What is Emotional Intelligence and why is it extremely important for everyone?? That is a question of relevance for everyone who wants to excel in life and do a little bit more than “just live” through life! As Rumi said; “You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
Research during the past few decades have consistently shown how EQ is more important than IQ! A higher level of EQ is the difference between people who do well in their lives and people who excel in all arenas of their lives. In my blogs on this website, I will provide insight into the different Emotional Intelligence competencies, my experience with helping people in developing these competencies along with my general observations & perspective about the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and our Society.
So, I will start by presenting the different definitions of EI that have developed through the past decades. The term Emotional Intelligence is defined in different perspectives. Reuven Bar-On defined EI in 1988 in the context of personality theory, more specifically a model of well-being. Bar-On defined EI as: “an array of non-cognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.”
In 1990 John Mayer and Peter Salovey coined the term Emotional Intelligence as it is understood today. They formulated their version of EI within a model of intelligence. Their definition is: “the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional meanings, and to reflectively regulate emotions in ways that promote emotional and intellectual growth.”
Daniel Goleman was the first one to popularize the idea of Emotional Intelligence and, kind of, took it out of the clinical psychology realm and framed it in an organizational context. He defined, in 1998, EI in terms of performance and identified the development of EI competencies as a tool to maximize performance. Goleman defined EI as: “the ability to identify, assess and control one’s own emotions, the emotion of others and that of groups.”
So, basically one factor common in all these definition is the element of control. EI is our ability to control our emotions according to the needs of the situation so that our decisions are more controlled and well-thought rather than frantic and impulsive. Once we have developed EI competencies through conscious practice, our decision-making process becomes flawless and that is what make us excel as compared to those who do not have this practice!