15 Apr
14 Jun
You hopefully caught my last post overviewing emotional intelligence and professional success. It’s a complex and contentious topic, so even though many people seem to tout the big benefits of a high EQ, I’m still not convinced.
The idea of emotional intelligence, and the notion that such a thing could be quantified, is a very modern idea. It came out of nowhere, landed in an academic paper, and within a few decades it became a big buzzword. There is a good chance the theory of EQ is really more of a trend than anything, and an increasing number of very intelligent people are speaking up about EQ, suggesting it isn’t the magic metric so many have suggested it is.
When High EQ Hurts
For now, let’s continue to hypothesize that emotional intelligence is something to be concerned with. There are mountains of articles claiming that high EQ is an indicator for great professional success, and many of them are incredibly recent. For instance, in 2015 for Entrepreneur, Mariah Deleon goes back to EQ pioneer Daniel Goleman and his books, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ and Working with Emotional Intelligence. She reminds us that if we want to retain talent who will thrive in our organizations, we should “look for those who have a handle on (Goleman’s five pillars of emotional intelligence).”
Since EQ is lauded as such a savoury trait to discover in job candidates, one would suspect those in leadership roles would tend to have high EQ. Because it’s so beneficial, one would expect to find the population of high performing managers and top tier executives to possess a higher EQ compared to the general population. That doesn’t seem to be the case, however.
Travis Bradberry (whom I cited in my previous post) discusses some interesting findings in Forbes. It seems that those in leadership roles do have higher EQ, but only in middle management. Starting at directors and moving up the food chain, leaders have increasingly lower levels of emotional intelligence.
Bradberry reported that CEOs had the lowest average emotional intelligence, but he was quick to point out the top performers at every level averaged higher EQ scores than the poorest performers. He states that you may “get promoted with a low EQ, but you won’t outshine your high-EQ competition in your new role.”
I would like to point out that Bradberry is a proponent of the idea of emotional intelligence. A sort of expert, he has authored a book on the subject and has contributed many pieces on the topic to various magazines and blogs. I would also like to point out that there are very noteworthy outliers, as I mentioned in my previous post, such as Steve Jobs.
As with Jobs, it was his unbridled passion and obsession that helped lead to his success. These traits are contrary to a high emotional intelligence. Passion and obsession often seem to produce some fantastic outcomes that may not have come to fruition otherwise.
Also, I’d be curious as to whether a seemingly low EQ on the job is actually an absence of EQ. The drive and focus needed to perform at a high level could preclude the niceties that are a hallmark of emotional intelligence in the wild. These individuals may actually score very highly in a test of their EQ, even if they are unfriendly, coarse, and blunt in their workplace interactions. Taking the time for EQ-related refinements could have possibly hindered the results these people have been able to produce in their professional lives.
The Culture of EQ
The more I learn about emotional intelligence, the more it seems like a cultural construct. This is both true in the corporate world and society at large.
My previous experience working in different cultures, in a global sense, has made me question whether EQ is relevant in the workplace. I spent several years working in Asia, and it seemed that most organizations were very hierarchical and patriarchal, and in these businesses, many aspects of what makes up EQ are viewed as making one weak. Whether that view is correct is neither here nor there, but as these firms and their low EQ environments thrive, it makes emotional intelligence seem possibly irrelevant in the workplace.
The world is changing culturally, and people, particularly in developed western countries, can work where they feel most comfortable. We have choices and don’t have to work in environments we don’t enjoy or feel productive in. The seemingly very high EQ supervisors and middle managers may be simply adopting the cultural norms tied to the emotional intelligence trend to placate workers and retain talent. These managers need to be friendly and likable if employees are going to stick around.
However, for the highest performers and non-managerial staff, high EQ may not be the primary trait so many hold it up to be. We are a tolerant society and an advanced culture. We are capable of working and getting along with many kinds of people, even if they don’t easily fit in. Focusing on other features and talents first when assessing candidates may be the way to go, as the personality-related EQ pillars can be beneficial to workplace relations, but not necessary to success.
EQ may continue to gain ground because of the prominence of big business. I suspect that high EQ is of maximum benefit in large organisations because of the political nature of these environments.
Often success in a massive company is not about what you’ve achieved in these organisations, but how you get along with others while doing your part. These businesses will run with or without a single person, so sticking to the status quo, fitting in, and not causing a disruption adds to overall productivity. You are a cog, and if you are a well-liked cog you will stay in the machinery longer and maybe get a promotion or two along the way. In a smaller organisation, your accomplishments and contributions are more vital to overall success, so your personality and EQ are of lesser import. Because larger organisations dominate the conversation, EQ continues to get traction.
The Reality of EQ
If I posit that emotional intelligence is suppressed at will to focus on challenges and tied to culture (both in business and in a global sense), we have and chicken and the egg situation. Can a high EQ lead to success? Or is it that people who are culturally and politically attuned have a high EQ? Or is it that those who are the smartest and savviest know how to fake it?
To return to Adam Grant for The Atlantic, there is a dark side of this concept that’s been labelled emotional intelligence. As an example, the most electrifying, memorable, captivating public speakers of the past century had their audiences spellbound, in part by their words and in part by exercising elements of emotional intelligence at a high level. In a chilling comparison, one of these speakers is Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other is Adolf Hitler.
Wielding the elements of emotional intelligence and faking EQ is easy. Those who are bright and cunning (or psychopathic) can flip their EQ on like a light switch. Actually, we all know what to say and do when we have to in order to seem pleasant, likeable, kind, or compassionate, and most of us could use this in a manipulative fashion, if we’d like.
Many people are manipulative with EQ when it comes to testing. Again, most of us can look at these tests and ascertain how we should answer to do well on the evaluations, and do so. Steve Tobak’s Entrepreneur piece breaking down the hype around EQ says this: “Gaming the test is child’s play.”
Tobak points out another major issue with EQ testing in his article: it isn’t scientific. On top of this, if you recall my last post, no common consensus on whether any of the myriad testing methods are definitive, and the idea of what constitutes high EQ is still debateable.
The problems with emotional intelligence testing feels like the last straw. I wonder if EQ is a fad, and furthermore, is it even real? Or better yet, does it even matter?