In the traditional sense, when hiring a candidate, we look for the brightest candidate and assume they are the best. We look at their education history and get an idea of their intelligence quotient (IQ). Candidates for a company come with the assumption that those with a high IQ will understand and process directions easily, have high performance output and even improve the company.

In today’s workforce, a candidate with a high IQ does not guarantee success in the workplace. Businesses are currently more interested in a high emotional quotient (EQ).

What is EQ?

An EQ measures the ability to recognize emotions in yourself and others and use that awareness to guide decisions. Why is a high EQ important in the workplace? Simply because we all have to work with other people. Management of interpersonal relationships, bouncing back from employment failures and natural leadership are some advantages of hiring people with a high EQ.

To check if applicants are self-aware and have self–regulation, we need to know a couple things.

• Are they capable of recognizing the intensity and handling of their emotions and know how to act on them appropriately?
• Is the candidate empathetic towards others? In other words, are they able to understand the feelings of another person?

Being self-aware, having self-regulation and empathy can influence job performance, relationships with coworkers and the wellbeing of others and ourselves.

Emotions and the Workplace

Emotions are a part of everyday life. They help us with communication and decision making. There are 3 important components of emotions.

• The subjective component relates to how we experience the emotions.
• The physiological component is how our body reacts to the emotion.
• The expressive component is how we behave in response to the emotion.

Where else besides inside our home, do these 3 components play a critical part in our daily interaction? Our jobs are a crucial place in recognizing and acting on emotions.

Emotions can spread unconsciously in groups. It’s comparable to a leak that has the potential to be a nuisance and possibly ruin relationships. To help improve an employee’s emotional quotient, which ultimately helps business, is to meet them where they are at and build from there. It’s important to acknowledge all emotions, the positive and negative feelings. Explaining or modeling how to express emotions appropriately is helpful. Paying attention to the emotions in your workplace may be the difference between success and failure for business.

Running an emotionally intelligent workplace isn’t achieved by just hiring emotionally intelligent people. It needs to be built and cultivated. Just as with training, emotional intelligence can be improved by heightening awareness and through emotional support. While IQ may get people the job, it’s the EQ that determines how quickly people are advanced and how well they function within their teams. Anymore, businesses are not just looking at how smart a candidate is but how well they can master and support their emotions.