What is Emotional Intelligence? Our last blog outlined leaders vs. managers… Now let’s focus on the universal trait that strong leaders possess: Emotional Intelligence or EI. EI is being aware of, identifying, reasoning with, understanding, and managing your own and others’ emotions.
Traditionally, companies have always based their promotion and hiring decisions on one’s seniority, education, experience, performance and technical abilities. All of these things are certainly important factors to consider when hiring or promoting. In theory, strictly using these parameters for hiring decisions makes perfect sense. In reality, experience & performance alone do not always make one qualified to lead others, fit into the company’s culture, share knowledge with others, finish tasks according to company goals, and in general, excel in a position. It is emotional intelligence that will enable a new hire or promoted employee to use their full potential, positively influence others … and lead.
It has been proven through numerous clinical and real-life studies that hiring employees with emotional intelligence leads to a happier workforce and a more successful organization. If you want to keep an eye out for emotional intelligence in your work place, pay attention to how your employees interact with one another. Facilitate clear communication, positive reinforcement of each other, and the sharing of information between employees. So, whether you are just taking a look at emotional intelligence for the first time or you’re looking to change your whole workforce by focusing on it, the easiest first step in improving your organizational culture through EI is to focus on seeking out this trait in new hires. You can simply shift interview questions from work-related experience to emotional intelligence by asking how they’d react in a stressful situation or how they relate to their co-workers in a given situation.
While technical ability is incredibly important for a company’s success, so is emotional intelligence. Elicit responses in interviews that determine one’s EI, promote EI in the workplace, and when you internally promote someone, think carefully about why you are promoting them – Is emotional intelligence a factor? For more information on emotional intelligence, other HR solutions, or how to improve your workplace … Call Ad-VANCE today!