Stan Johnson graduated with high honors from an Ivy League MBA program. He was hired right out of school by a national health insurance company, where he quickly became a star sales executive. It was clear to everyone who knew Stan that he was extremely smart. Selling came naturally to him and within a few years he was the company’s top performer. He was soon promoted to senior account executive and given the most lucrative national accounts. He continued to outperform his peers and beat his annual sales targets.

Stan was next promoted to Director of National Accounts, with six account executives reporting to him. Some of his staff found him difficult to work for. They perceived him as self-centered and hotheaded, but they were all making large commissions so no one complained.

Stan’s superiors in the C-suite saw only that he was a standout performer, so when the Senior Vice President of Sales position went vacant, Stan was their man.

His promotion was not universally welcomed, however. Stan had by now alienated most of the staff of that department. He was brusque and moody, and made decisions without seeking input from others. He considered those who questioned him disloyal, and they soon found themselves sidelined with the less desirable accounts.

Sales staff now began complaining to those at the top. Some of the best account executives resigned and went to work for the company’s competitors. Sales dipped, and senior managers took notice. Stan resigned under pressure.

What went wrong? What could have derailed such a promising career?

The answer is that Stan possessed a high degree of traditional, or cognitive, intelligence (a high IQ), but was lacking in emotional intelligence (sometimes called EQ).

Researchers Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer define emotional intelligence as “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” In simple terms, it refers to being emotionally and socially well-adjusted.
Researchers are still debating what percent of success can be attributed to cognitive intelligence and what percent to emotional intelligence. What is undisputed, however, is that emotional intelligence plays a much greater role in a person’s success in their career and social life than psychologists used to recognize.
As an example, the U.S. Air Force found that one quarter of the recruiters they hired would wash out within seven months and have to be replaced. Hiring the wrong people for the job was costly and ineffective. So they tested a number of their most and least successful recruiters to determine the differences between the two groups. The highest performers significantly outscored the lowest on 14 out of 15 emotional intelligence competencies.

The Air Force took this information and invested less than $10,000 in emotional competence testing to find the right people to hire as recruiters. The subsequent improvement in hiring decisions led to a savings of $2.74 million per year.

There are many other examples like this in the literature of companies cutting costs and improving performance by either screening applicants or training employees for emotional competencies.

Emotional Intelligence Defined
Daniel Goleman, in his bestselling book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, divides the concept of emotional intelligence into four areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. These are defined below.

Self-awareness: the ability to recognize one’s emotions and their significance, and to use one’s “gut feelings” to guide decisions.
Emotions are bodily reactions to events, both in our environment and our thoughts. They are part of our survival response. In a sense emotions are like the gauges on a car—they tell us when things are going well or when there is a problem that needs attention. Ignoring one’s emotions can be as detrimental as ignoring the dashboard light that indicates your car is low on oil.
Emotions also serve to sear important learnings into our memory. You probably can’t remember what you had for dinner a week ago, but you might remember the time when you were six and burned your hand on the stove.
Emotionally intelligent people “listen” to their bodies and notice what they are feeling. They know the difference between a thought and a feeling. They know whether they are contented, mildly anxious, sad, irritable, or any number of subtle variations. They don’t try to deny or cover up their emotions, or blame what they feel on others. They accept how they feel and take responsibility for it.
Self-management: the ability to either control or adapt to one’s emotions and impulses, and make good choices either because of or in spite of them.
Self-management means not falling apart, but laboring on, when anxious about a coming event, or disappointed about a loss. It means resisting the urge to lash out unproductively at someone who angers you.
Self management encompasses frustration tolerance, or the ability to maintain one’s composure and level-headedness in the face of disappointment and setbacks. For example, when a person with good frustration tolerance fails an important college exam, they don’t wallow in self pity or curse the instructor. They seek information about where they went wrong, and form a corrective plan of action.
The ability to defer gratification, or to continue working for a goal where the rewards are in the future, is another quality of self-management. Some examples are the ability to engage in regular physical exercise, where the payoff comes later, and to avoid overeating, where the payoff is immediate but the cost is in the future. Time management is a subset of this ability.

Social awareness: the ability to recognize other people’s emotions, and to understand how one’s own actions affect others; to have empathy.
People low on social awareness are often described as being insensitive, uncaring, tactless, aloof, self-absorbed—the list could go on. Before we can connect with others on a meaningful level we have to be able to understand how they feel. This requires listening and observing, not rushing to judgment or to make your own point.
Nonverbal communication is a big part of social awareness. More socially aware people pay attention to how a person says something, not just what they say. They “put themselves in the other person’s shoes” and ask “How would I feel in that situation?” They are also aware of how their own actions might affect others.
Relationship management: the ability to have a positive effect on others’ emotions; for example, to inspire, encourage, lift up, support, influence, cooperate with, and calm people.
The three preceding abilities all come together and have a bearing on relationship management, or how we relate to others. This is the pinnacle of emotional intelligence.
People who are skillful at relationship management make others feel good. Hence people want to associate with them. They are seen as caring, upbeat, and accepting of others. They are respectful, even when disagreeing with or confronting someone. In short, they treat others like they would like to be treated themselves.

Steps to Improve Your Emotional Competencies
Research suggests that there is an inherited component to emotional intelligence, just as there is to cognitive intelligence. Some people are born with a higher EQ than others. The best word to describe this innate talent is temperament.
But there is also a significant learned component. We can all increase our EQ through skill-building practices. Following are some suggestions for how you might begin to do this.
Notice and name what you are feeling. Pay attention to your feelings. Don’t run from them. Label your emotions rather than labeling people or situations. For example, “I feel frustrated,” rather than “You are a pain in the…elbow.”
Use your feelings to help you make decisions. Ask yourself, “How will I feel if I do this?” “How will I feel if I don’t?” “How will others feel?” However, feelings are just one component of good decision making. They should not be the only factor.
Take more ownership of how you feel. You can’t always control what goes on around you, but you can control what you think and how you respond to those events.
Our thoughts are a major determinant of our feelings. For example, if you make a mistake and think “I am a failure,” you will likely feel depressed and demoralized. On the other hand, if you think, “I messed up; I need to figure out the best way to fix it,” you will feel more self-respect. Choose constructive thoughts, not self-defeating ones.
Increase your use of intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside yourself, such as money, praise, and sensory pleasures like eating. But it is not always available or dependable. Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside, and hence you are in the driver’s seat. It includes the pride and pleasure of knowing that you have done a good job, or the right thing, or that your efforts will pay off big time later (say, a college degree). To the extent you learn to motivate yourself intrinsically, you will be much more effective at self-management.
Ask people how they feel, then listen and observe. If you want to improve your social awareness, practice asking people how they feel about an issue, then suspend any inclination to advise, criticize, or judge. Just listen, observe, and seek to understand.
Reflect and validate people’s feelings. Continuing the preceding exercise, once you think you understand how the person feels, reflect back what you have understood. For example, “it sounds like you were feeling hurt and ignored.” This validates to them that they have been heard accurately.
Consider other people’s feelings before making decisions. Ask yourself how the other persons involved are likely to feel about an action you are considering. Then ask them how they feel. Even if you ultimately decide you must act against their wishes, you will have given them the respect of being heard.
Choose positive language. There are many more negative than positive words and phrases in English. Did you ever hear of someone being sheveled, combobulated, pecunious? Ever hear of people who are great shakes, are your cup of tea, are spring chickens? Someone you would touch with a ten-foot pole?
It’s easy to fall into negative habits of thinking and speaking, but no one enjoys being around a gloomy gus. Improve your relationship management skills by nipping the negative in the bud. Look for the hope in any situation. Find the best in people. Cultivate a positive sense of humor; that is, humor that is aimed at making people feel good, not at showing your own cleverness.
If you begin to practice some of these habits, you may soon find yourself getting more respect from people, accomplishing more of your goals, and eventually even moving ahead in your career.

Dr. Jeff Van Pelt is a corporate wellness consultan.t