We've all seen the abbreviation "EQ", but what does it actually mean?
Emotional Intelligence (aka emotional quotient, or EQ) is the ability to manage both your emotions and understand the emotions of those around you. It's your ability to perceive, interpret, demonstrate, control and evaluate your emotions and communicate with others in a constructive manner. It is about developing your capacity to sense how you are coming across, to look at your own strengths and weaknesses and assess the emotions you're currently feeling.
This does not mean denying your emotions just because you are 'noticing' rather than 'feeling', but it rather means knowing which strengths to turn to, how to manage your weaknesses and how to communicate to others. It's very centered around self-awareness, self-management and also social awareness.
Emotional Quotient (EQ) is the ability to recognise, understand and manage your own emotions as well as the emotions of others. It's also the ability to use this to guide one's thinking and control.
Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is the measure of academic capability. It's the "traditional" way of measuring one's book-smarts.
EQ is the measure of emotional intelligence, whereas IQ is the measure of traditional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is being smart with emotions and feelings, while traditional intelligence is being smart with numerical and verbal data. They're correlated and, in many ways, they work together.
Key parts of EQ is the naming and understanding, the self-awareness and social awareness. But IQ is needed in order to understand the linguistic part of these discoveries.
Well, EQ can be important in one's personal life if you think of understanding oneself as something worthwhile. By this, I mean that it can be incredibly beneficial to understand the way you are feeling, the way you react when you feel this way, and what it is that helps you to manage this. You can also use this way of thinking when it comes to friends or family members, it can help you to be more empathetic and have a better understanding of them.
When it comes to EQ in the workplace, it's become a more sought-after quality for employees to possess. This is because it has been shown in various studies that people with a higher EQ have more chance of staying within the company. Anyone can learn a task or how to work on a program, but not everyone can learn empathy and how to approach different emotionally-driven situations. Employers want to see how you control yourself and your emotions.