What is EQ
Humans are emotional, and clearly not robots! But, why are we still unfamiliar with EQ? The intelligence that guides our emotions is called EQ. EQ stands for emotional quotient. It can be defined as the ability to understand and manage your emotions in order to comprehend how they influence your relationship with yourself and with others.EQ is highly responsible for the problems we face in our personal relationships, the way we react under a stressful situation,or the drive behind why we behave in a certain way, like masking our emotions just to escape a taxing situation. A person can be great in his/her professional life as he/she might be great with numbers, technology, logic, or whatever they do for living, but if he/she is unhappy with the way they feel about themselves or have a poor relationship with the people around them then that can be considered as the deficit of what we refer to as the Emotional Intelligence or EQ. Furthermore, EQ has much more depth than just being sensitive to the emotions and people around. This intelligence is the capacity to integrate our experiences and to gain thus a more complete picture of life in every moment. It requires awareness, attention, discipline and freedom to respond to the requirements of the present and not simply following the patterns acquired in the past.
We all are very well aware of the ability known as intelligence, but most of the time we are just referring to IQ and not EQ. EQ does not possess the same status as that of IQ. While we are always using EQ in every job we do or in every decision we make in our personal lives, still EQ is an alien term for most of us. We are not completely aware of how this intelligence is crucial and how working on this intelligence can revamp the life we are living. To make things a little more clear, we can take the example of the entrance exams conducted by any prestigious institutes. The exams definitely involve IQ but EQ plays a major role as well. The examination gauges the way a candidate behaves under a stressful situation especially when the candidate is not getting the desired outcomes and how that results in losing hope as well as their chance of getting into that college. This is true for every exam,interview and even life in general. EQ differentiate between people who get crushed by failures and people who thrive under stressful conditions. The good thing is EQ is not an inborn talent, it can always be developed and can always be enhanced. Managing stress, working on mental health and practising self awareness can be some of the ways of building emotional intelligence. Over and above, organizations should also consider adopting such workshops for their employees.
EQ in the context of HR
In the context of HR, EQ plays a very critical role. Emotion is the key driver of the way we behave in a particular circumstance. Emotion is behind every reaction we produce to a given action. That is why emotional intelligence is a very fundamental skill especially in a work culture where we are exposed to several events on a daily basis. In an organization, it is clearly preferred to have people with high EQ because every organization needs a workforce who can work under pressure and who can add value to the present work culture environment. When one understands their EQ, that means they are fully aware of their emotions and hence, they can produce much better results like working in a team, giving presentations, leading a team, finding solutions to a problem, being empathetic to people around them, and so on. This is manifested in every task they do in their professional life.
If one is in an HR role, he/she should be very careful about all the decisions they are making in terms of hiring,firing,or promoting. It is getting very important to hire people with better EQ. If one has an impressive resume but lacks in EQ, then that person, if hired, might not be able to produce the desired outcomes for the organization. This also results in loss of time, money and resources of the organization. Different EQ testing methods can be applied for testing such as MIES. HR can also gauge the emotional intelligence of a candidate by asking behavarioul questions, by looking at how calm the candidate is in an interview environment and different non verbal gestures he/she is producing .This goes without saying, the EQ of an HR himself is of supreme importance because it directly reflects on the calibre of the workforce. An HR with high EQ cultivates harmony in the work environment and inspires others to do well. This is very evident in the outcomes produced by the employees. Additionally, the HR has to make several decisions regarding this department, and those decisions must be made without any biases,i.e., without selective evidencing. Every decision should be holistic and that can only be done when one has high EQ.
Conclusion
We can’t stress enough how significant EQ is. It is getting really crucial to educate ourselves about the concept of EQ. In conclusion, EQ can be the key to your dream personal and professional life.
