Some people may not agree with the statement that “Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is more important than Intellectual Intelligence.” (IQ) The truth is EQ is more important. EQ is the general assessment of an individual’s ability to control emotions, sense, understand and react to others emotions and manage relationships. Low EQ can be bad for business so many companies are starting to assess an employee’s ability to manage their emotions.

Think about your average day. You get up; you have a million things on your mind from the personal and mundane to business and big decisions. You may wake up in a calm state but you know once you get in the car and start your commute, all bets are off! Change has the biggest impact on your EQ regardless of what your natural behavioral style is. The change could be something as simple as the car in the lane beside you starts to drift over into your lane or perhaps you received a disturbing phone call while you are in the middle of another task. EQ sets the stage for what motivates a person which then sets the stage for a person’s behavioral style.

Your brain is already doing things before you are cognitively aware of fight or flight. What you can do to warn off the immediate fire going to your brain is use a process to slow your brain down so you can decide what outcome you want.

A 2006 CareerBuilder survey showed that 71% of companies surveyed valued emotional intelligence in an employee more than IQ. Some of the reasons they gave for placing a higher value on EQ was:

• Employees with high EQ will stay clam under pressure
• Employees with high EQ are more empathetic to their team members
• Employees with high EQ tend to make more thoughtful business decisions

The next time you feel yourself start to react to a situation remember STARR.

Stop – Think – Assess – Respond and Review. This process will start to slow your brain down so you can decide what outcome you want out of the situation. Eventually you will be able to predict and prepare how you will respond to any personal or professional situation.

If you would like to know more about EQ and how it can enhance your teams and company, give us a call. We are experts with small to medium sized businesses.