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Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
May 26, 2015
Twenty five years after the term emotional intelligence was first introduced
by academics, thousands of independent scientific studies have highlighted the
importance of managing your own and others emotions in relation to career
success, job performance, entrepreneurship, and leadership.
But research suggests that people with low EQ, as emotional intelligence is
often called, may not realize what important skills they lack. Indeed, studies
have shown that all of us are better at evaluating others EQ than judging our
own, but that this is especially true when we have low EQ: because EQ also
includes the capacity for self-knowledge.
Although lower EQ people are generally less rewarding to deal with they are
grumpier, more negative, and more erratic than average there will be many
circumstances where we have to deal with low EQ individuals. Given the
difficulties this can entail, it may be useful to keep in mind the following,
evidence-based recommendations for managing those situations effectively:
Be gentle. Just because someone is unpleasant doesn t mean you have to respond
with unpleasantness or ostracize them. In fact, you can become a stabilizing
and calming agent for low EQ people if you make an effort to act politely and
kindly in your interactions with them. Remember that having a lower EQ is
psychologically taxing, not just for others but the low EQ individuals
themselves. They are often fighting inner demons and riddled with existential
angst the academic euphemism for this is emotional labor. So, don t make them
work even harder. Instead, you can brighten them up and make their lives seem a
little simpler, safer, and happier, or at least less anxious. Conversely, if
you react in a negative way they will perceive you as a psychological threat
and source of stress. Kindness and positivity go a long way with everyone, but
even more so with emotionally unintelligent people. Yes, some people lack soft
skills, but being hard on them is not the solution. On the contrary, tact and
delicacy are needed particularly with those who are less capable of displaying
those very qualities.
Be explicit. In particular, avoid social subtleties, or you will be
misinterpreted. Low EQ individuals are generally less capable of reading
between the lines and their ability to decode others intentions is typically
limited. As Professor Simon Baron-Cohen noted, they are quite similar to the
stereotypical engineer or professor: disinterested in nonverbal communication,
non-empathetic, and somewhat detached from interpersonal contact; happiest when
on their own or interacting with their own thoughts rather than people.
Baron-Cohen s spectrum theory posits that cognitive skills often increase at
the expense of social skills (take this brief test to find out where you fall).
Be rational. Although low EQ people often behave in irrational ways, so does
everyone else. Furthermore, the only antidote to emotionality is rationality,
which starts by being aware of your own biases, being data-driven, and
accepting the possibility that you may be wrong. When dealing with low EQ
individuals, remember that they are more likely to fall prey to their own
emotions than most people are, so, rather than trying to manipulate them by
engaging them emotionally, you can gain their trust by being the voice of
reason and developing a reputation for being logical. This will not just enable
you to persuade them in the short run, but also influence them in the long run.
The main point is that even if emotional persuasion works with them, there are
moral reasons for not going down that path.
Do not get offended. One of the common characteristics of emotionally
unintelligent individuals is their bluntness. They have low interpersonal
sensitivity and find it hard to empathize with others, which is why they may
come across as politically incorrect or overly direct. On the upside, this
makes them quite transparent. You can usually see right through them and they
tend to mean what they say, and say what they mean. The key, then, is not to
take things personally. They may not operate within the realm of conventional
etiquette, but you can still find a way of dealing with them and helping them
deal with you.
Finally, remember that just as high EQ is not always a blessing for example, it
says nothing about a person s reasoning ability, expertise, or ambition it is
not the end of the world if you yourself are the one with low EQ. This may
sound odd, because EQ has become a very loaded term today perhaps even more
than IQ. However, there is a bright side to low EQ, and a dark side to high EQ.
Low EQ individuals are often more passionate, creative, and self-critical than
their higher EQ counterparts. And higher EQ individuals can be complacent,
smug, and overly optimistic compared to their low-EQ counterparts.
While interventions to boost EQ are often successful, people have limited
control over their personalities, and each personality will confer more
strengths in some situations than in others. The current enthusiasm about
emotional intelligence can obscure the fact that plenty of brilliant and
successful people, from Friedrich Nietzsche to Steve Jobs, had lower EQ and
that these people are also capable of rewarding relationships, even with their
work colleagues.
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority on personality profiling,
talent management, and people analytics. He is the CEO of Hogan Assessment
Systems and a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London
(UCL) and Columbia University.