By Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College
Virtually all jobs involve working with other people in some way—clients, colleagues, supervisors. Having an ability to get along with people and understand their point of view is clearly an asset. People who are emotionally intelligent are good at intuiting other people’s emotions based on subtle cues: facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice. They’re also better at working with people and getting them to want to work with them, which helps explain why they get more done and tend to earn higher salaries.
Challenging the Status Quo
Emotionally intelligent people are especially effective at challenging the status quo and helping make change happen in a positive and productive.
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School of Business, asked employees at a health care company to complete a test of their ability to regulate their emotions and asked their managers to evaluate their performance. Employees who were higher in emotional intelligence spoke up more often to raise concerns about company practices, such as gender equity. But they did so in a highly effective way.
They did not criticize and use anger, but spoke calmly and provided specific strategies for improvement. This approach avoided making senior leaders feel threatened or defensive, and probably led their ideas to receive more careful consideration.
Emotional Intelligence Beneficial in High-stress Jobs
Emotional intelligence is beneficial in all careers, but in high-stress jobs—doctors, firefighters, pilots—it may be especially valuable.
In 1978, a United Airlines plane trying to land at Portland, Oregon, experienced a major problem—the plane’s landing gear malfunctioned. The pilot aborted the landing and the plane circled the Portland area for the next hour while he tried to get the landing gear to work.
This pilot was known for being temperamental and domineering, leading the two other members of the flight crew to hesitate to offer their own insights, which could have led to another solution. But more importantly, the other two flight officers were ignored when they spoke up about another serious problem—fuel level. The plane eventually ran out of gas, crashing and killing ten people.
Team Players
This tragedy is a clear example of the importance of emotional intelligence—the value of managing emotions and staying calm and focused during intense stress. But it also illustrates something else that people high in emotional intelligence do well that really matters—work well on a team.
Perhaps if the pilot had been better able to manage his stress reaction about the landing gear, he would also have been better able to hear his crew members speaking up and identifying what they were seeing as dangerous low fuel levels. Perhaps the tragedy could have been averted.
Early findings about the link between emotional intelligence and career success led to an explosion of research in psychology about its broader benefits, personal and professional. After all, people who are high in emotional intelligence have closer relationships, including friendships and romantic relationships. Building close relationships involves being able to understand how other people are thinking and feeling, working through conflict, and feeling comfortable trusting and confiding.
This article comes directly from content in the video series Introduction to Psychology. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement
One of the most frequently researched topics is the link between emotional intelligence and academic achievement. In 2020, a comprehensive review of the strongest predictors of school performance, as measured by grades as well as standardized test scores, found that emotional intelligence, along with high intelligence and a conscientious personality, were the three factors most strongly linked with academic success.
This paper analyzed data from more than 160 studies, representing more than 42,000 students ranging in age from elementary school to college and from 27 countries. As the lead author of this study described, “It’s not enough to be smart and hardworking. Students must also be able to understand and manage their emotions to succeed at school.”
What explains this link between emotional intelligence and school success? Emotional intelligence is multifaceted, so the link is probably also multifaceted.
Managing Negative Emotions
Students who are better at managing negative emotions—anxiety, boredom, or disappointment—will be less likely to have such feelings interfere with their academic performance. Being better at managing social relationships with classmates and teachers may allow them to work better with a partner or in a small group and be comfortable asking a teacher for help when they don’t understand something.
And intrinsic motivation makes it easier to persist until one understands academic material, such as reading a novel and trying to imagine what a character is thinking or feeling.
The Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale
To get a sense of how emotional intelligence is rated, here’s a quick test, called the brief emotional intelligence scale, published in 2010. One can rate how much they agree with each of the following statements.
- I know why my emotions change.
- I easily recognize my emotions as I experience them.
- I can tell how people are feeling by listening to their tone of voice.
- By looking at their facial expressions, I recognize the emotions people are experiencing
- I seek out activities that make me happy.
- I have control over my emotions.
- I arrange events others enjoy.
- I help other people feel better when they are down.
- When I am in a positive mood, I am able to come up with new ideas.
- I use good moods to help myself keep trying in the face of obstacles.
This scale assesses five different components of emotional intelligence: understanding your own emotions, understanding other people’s emotions, regulating your own emotions, regulating other people’s emotions, and using positive emotions in a good way. Higher scores on this scale indicate higher overall emotional intelligence.
To conclude, one can clearly observe that people who are emotionally intelligent are good at handling negative emotions, social relationships, work better in groups and have intrinsic motivation to complete their tasks. These abilities are beneficial when it comes to their career and overall performance and enables them to enjoy personal and professional success.
Common Questions about the High Emotional Intelligence-Professional Success Link
Employees who are higher in emotional intelligence speak up more often to raise concerns about company practices, such as gender equity.
Emotional intelligence is beneficial in all careers, but in high stress jobs—doctors, firefighters, pilots—it may be especially valuable.
Intrinsic motivation makes it easier to persist until one understands academic material, such as reading a novel and trying to imagine what a character is thinking or feeling.
