why you must develop high emotional intelligence

Many people think that high IQ is a sole contributor to phenomenal success in the modern world. However, it has been found that people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. Research has shown that emotional intelligence (or EQ) is the critical factor — the missing ingredient if you will — that puts top performers and industry titans far ahead from the rest of the population.  

Intelligence and emotional intelligence are two different entities and there’s no connection between them. If someone is smart, it doesn’t mean that they’re emotionally intelligent as well. While intelligence is the natural ability to learn and apply knowledge and pretty much remains stable over a lifetime and doesn’t change, emotional intelligence represents a flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with consistent practice. In other words, you can develop high emotional intelligence even if you aren’t born with it.

Emotional intelligence, as it turns out, is a significant contributor to personal and professional success. It forms the foundation for critical skills such as stress tolerance, anger management, communication, decision-making, team work, assertiveness, change tolerance, customer service, and many more.

TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, resulting in 58 percent of success in all types of jobs.They report that 90 percent of top performers are also high in emotional intelligence, whereas only 20 percent of bottom performers are high in emotional intelligence. 

In addition, they reveal that in each and every job, performance and pay are closely related to emotional intelligence. Generally, people with a high EQ make more money—an average of $29,000 more per year than people with a low EQ. In fact, the association between emotional intelligence and earnings is so significant that every point increase in emotional intelligence adds $1,300 to an annual salary. This holds true across all industries and positions and in every country in the world.

At the end of the day, emotional intelligence holds more weight as it taps into a fundamental and deeper element of human behavior that is distinct from the intellect. And that’s why it’s crucial that you develop a high EQ if you truly desire extraordinary success both in your personal and professional life.

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