Is Emotional Intelligence the key that unlocks corporate success?

Imagine your local doctor giving you a “serum for corporate success.” Your doctor says this magic serum will ensure your business success. So… you wake up in the morning take a spoonful and wait for something to happen. Before you know it, you start realizing results. You feel much calmer; you don’t respond impulsively, you are more aware of your emotions. Management of your stress is much improved and the team around you is a more energized bunch.

On a biological level “when sensory input enters our brain,” it causes a release of chemicals. “The sensory input triggers an emotional response” and the release of certain hormones. Either a happiness hormone called serotonin is released or an anxiety-producing hormone named cortisol, which causes us to feel stress.

Emotional Intelligence’s role in decision-making

There are two main types of decision-makers. On one end are those in charge of businesses that tend to make impulsive decisions. On the other end are leaders that examine every little detail of information before acting.

Marc Bracket Ph.D. says many of us are unaware that our emotions influence our decision-making. Emotions hide-out in the shadow of our subconscious. We often think we are making an unbiased judgment, but our emotions are influencing our decisions.

Bracket says the way we feel influences projected outcomes. When we make a decision feeling happy the outcome is going to be different than making the decision when we are sad. He says depending on the way we are feeling, we come to very different conclusions.

So how do leaders avoid making impulsive decisions?

Bracket suggests pausing and reflecting before acting. Taking a brief “time-out” allows us to separate our feelings from decisions. The following exercise aims to ensure emotions do not govern our decisions.

Ask yourself:

• How am I feeling?
• Is the emotion that I am feeling related to the meeting, video call, or telephone conversation I am about to have? Could is it related to a prior positive or negative interaction? 

Tracing the root cause of our emotions minimizes our emotional interference with decision-making. Taking time to reflect before making a decision ensures emotions do not get in the way and will lead to positive outcomes.

Could emotional intelligence be the secret of successful business leaders?

Many people believe that one of the barometers to success is a high IQ and a university education. In reality, this is not completely true. Entrepreneurs such as Evan Williams, the former CEO of Twitter, experience success without completing university or high school. Then there are those with degrees that don’t experience much success, if at all.

What is the secret of people such as Williams? Could emotional intelligence be the answer?

Over a decade ago, Rutgers psychologist Daniel Goleman wrote the following about emotional intelligence in his 1998 article for Harvard Business Review, What Makes a Leader. “The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but…they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. My research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.”

In this quote, Goleman addresses the question above. Emotional intelligence does contribute to the making of great leaders, not intellect alone. Chris Myers writing for Forbes.com like Goleman says effective leadership generates trust. Leaders with a higher quota of emotional intelligence also inspire greater confidence.

As Maya Angelo once said, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Angelo could be addressing today’s business leaders. As Chris Myers then writing for Forbes said, customers “do not buy the product, but how the product makes them feel.” For entrepreneurs with a dream of changing the world or disrupting a market, passion not logic is the main driving force.

Business leaders constantly make decisions that affect others in the company. Being a leader can be a lonely job, sometimes using others as a sounding board helps. There are times when leaders face making crucial choices on their own. Before making these decisions, they consider how it will affect working relationships within the company.

One’s surrounding environment also has an impact on decision-making. Are you in a crowded, loud office? Is there a large meeting going on next door? Construction outside? Jessica Hicks writing for Thrive Global cites research from the University of Minnesota that shows the important role that an environment can have on our decision-making. Researchers found that noisy environments increase stress levels and impact decision making.

The winning formula for success: introducing Emotional Intelligence early

Traditionally those in education and at home tell us that people with top grades and a high IQ succeed, but does this hold up in reality? Today’s successful business people agree that high intelligence is important, but it is not the only measure of future success. For the current band of entrepreneurs, and future trailblazers, emotional intelligence plays a significant role. After all, many successful entrepreneurs are high school or university dropouts.

Emotional intelligence is a significant contributor to how leaders manage stress, inspire their team, and make critical business decisions. As Chris Myers says, it is how leaders connect and understand their team and how customers feel that counts. Behind every leaders’ success are their passion and their ability to make decisions without acting impulsively. Great leaders take time to pause and reflect on any emotions before making their choices.

Emotional Intelligence is not a new idea. As Rutgers Psychologist Daniel Goleman writes, “the leaders with the best analytical minds take second place behind the ones with a high quota of emotional intelligence.”