WFED410:

Lesson 03: Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (also known as EI or EQ) is critical to success in both work and life in general. The term itself implies both feeling and thought, with a focus on the importance of emotions as the first screen for all information received. Emotion is defined as “any agitation or disturbance of mind, feeling, passion; any vehement or excited mental state. “[1] In the article in which they introduced their model of emotional intelligence, Salovey and Mayer defined emotions as “organized responses, crossing the boundaries of many psychological systems…Emotions typically arise in response to an event, either internal or external, that has a positively or negatively valenced meaning for the individual.” [2] Daniel Goleman has defined emotion as follows: “I take emotion to refer to a feeling and its distinctive thoughts, psychological and biological states, and range of propensities to act.” [3] In general, theorists agree that emotions are a combination of pleasantness or unpleasantness and activation—high or low. For example, excitement is a combination of pleasantness and high activation; calmness is a combination of pleasantness and low activation.

A dictionary definition of intelligence is “the capacity to apprehend facts and propositions and their relations and to reason about them.”[4] As defined by David Wechsler, it is “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.”[5]

Popularized by Daniel Goleman,[6] the term “emotional intelligence” was actually coined by Salovey and Mayer in 1990. They defined it as “the subset of social intelligence that involves 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.” [7] They considered it to be part of individual capacity, a potential intelligence for achieving mastery, and initially described it as a three-component model: appraisal and expression of emotion, regulation of emotion, and utilization of emotion.

“The emotionally intelligent person…attends to emotion in the path toward growth. Emotional intelligence involves self-regulation appreciative of the fact that temporarily hurt feelings or emotional restraint is often necessary in the service of a greater objective.”[8]

Goleman describes emotional intelligence as a “master aptitude,”

To the degree that our emotions get in the way of or enhance our ability to think and plan, to pursue training for a distant goal, to solve problems and the like, they define the limits of our capacity to use our innate mental abilities, and so determine how we do in life. And to the degree to which we are motivated by feelings of enthusiasm and pleasure in what we do—or even by an optimal degree of anxiety—they propel us to accomplishment. It is in this sense that emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.”[9]

Although there are many different theories about emotional intelligence, most agree that this form of intelligence is not fixed genetically nor does it develop only in early childhood. Emotional intelligence seems to be largely learned and continues to develop as we go through life.

Much of Goleman’s work is focused on emotional competence, which he defines as “learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work.”[10] In his view, emotional intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills that are based in the emotional intelligence dimensions. Being high in emotional intelligence does not guarantee a person will have learned the emotional competencies that matter for work; it means only that the person has excellent potential to learn them.

That emotional awareness and regulation skills are important to contentment and achievement, and not always fully developed, is not a new concept. For example, Aristotle’s challenge, from The Nicomachean Ethics:

Anyone can get angry—that is easy—…but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.[11]

And, from the fourth lecture of Russian philosopher, Ouspensky,

“In reality we have much more power over negative emotions than we think, particularly when we already know how dangerous they are and how urgent is the struggle with them. But we find too many excuses for them, and swim in the seas of self-pity and selfishness, as the case may be, finding fault in everything except ourselves.” [12]