Emotional Intelligence

05 April 2024

EQ

Your EQ measures your emotional intelligence, assessing your ability to identify, manage, and express your emotions. Your emotional intelligence skills — like self-awareness, empathy, and self-motivation— help you name your feelings and consequent behavior to then recognize it more easily in others.

  • Information processing: EQ can help you perceive and understand your and others' emotions based on information like verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Interpersonal skills versus job performance: A good EQ means you can empathize with others and control your reactions, significantly influencing your ability to create rewarding relationships.
  • Internal versus external knowledge: Increasing your EQ involves immense self-awareness to identify your emotions and their subsequent behaviors.
  • Conflict resolution: When facing conflict, EQ helps you understand the other person's perspective and control emotional responses.
IQ

Your IQ measures your capacity to learn, comprehend, and apply knowledge to daily tasks. This involves several skills, like logic and verbal communication. And developing your IQ involves learning how to filter out irrelevant information, retain important details, and solve complex issues.

  • Information processing: IQ can help you to learn, interpret, and process information to develop hard and soft skills.
  • Interpersonal skills versus job performance: A good IQ makes you a competent and efficient worker with a robust skill set.
  • Internal versus external knowledge: Increasing your IQ means acquiring tangible knowledge and practicing concrete skills like solving logic puzzles and performing well on verbal exams.
  • Conflict resolution: When facing conflict, determines how logically and efficiently you can solve the issue at hand.

Neither EQ nor IQ are inherently better. Good emotional intelligence helps you navigate social and emotional situations well, while good intellectual intelligence sets you up with the cognitive tools to understand and overcome challenges in your daily routine.

Reading and this resource is from BetterUp.com