Have you ever worked for a boss that just made you miserable?

Was he a bully who put people down, screamed at employees, and was never happy with anything?

How about working for a slave driver—someone so focused on getting things done, meeting goals and deadlines, that she ran over people in the process?

Managers and leaders like these cost their companies thousands of dollars in employee turnover, lost clients, lawsuits, and more. The antidote for these poisonous situations is EQ—emotional intelligence.

What is EQ?

For decades, we’ve known that the person with the highest IQ wasn’t always the most successful person in the room. Where IQ is about book smarts, EQ reflects a person’s abilities in five areas:

• Self-awareness

• Self-regulation

• Motivation

• Empathy

• Social skills

EQ—emotional intelligence—separates great leaders from average ones. EQ is so important to success that it accounts for 58% of performance in all types of jobs, according to a study by Talent Smart.

People with average IQ outperform those with high IQs 70% of the time, much attributed to EQ. (Bradberry& Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0). 

A CareerBuilder survey found that 71% of employers value EQ over IQ and hire accordingly.

Even Jack Welch, himself an engineer and the legendary CEO of GE, said: “No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader.” Welch should know. Under Welch’s reign at GE, the company produced more Fortune 500 CEOs than any other company in history.

If those statistics aren’t enough to sway you to check out EQ, consider this:

Google has a program called Search Inside Yourself, created and directed by Chade-Meng Tan, an engineer who was one of the first Google employees. Search Inside Yourself combines emotional intelligence and mindfulness in a training program that has a waiting list. Thousands of Google employees have been through the program. Chapter 1 in Meng’s book Search Inside Yourself is titled: "Even an Engineer Can Thrive on Emotional Intelligence."

EQ can be developed

Remember the characters I mentioned at the beginning—the bully and the slave driver? Thanks to our brains’ plasticity, these two can learn and improve. The bully boss can learn to manage his emotions. The slave driver can develop her flexibility and empathy for others.

A multitude of resources and assessments are available to help you grow your EQ. Start with the areas under self-perception, and work on only one trait at a time. For the best growth, work with a coach who can guide you and give you an honest appraisal of your progress.

Why should companies care and invest in EQ?

EQ leads to more money and retention. When the Air Force used EQ to select recruiters, they found a three-fold increase in successful recruiters. The immediate gain was a saving of $3 million annually.

After supervisors in a manufacturing plant received training in EQ—such as how to listen better and help employees resolve problems on their own:

• lost-time accidents were reduced by 50 percent,

• formal grievances were reduced from an average of 15 per year to 3 per year,

• and the plant exceeded productivity goals by $250,000.

At a national insurance company, sales agents who were strong in EQ outsold their opposites by almost double. Experienced partners in a multinational consulting firm who scored high in EQ delivered $1.2 million more profit from their accounts thandid other partners—a 139 percent incremental gain.

Given those numbers, why would a company not invest in its leaders and their EQ? 

About the Author: Pamela A. Scott, MA Education & Human Development and certified in EQ, is an executive coach now focusing on helping young professionals move up the career ladder through www.MentorLoft.com. Pam is also working with business owners to help them mentor their Millennials. You can reach Pam at 404-248-9475 or pam@MentorLoft.com.

In today’s fast-changing and competitive landscape for architecture and engineering firms, the role of HR is becoming more strategic and more critical than ever before.  You need the latest thinking on finding the best talent, a solid grasp on emerging trends in ongoing learning, the most innovative and effective approaches to performance management, and much more. There is only one place to learn, network, and engage with hundreds of A/E/C HR professionals and senior-level firm leaders just like you. Focused specifically on the A/E/C space, PSMJ and The Employee Engagement Group are hosting our 2017 A/E/C HR Summit on April 19th-21st in New Orleans.