4 Reasons Why Emotional Intelligence is Important in the Workplace [Leadership Insight]

Foreign. Welcome to this Leadership Insights episode of the Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. In this episode, we're going to share why emotional intelligence is one of, if not the most crucial skill of leadership. So, quick question for you. How important do you think emotional intelligence is in the workplace? Well, that might be sort of a trick question, right? I bet you already know that emotional intelligence is one of the key ingredients in better business relationships, smoother meetings, and higher morale. Officially, emotional intelligence is defined as the capability to recognize your own emotions and those of others, to discern between different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and to manage emotions to adapt to environments or achieve goals. If you wish your leaders would develop more emotional intelligence, these are four more reasons EQ is essential for success. Number one Emotional intelligence can't be outsourced to a robot or factory. Many of the tasks performed by humans will be outsourced to artificial intelligence in the next decade. A line of code could replace three employees. A robot can complete things faster and more accurately than a human, but AI can't soothe a ruffled client after missing a deadline. A line of code can't negotiate benefits or salaries, and a robot won't know when to leverage goodwill. Soon, emotional intelligence will decide who has a job and who doesn't. It's as simple as that. Number two, Emotional intelligence is no longer a soft skill, it's an essential skill. For a long time, emotional intelligence was considered a nice to have a lovely add on valued well below technical skills or corporate knowledge of industry specifics. It was most important that a team member understood coding language or industry specific bylaws. If they could read a room or hold a conversation, well, that was icing on the cake. But no longer. As our workplaces become more collaborative, these social skills are more important than ever. When a company is made up of people who are diplomatic, compassionate, self aware, everyone benefits. Executives, team members, support staff, clients and vendors. Number three. The higher your eq, the more likely you're going to get hired and promoted. Obviously, right? Everything being equal, wouldn't we all prefer to work with someone who can manage their emotions, respond well to feedback and respect, include others. In a recent LinkedIn survey of 4,000 professionals, everyone agreed the number one priority for talent development is training for soft skills like eq? Number four Skills related to emotional intelligence are the future. Software will update, programming languages will die out, and social media platforms will lose favor. Hard skills have a surprisingly short shelf life, but skills like EQ are always useful Regardless of what else is happening in the industry, training for soft skills in the EQ will soften the impact of automation. Companies will always need people who can communicate well, think critically and adapt to changes with ease. So have we convinced you? If you're curious about your level of emotional intelligence, let us facilitate an EQ session and assessment for you and your team. If there are leaders on your organization who could benefit from raising their EQ, let's get connected. Get in touch with us@susandrum.com we'd love to help you. And if you like this episode and want more leadership insights like these, hit the subscribe button and the like button and we always appreciate our five star reviews. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.