Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: EQ and Success

Introduction

In today's business world, mishandling of human relations can be costly. Because of the complexity of the modern corporation — combined with the need to multitask as knowledge demands increase and staff levels decrease — it is essential that employees be able to handle their responsibilities effectively. Increasingly, this depends not only on subject-matter knowledge or technical skill, but on the emotional ability to operate in an intricate, global business environment. It requires a great deal of emotional intelligence. In fact, a study of Certified Public Accountants found that those who exhibited greater emotional intelligence were far more valuable to their companies than those who demonstrated only professional subject expertise. Unfortunately, no all-encompassing means of easily measuring Emotional Intelligence (EI, or EQ — Emotional Intelligence Quotient) yet exists. There are, however, training courses and tactics available despite the lack of fully quantifiable information regarding EI.

For years, studies with twins have been used to attempt to settle the nature-versus-nurture dilemma. One such study dealt with job satisfaction — arguably one aspect of emotional intelligence — which has emerged as the new frontier for both predicting success and training for it. "Studies with twins have shown us that our satisfaction on the job may be at least 30% attributable to genetic factors. This finding is intriguing because it seems to be related to 'intrinsic job satisfaction' — questions of challenge or achievement — rather than 'extrinsic' factors such as work conditions or supervision" (Segal 1999, p. 54). The researcher concluded that the better abilities and opportunities coincided, the greater the level of job satisfaction. However, a question remained: was emotional intelligence a factor in creating this outcome, or was it merely a result of the meshing of ability and opportunity?

Although the study was not looking specifically at emotional intelligence, its findings do contribute to understanding in the field. "Job satisfaction may also partly be affected by our characteristic happiness levels. Recent twin research showed that the genetic contributions to happiness and stability are about 50% and 80%, respectively, while life events have only a transitory effect on happiness" (Segal 1999, p. 54). The fact that coffee breaks only temporarily helped despondent employees — studied against those of similar ability and job description — points to the probability that the difference in outcomes for equally matched employees was based in something else entirely. The study revealed the limitations of tests that measure only skill, only intelligence, or both. Such tests "cannot, however, capture the unique personal decisions and unforeseen events that all of us face when fashioning our careers" (Segal 1999, p. 54).

When abilities, intelligence, and the "missing link" — now called emotional intelligence — do not mesh in the business world, the costs can be enormous. In reviewing selection failures at the executive level, Swiercz and Ezzedeen (2004, p. 15+) noted that the cost of selection failure is "almost impossible to estimate." A survey of 150 Fortune 500 companies demonstrated that the estimated first-year cost to fill an executive vacancy is approximately U.S. $750,000. High-profile examples include Jill Barad, who resigned from Mattel with $50 million after 37 months. Beyond direct financial costs, there are "the intangible costs of a tarnished organizational image, interrupted patterns of revenue and income, and the invisible yet deleterious effects upon the motivation and morale of key people" (Swiercz & Ezzedeen 2004, p. 15+).

Arguably, one of the factors involved in such cases is emotional intelligence. Screening not only for business background but for the potential "fit" of an executive — or any employee — within a business environment can save both money and careers. As Harvard theorist Howard Gardner explains, "Basically, your EQ is the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them" (quoted in Akers & Porter 2004, p. 95+).

As long ago as 1967, researchers pioneered the concept of intelligence as a multifaceted construct. One such model, the Structure of Intellect, included one hundred and twenty different types of intelligence. Although none addressed EI specifically, the model "could support the inclusion of what subsequent writers propose as a new type of intelligence — the ability to process affective information" (Pfeiffer 2004, p. 138).

Defining Emotional Intelligence

There are two basic questions about emotional intelligence, even before beginning to apply it to business models. First, what exactly constitutes emotional intelligence? Second — assuming some consensus can be reached on a core group of characteristics — how can it best be measured?

Akers and Porter (2004, p. 95+) framed the issue as: "What's more important: intelligence or intuition?" That framing is somewhat limited, however, since emotional intelligence encompasses far more than intuition, including behaviors, reactions, and interpersonal dynamics.

Recent approaches to intelligence and success have called into question the traditional IQ test as a predictive instrument. Shepard et al. (1999, p. 633) noted that "although correlations between traditional IQ tests and school performance are at least moderately strong, they are by no means perfect, and correlations between these tests and other measures of success in life (such as income) are appreciably lower."

Akers and Porter were writing specifically about Certified Public Accountants — workers engaged in adding value to information, a category representing roughly one-third of the American workforce — and argued that CPAs need to cultivate their EQ if they find it lacking. While Akers and Porter did not specify which tests might best be used, they defined emotional intelligence quite inclusively. Their description of what EQ encompasses for CPAs helps explain why emotional intelligence testing is so much more difficult to develop than traditional intelligence testing. For Akers and Porter, emotional intelligence includes:

Although Akers and Porter did not provide an extensive validated EQ test procedure, they did suggest a self-assessment (see Appendix A), the value of which may lie in convincing CPAs — or any skilled worker — of the importance of EQ recognition. They also offered compelling statistics within that limited field. "A study of partners at a large public accounting firm showed that those with significant strengths in self-management contributed 78% more incremental profit than partners who did not have these skills" (Akers & Porter 2004, p. 95+). Partners with strong social skills added 110% more to profit than those with only self-management skills. Conversely, CPAs with only significant analytical reasoning skills contributed only 50% more incremental profit (Akers & Porter 2004, p. 95+).

Measuring Emotional Intelligence

It is difficult to understand, then, why educators continue to focus on IQ testing and enhancement while largely ignoring EQ. The "Mozart effect" — the reported increase in intellectual ability after listening to the composer's music — was even cited by the governor of Georgia to support a 1998 budget request for enough funding to give a cassette or CD of classical music to every child born in the state (Casse 1998, p. 33+). Casse broadened his analysis, however, by assessing the importance of the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, a diverse measure of mental ability often used to evaluate subsequent social outcomes such as income level and likelihood of incarceration. This begins to approach emotional intelligence testing and prediction, though the study found that a person's intelligence predicted outcomes more strongly than the socioeconomic status of their parents (Casse 1998, p. 33+). A similar approach was seen in Hong Kong, where 116 students were assessed on divergent thinking and leadership characteristics before admission to various educational programs; yet again, the concentration remained on a variation of traditional IQ assessment (Chan 2004, p. 409+).

Casse cites the work of Howard Gardner as providing good evidence that "different parts of the brain are responsible for different abilities," but when Gardner was asked how abilities in the various intelligences were measured, he replied simply: "We don't measure them" (quoted in Casse 1998, p. 33+).

In the years since Casse's work, the character of emotional intelligence has been further defined and testing instruments have been developed. A theoretical framework for considering the EI construct was proposed by Sternberg: "Intelligence comprises the mental abilities necessary for adaptation to, as well as shaping and selection of, any environmental context" (quoted in Pfeiffer 2004, p. 138). Sternberg's concept holds that individuals act intelligently not only when they adapt to their environment, but also when they alter their environment to meet their needs — a view seen as consistent with a basis in a "common core of mental processes, irrespective of culture or environmental context" (Pfeiffer 2004, p. 138).

Pfeiffer also identified core mental processes associated with this framework:

These processes have much in common with the competencies proposed by Akers and Porter.

Conclusion

Because there is no single test or standardized battery of tests that can accurately measure emotional intelligence, as Pfeiffer noted, it is difficult to formulate definitive recommendations. Nonetheless, training modules have been developed, and organizations can make meaningful progress by adopting best-practices frameworks. The evidence surveyed here — from twin studies linking genetics to job satisfaction, to the dramatic profit contributions associated with specific EQ competencies among accountants, to the enormous financial costs of emotionally mismatched executive placements — points consistently to the same conclusion: emotional intelligence is a genuine and consequential dimension of workplace performance. The challenge ahead lies in developing measurement tools that meet the standards of reliability and validity required for systematic application in organizational settings.