Given a choice, which one would you select? EQ or IQ?
For several years (and probably more to come), Intelligence quotient or IQ, which is a measure of one’s mental abilities, has been almost the sole determiner of one’s output at school, college and especially workplace.
Having said that, this is what most of the job posts on any job portals nowadays demand:
That’s right. All of the aforementioned skills that have been highlighted are some emotional skills that recruiters would typically want from any candidate.
Does that mean IQ is not important?
Research suggests that once a person reaches his/her normal IQ threshold, it only remains 4 to 25% important in determining success in one’s career, while EQ takes over as the main factor.
Emotional intelligence quotient, better known as EQ, can be defined as the ability of a person to understand others’ and one’s own emotions and respond to it with validity and reliability. For example, we can imagine those people at workplace, who are simply used to working under a lot of stress and a different segment of people out there who succumb to even under low stress levels altogether.
The difference lies in the emotional intelligence of people. All individuals have separate levels of threshold, and their behavior depends a lot on their emotional intelligence. Probably it will be safe to comment that in any companies, people who possess the talked about attribute are preferred compared to others who do not.
Doubtful? We have results to back ourselves up.
Evidently, a combination of average intelligence is still preferred over Superior intelligence with low people skills.
Therefore, being a candidate, how can you enhance your people skills?
Let’s make it brief and simple:-
- Interact with coworkers and build relationships with them
- Try having a positive attitude at work
- Think over any problem that seems to bother you. It’s perhaps amazing how you can easily detach yourself from an issue that has been bothering your work life, just by taking some time off and pondering over it.
- Have an internal focus of control and try finding out your shortcomings instead of blaming the rest for mistakes.
- Going to a trip alone helps!
Last but not the least; did you know that happy workers are productive workers?