Do not ignore emotional intelligence

You can call this conflict Grant vs Holman. Two important representative of the scientific world is not a joke, clashed in a dispute concerning a question which is set (or at least heard) every student of psychology or management, is emotional intelligence.

The fire was started by Adam Grant, Professor at Wharton business school, published a LinkedIn article titled "We overestimate emotional intelligence" in which he argues that "to solve the issue of hiring an employee to work or his future career based on emotional intelligence, is a big mistake." Even if the specifics of the position and requires serious emotional commitment, but when it comes to productivity, only human cognitive abilities have real value. Daniel Holman, who is credited with the introduction into wide use of the term emotional intelligence, or EI (he also insists on the importance of this phenomenon), questioned such a harsh assessment of the Grant in his article "don't underestimate the power of emotional intelligence". Golman refers to numerous studies conducted by the Consortium for the study of emotional intelligence in support of his opinion. Both articles called in the community a barrage of comments.

I'm not a scientist, and the views of both opponents I have great respect for. Over the past three decades, I help various companies around the world to make the right decisions in the field of employment and professional growth of its staff, but because I would like to contribute to the discussion. During the work at Egon Zehnder consultant recruiting senior managers I personally had the opportunity to spend more than 500 appointments to key positions in the organization and to participate in the selection of candidates for similar positions, making a total of means of interviews with more than 20 000 candidates. Given the fact that I head the personnel evaluation, professional growth and development of "intellectual capital" in our company, I had to carefully examine different approaches and methods to the evaluation of staff and their impact on the quality of work of employees. Want to know what I think about the importance of emotional intelligence, based on the experience obtained? Personally, I insist that it plays a key role for leaders in achieving success.

His first statistical study on this subject I spent in the distant 90-ies. The research focused on 250 managers who hired me personally or recommended to improve our customers were in those years, mostly in Latin America. After analyzing the correlation of the three main criteria for assessing candidates (experience, IQ and emotional intelligence) with each other and comparing them with the levels of employment candidates, I was stunned by the results. In one case, staff has had great experience and high level of IQ, the level of emotional intelligence was quite low.

25% of employees who had similar characteristics, simply could not cope with their responsibilities. But there was another situation: when managers demonstrated high emotional intelligence in combination with at least one of the above two factors (experience or IQ), while poor results in the professional activity was recorded only in 3-4% of cases! In other words, emotional intelligence coupled with high IQ or suitable experience testified to the apparent success of the employee. But intellectually developed and has a wealth of professional experience candidates with an underdeveloped emotional intelligence fizzled out much more often.

My colleagues soon conducted similar studies in different parts of the world, comparing different cultures, including Germany and Japan, and was everywhere marked with the same results. People take on the job, focusing on IQ and experience and fired for failing to manage themselves and others.

We drew conclusions from the resulting studies. And our company now relies on these data in the recruitment and subsequent evaluation in 69 offices worldwide. While some qualities and skills that remains the key to success, is predominantly of a cognitive nature, such as strategic orientation and ability to analyze the market, most of them based on emotional intelligence, including results orientation, analysis of consumer demand, willingness to cooperate, developed management skills, leadership, teamwork and the ability to change your managerial style. During his teaching at the graduate school of Harvard course on the management capacity of the staff, I met with leaders from different companies from around the globe, and they all without exception use techniques based on emotional intelligence, for the development of their subordinates.

I would agree with Adam that ei is not a panacea for all managerial ills. As well, and IQ, and any other scale for such measurements. In his recently published book, I write that the ideal candidate should possess a certain level of intellectual development, that is, an IQ in the traditional sense, he should have formed the correct values, it should be fairly mobile and have the necessary work skills.

A special place I take the potential for development, I wrote about it in the published article "the 21st century: need people with potential." It's also worth mentioning that the signs of the presence of such potential, such as the right motivation, curiosity, the ability to get to the bottom of the issue, involvement and perseverance — they are all based on emotional intelligence. To adapt to fast-changing circumstances, you need much more than just a high IQ.

Of course, you can not take into account emotional intelligence, but that's not forget about the possible consequences.

Source: hbr-russia.ru

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