Emotional intelligence: Your secret weapon at work

A satisfying, successful career can go a long way to a satisfying life. However, success is purely subjective – it’s different for all of us. For some, it’s defined by the size of their salary, while others see money as essential but not quite as important as the work itself – like a belief that there’s meaning behind what we do, motivation through overcoming challenges, or a sense of team spirit with colleagues.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a relatively contemporary way to measure a person’s potential aptitude. And more and more it’s being looked at in tandem, becoming just as important as traditional intelligence (or IQ) as a tool to harness and thrive in the modern workplace. It doesn’t matter whether you find fulfilment in your working life by a personal connection to your work or by counting the digits in your pay packet – or even both. Emotional intelligence is the tool you can use to achieve it all.

Put simply, EI is someone’s ability to understand, express and manage emotion – whether those emotions are their own or another person’s, for example, a colleague’s in the workplace.

EI is your self-awareness – knowing your emotions and motivations – combined with skills in understanding what motivates others. This explanation is a summary, but if you want to look a little deeper, there are five key elements that, when combined, make up emotional intelligence.

1. Self-awareness: the ability to recognise and understand your moods and emotions, and how they affect others.
2. Emotional regulation: the ability to control impulses and moods, what you do and don’t react to.
3. Empathy: recognising and understanding other’s motivations and emotions.
4. Strong communication: clear and effective communication.
5. Social skills: developing strong relationships with all people at work.

Whatever motivates you in the workplace – whether it’s career progression, a unique type of professional fulfilment, or a combination of the two – working on your EI can help you progress.

EI is ranked sixth in the World Economic Forum’s list of the top 10 skills that employees will need to possess to thrive in the workplace of the future, while another study found that human desire for like-minded others is hardwired into us.

With these studies pointing to a growing awareness of the topic, developing your EI is becoming ever more critical for your career progression. The most valuable employees of the future are the ones who can work collaboratively. EI will also fulfil not only your obligations as a member in a modern team, one that’s agile with a shared workload, but will also provide intangible benefits like answering the call of your human need to work closely with other people you relate to.

The real leaders that I have met through my work as a recruitment expert all have a high level of EI. If you want to lead, you need to be aware of yourself and your emotions, and of those around you. Learning to control challenging situations at work, those situations where you get flustered, will naturally help you progress through to a high salary.

The evidence goes beyond anecdotal. Studies have suggested that EI plays a critical role in workplace success, contributing not just to salary but also to stress tolerance and positive interpersonal relations. Travis Bradberry, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, writing in Forbes, stated that 90% of top performers he’s studied were also high in emotional intelligence.

So, more than finding your rightful place and feeling those intangible good vibes in the workplace, having high EI indeed can make you a top earner.

EI can help you in all of your relationships, with people who come from all walks of life. So, it’s actually a tool that enhances your personal experience as well as your work life. I use EI to strengthen my relationships with my staff, clients, and talent, but I try to incorporate it into my personal life as well.

So, with the financial, emotional and personal life benefits that come from developing your EI skills, how do you go about doing so?

To start developing your EI, introduce some small but essential strategies in with your work day, like monitoring your emotions. Try writing down the situations that make you feel flustered or upset and start thinking about them more productively. The next time your feathers get ruffled, refer back to past insights and apply them. It’s helpful to adopt a growth mindset: instead of viewing challenges as setbacks to be disheartened by, look at them as opportunities to learn and develop.

And find ways to integrate an ongoing EI practice in your day-to-day life with mindfulness and meditation, because both enable us to be more present and aware of what we’re thinking and feeling in the moment, without judgement.

Ultimately, if you can start every day with the intention of being more self-aware, more empathetic and more considerate, you’re going to communicate better, and your work life will improve.

Anna O'Dea is a recruitment expert and managing director of Agency Iceberg, and one of LinkedIn's Global TopVoices of 2017 on workplace issues