When publicly spoken for the first time about emotional intelligence, it served as a missing link in a peculiar discovery. In the study, people with an average IQ had better results than those with a higher IQ on 70% of the time. This anomaly challenged the popular belief that a high IQ is the only source of success.
After decades of research, it has been discovered that emotional intelligence is a critical factor that distinguishes the brightest from the rest. The relationship is so important that 90% of the people with the best results have a high level of emotional intelligence.
“There is no doubt that emotional intelligence is less common, but experience tells me that it is more important to be a good leader. It is something that can not be ignored.” – Jack Welch
Emotional intelligence is something we all have, it’s something intangible. It affects how we manage our behavior, overcome social difficulties and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.
Despite the importance of emotional intelligence, its intangible nature makes it very difficult to quantify it and know what to do to improve it. You can always consider the possibility of making a scientifically validated test, such as can be found in the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 .
Unfortunately, scientifically validated tests are not free. So by analyzing data from more than a million people who have been tested by TalentSmart to identify behaviors that indicate lack of emotional intelligence and that you’ll want to avoid:
1. Stress easily.
If you bottle the feelings, soon the sensation of tension, stress and anxiety appear. Emotions that are not managed clog the mind and body. The emotional intelligence helps us make the stress more manageable and allows us to identify and tackle difficult situations before things get worse. People who do not use their emotional intelligence are more likely to resort to less effective techniques for managing feelings. They are twice as likely to abuse substances and experience anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts.
2. Difficulty reassembling.
People with emotional intelligence show good manners, empathy and kindness and have the ability to reaffirm and set limits. This combination is ideal for dealing with conflicts. Most people adopt passive-aggressive behavior when things go wrong. Emotionally intelligent people maintain balance and remain assertive because they stay away from unfiltered emotional reactions. This allows them to neutralize toxic people without creating enemies.
3. Have a limited emotional vocabulary.
Everyone has emotions, but only a few can identify them when they take place. Our studies indicate that only 36% of people are able to do so, which is a problem, because unidentified emotions often lead to misunderstandings, which often leads to irrational decisions and counterproductive actions. Emotionally intelligent people dominate their emotions because they understand them and use a very broad emotional vocabulary. While many people simply say they feel “wrong,” emotionally intelligent people can distinguish whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “trampled,” or “anxious.” The more specific the words, the better a feeling is understood,
4. Take things for granted very fast and defend them with vehemence.
People with low emotional intelligence form an opinion very quickly and then succumb to the confirmation bias: that is, they look for evidence to support their opinions and ignore evidence to the contrary. Not infrequently they argue to the satiety to defend themselves. This behavior is especially dangerous for the leaders, as their ideas little reflection become the strategy of the whole team. Emotionally intelligent people let their thoughts rest because they know that the initial reactions are very visceral. They give their thoughts a time to develop and consider possible consequences and arguments contrary to their opinions. They then communicate as effectively as possible their developed idea and take into account the needs and opinions of others.
5. Keep grudges.
Negative emotions that go hand in hand with resentment are actually a response to stress. Just think of a specific situation for your body to enter into fight mode or escape, a survival mechanism that forces you to face a threat or run away. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential for survival, but when that threat is past water, that stress causes physical havoc and can cause health problems over time. In fact, a group of researchers at Emory University have shown that such stress retention contributes to stress and increases the likelihood of heart disease. Keeping resentment involves retaining stress and emotionally intelligent people know how to avoid it. Letting go of resentments not only makes us feel better,
6. Do not forget mistakes.
Emotionally intelligent people distract themselves from their mistakes, but they do not forget them. By keeping a safe distance from mistakes, in which they still have them in sight, these people are able to adapt to have better results in the future. It takes a lot of self-awareness to walk the tightrope between grief and memory. Lamenting for an error for too long causes us to experience anxiety and shyness, while forgetting it completely increases our chances of being committed again. The key to maintaining balance lies in the ability to turn failures into opportunities for improvement. With this philosophy, we will learn to rise every time we fall.
7. Feeling misunderstood.
When you do not have a lot of emotional intelligence, it’s difficult to understand how others perceive you. You feel that nobody understands you because you do not transmit your message in a way that people can understand. Even with practice, emotionally intelligent people know that they are not able to communicate all their ideas perfectly, but they realize if people do not understand them and change the focus of what they are saying to re-communicate their idea in a way which can be better understood.
8. Do not know the own triggers.
We all have triggers: situations and people that take us out of our cells and cause us to act impulsively. Emotionally intelligent people analyze their triggers and use this knowledge to avoid situations and people that make them take the worst of themselves.
9. Do not get angry.
Emotional intelligence does not consist in being sympathetic; Is to manage the emotions in order to obtain the best results. Sometimes this involves showing others that you are angry, sad or frustrated. Constantly masking emotions with joy and positivity is neither authentic nor productive. People with emotional intelligence know how to use positive and negative emotions intentionally on the right occasions.
10. Blame others for how they make you feel.
Emotions are personal. It is tempting to blame how we feel about the actions of others, but we have to take responsibility for our emotions. No one can make us feel anything we do not want. To think otherwise only plays against us.
11. Offend easily.
If you accept who you are without problem, it is difficult for someone to do or say something that will get you out of their boxes. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, so they do not take offense easily. These types of people make jokes to each other and let them spend jokes because they are able to visualize the line that separates humor from degradation.
Summary
Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence is malleable. As the brain is trained through the practice of emotionally intelligent behaviors, the necessary paths are constructed to turn them into habits. When the brain reinforces these new behaviors, the neural connections that served as the basis for destructive behaviors disappear. Before you know it, you will begin to respond to your environment with emotional intelligence without even thinking about it.
