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You may download this page as a .doc file from the link above The Unconventional Wisdom of Emotional Intelligence If the driving force of intelligence in twentieth-century business has been IQ, then—according to growing evidence—-in the dawning twenty-first century it will be EQ, and related forms of practical and creative intelligence. Of course, there are still those in management who would dismiss emotions entirely, or see them as a minefield to be avoided at all costs. Yet in many cases these are the very managers who, for all their emphasis on cold, hard numbers and the bottom line, are most out of touch with the heart-level engine that drives human capital and produces the exceptional, creative work required for any organization to lead the field amidst the turbulence and confusion of global market changes. The Four Cornerstone Model
The second cornerstone, emotional fitness, builds your authenticity, believability, and resilience, expanding your circle of trust and your capacity for listening, managing conflict, and making the most of constructive discontent. In emotional depth, the third cornerstone, you explore ways to align your life and work with your unique potential and purpose, and to back this with integrity, commitment, and accountability, which, in turn, increase your influence without authority. From here you advance to the fourth cornerstone, emotional alchemy, through which you extend your creative instincts and capacity to flow with problems and pressures and to compete for the future by building your capabilities to sense more readily—and access—-the widest range of hidden solutions and emerging opportunities. For decades now, the typical concentration in organization life and leadership has rested squarely on analysis, external power, and technical rationality—a shift which can be seen as starting with Voltaire and Other thinkers in the eighteenth century, this has served to overshadow other human characteristics such as emotion, intuition, spirit and experience. Our emotions, as much as or more than our bodies and minds, contain our histories, every line and verse of every experience, deep understanding, and relationship in our lives. They comprise the feeling of who we are, and enter our systems as energy. Energy, as we have been taught, is neither created nor destroyed. It flows. This energy is a primary source of influence and power. Not all forms are physical. A thought is a form of energy, but what is it formed out of? Light? Electricity? Emotion, too, is composed of energy that continually pours through, you, setting in motion a confluence of deep processes that affect every aspect of your life. When you increase your emotional intelligence, you shift the form of this energy, and it changes your experience of work, life, and relationships. Although the passing era has been primarily dominated by IQ and has centered on a mathematical model that treated nearly everything as if it were inanimate and analyzable, there are signs that the emerging model of organizational intelligence will be based far more on the principles of EQ and biological systems. Accordingly, it will treat people, markers, ideas, and organizations as unique and alive, generative and interactive, and inherently capable of change, learning, growth, inspiration, creativity, synergy, and transformation. In many workplaces today, talented, productive people are being thwarted or sabotaged by gaps in emotional intelligence—in themselves, their bosses, and the others around them. In many organizations, we're caught up in an atmosphere of autocratic and sometimes abusive management, mountains of rules and red tape, traumatic downsizings, and a fear-laced climate of uncertainty, perceived inequities, resentment, and anger that, at times, can border on hostility and rage. We show up and keep our hearts closed and our heads down, just hoping to get by and collect our paychecks. The truth is, however, that many people in business have very little energy left; certainly not enough to lead their career, company, or industry into a successful future. If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only harder. Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong approach in today's work world Think about yourself and the people you work with. What have you each been through in your life? What got you here? What makes you worth knowing and trusting? What fires your creativity? What makes you real—and valuable? If I can’t know what you feel, what matters to you, we are little more than a face and a name to each other; you are not real or alive to me, nor I to you. This is one reason why an estimated 90 percent of our believability and credibility may be based on EQ—and related practical and creative intelligence—not IQ. Think about how much time and energy you have wasted protecting yourself from people you do not trust, avoiding problems you cannot talk about, faking acceptance of decisions with which you do not agree, remaining silent despite the intuitive sense that you're missing opportunities, putting up with jobs that aren't right for you, or holding back your insights on current problems and emerging challenges. Some men and women are blessed with a high level of both IQ and EQ. Some have a paucity of one or the other or both. These and other forms of intelligence enhance and complement each other: Emotions spark creativity, collaboration, initiative, and transformation; logical reasoning reins in errant impulses and aligns purpose with process, technology with touch. There's another driving force here, too: Evidence indicates that a person's fundamental values and character in life stem, above all, not from IQ but from underlying emotional capacities. Changing Perspectives Conventional vs. High-performance Meaning
Based on the latest research, I would add the following;
Studies also reveal that emotions are an essential "activating energy" for ethical values — such as trust, integrity, empathy, resilience, and credibility and for social capital which represents your ability to build and sustain trusting, profitable business relationships. At the center of these traits is something every great leader must have: the capacity to create excitement. This is similar to what is generally called the ability to motivate self and others, but that’s too watered down an expression to signify the inner fire required to build great companies and compete for the future. Much of what you will discover in this book may be common sense, but its not common practice. Fortunately, scientists now consider HQ a learnable intelligence, one which can be developed and improved at any time and at any age. Emotions are powerful organizers of thought and action and are, paradoxically, indispensable for reasoning and rationality. EQ also comes to the aid of IQ when you need to solve important problems or make a key decision and enables you to accomplish this in a superior fashion and in a fraction of the time—a few minutes, or even moments, for example, instead of the entire day or more of the exhausting nonstop linear, sequential thinking that might be required to reach the same decision without the aid of EQ. Moreover, emotions awaken intuition and curiosities, which assist in anticipating an uncertain future and planning our actions accordingly. What you will find on the pages ahead is a comprehensive, integrated work ing model of emotional intelligence in leadership and organizations. It is my sincere hope that it will serve as a starting point for dialogue in executive and management circles and will encourage some meaningful reflection, exploration, and new learning for us all.
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This book advances an initial working plan to begin discussing and developing increased emotional intelligence in your work and life. It offers you a starring point: a Four Cornerstone Model which moves emotional intelligence out of the realm of psychological analysis and philosophical theories and into the realm of direct knowing, exploration, and application. Executive EQ begins with the cornerstone of emotional literacy, which builds a locus of personal efficacy and confidence through emotional honesty, energy, awareness, feedback, intuition, responsibility, and connection.