Can Emotional intelligence be measured?
Why aiming for a higher EQ is an impossible task
Are you a high achiever? Do you love to learn and score the highest grades? Do you always get the promotions you want but are still left feeling hollow at the end of the day? EQ may be your ticket to creating a life where you thrive instead of surviving day to day.
A high EQ sounds good, right?
Sorry to burst your bubble but EQ is not something you can study and then suddenly achieve after a week or even a month. You will not (or should not!) get a certificate after a course or coaching programme that says, “XX is certified as emotionally intelligent”. Tuning into your emotional intelligence is a habit that takes time and will help you develop a set of tools and awareness muscles that you will strengthen over time. Improving emotional intelligence is about learning how to observe and analyse your own reactions and your impact on other people. It can make you a more empathetic, engaging, and ultimately a happier person to live and work with. This is deep work and does not happen in short assessments or spaces of time.
An Emotional Quotient (or EQ) is a numerical measure people strive for as a way to measure the “softer” emotional and feeling-related characteristics of themselves. It is an attempt to amalgamate scores of emotional qualities that can stand as a statement of how emotionally intelligent someone is at a fixed point in time. It’s this reason that makes it so problematic as a measure. Are your feelings, emotions, and reactions to things the same every day? They change a lot don’t they?! IQ can be given as a fixed number as your ability to technically solve intellectual problems is largely fixed over time. Your emotional capacity to observe and respond to feelings and situations is fluid and can change readily dependent on your circumstances.
Emotional Intelligence profiling will give you scores related to 16 measures that give a read at that moment in time on how your behaviour, feelings, and attitude change when managing yourself and managing your interaction with others. These measures can and will change over time as you become more aware of them and seek to notice any problem areas earlier to avert negative outcomes and/or work through the feelings that lead you to your current weaknesses. A coaching programme based on emotional intelligence profiling will seek to review progress in each of the areas periodically and see where you have made progress. Typically with 3, 6, or 12-month gaps to allow development time in between.
Emotional intelligence profiling will not give you a headline EQ that is fixed
EQ is a moving feast and can be improved with focused work, unlike other personality-based profiles. In fact the more work you do the more you can uncover sometimes! Once you un tap the awareness that improving your emotional intelligence brings, it’s a skill that you will keep using in all facets of your life. You will start to notice the friend who goes quiet every time a certain dynamic happens in your friendship group. You will start to notice your own anxieties fizzle before they get to boiling point and cause friction in your relationships. You will muster the confidence to add new things to your work or personal life that you always thought was out of your reach due to low self-regard as opposed to lack of ability.
Emotional intelligence can help you show up more at home and at work
Are you aware that you have not been showing up as your best self for a while now, and are tired of researching emotional intelligence books and blogs ( I don’t take offence!) But do you still have questions about how it might be able to work for you?
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