The majority of CEOs, executives and professionals are left-brained — analytical, linear, and focused. They are good with numbers, and in communication tend to listen to the actual word spoken, word-by-word, missing the nuances, the expressions, the tone of voice, i.e., the “other” 90% of verbal communication.
Many have come up through the ranks with heavy backgrounds in business, finance and accounting and have had little time for liberal arts training or exposure. Professionals, in addition, have strong academic backgrounds which they value and rely on, and have dedicated 16-24 or more years to their formal educations. In the Western World, the left-brained orientation, degrees and credentials matter. But they are no longer enough.
The Need for Emotional Intelligence
What happens, for instance, when the brilliant CEO is alienating colleagues and driving away good employees? What happens when the well-educated mid-level executive is good with the bottom line, but low in leadership? What happens when the high IQ Regional Sales Director’s temper gets the best of him and he makes poor judgment calls? And what about the heavily-credentialed professional who can’t translate his hard-acquired and valuable knowledge to others because of his pedantic or abrasive communication style? What happens is not good. What they need is to develop a set of competencies we call Emotional Intelligence, and it can be a hard sell.
Once you have someone actually in coaching for emotional intelligence, it sells itself. The individual (and their employer) see immediate positive results in every area of his or her life, and they don’t go backward. Once you’ve learned creativity or resilience, you can’t forget it. Momentum builds on successes. But getting there requires some hard data, in most cases, and some hard-hitting examples.
So here I will provide you with one. Who can argue with Warren Buffet, the second-richest man in the world? What Made the Dynamic Duo So Rich? Could it have been Emotional Intelligence? And what Dynamic Duo? William Gates, III, the world’s richest man, and Warren Buffet, the world’s second richest man, according to Forbes.
Clearly there’s plenty of brain power in these two gentleman, but that wasn’t all, nor was it academic education. Mr. Gates, after all, is a college dropout. Besides, everyone at the executive and professional level has smarts. That’s been proven. How are you going to stand out? How are you going to succeed apart from the rest? We all sense there’s more to success than intelligence, and Warren Buffet has given us some insight because he often talks about how he got where he is – a self-made billionaire. Like many successful people, he’s quick to say it wasn’t because of IQ so much as emotional intelligence, or EQ.
“To invest successfully over a lifetime,” he said in an interview, “does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework.” We see here the interface between emotions and intellect that is called “emotional intelligence.” The emotions can put asunder what the intellect has so wrought. Fortunately you can increase your EQ, while you generally cannot increase your IQ.
Buffet also evidences the interpersonal skills, integrity and compassion in his business dealings that characterize high EQ. His conduct during 9-11 with his own super-cat insurance crisis was exemplary; the memo he wrote to his employees was circulating the Internet. Something to his regional managers about — you keep doing your job, and let me worry about this. That’s my job. Would you work for this man? I surely would. And he wouldn’t sell my stock right out from under me either.
He told a newspaper interviewer he was “disgusted” by corporate CEOs who tout their companies while selling shares. “These business leaders,” he said, “view shareholders as patsies, not partners.” He is notorious for never having sold a single share of Berkshire Hathaway.
When ‘Dumb’ Gets ‘Smart’
Buffet further says, “By periodically investing in an index fund, for example, the know-nothing investor can actually out-perform most investment professionals. Paradoxically, when ‘dumb’ money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb.”
Buffet is talking about Emotional Intelligence and who would argue with the world’s second richest man. And don’t forget the part about “drop out” Bill Gates. And for the academic professional, no one said it better than Shakespeare: “We know what we are, but know not what we may become.” Emotional Intelligence brings the balance, and positively affects not only success, but health and happiness.
The field of Emotional Intelligence is based on hard data, that is empirical, scientific research. No manager, executive or professional can survive in today’s economic climate on intellectual capacity and academic degrees alone. The maneuvering skills, the leadership, the ability to see the big picture and communicate, these are what EQ is all about.
Jobs change, career fields change, professions and specialties alter considerably or disappear, and new fields appear. Technical education becomes obsolete almost as soon as its attained, though a liberal arts education will endure, the benefits of which are approached in programs such as The EQ Foundation Course (http://www.susandunn.cc/courses.htm ).
Consider emotional intelligence coaching for yourself and your up-and-coming employees, and get emotional intelligence coaching training for your managers and HR personnel. It works. As the word gets around — and this is an international phenomenon — that “soft” skills brings “hard” results, you’ll be in the right place at the right time, with the right tool. And that’s Emotional Intelligence.
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
http://www.webstrategies.cc. Marketing consultation,
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writing and submission, help with ebooks and other
strategies. Susan is the author or How to Write an eBook
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