dont get along with Dave'. Now this is a bit of a joke but it is true. If you are continuously having issues with coworkers or coworkers are continuously having issues with you you will likely have to move on, or at the very least have a bad stressful time.

Another quote is 'hire for fit, train for skill' which implies that EQ can be infact more important than IQ.