In our careers, there is no point in time when we are convinced with the idea of being complacent. We want more from our careers and hence, career advancement is of utmost importance to us irrespective of which industry we work in. Speaking of the contemporary corporate world, the notion of career advancement revolves entirely around skills. The more skills you acquire the higher the prospects for thriving success.
Also, we must acknowledge the fact that the corporate world has come a long way. The skills that were necessary for career success a few years ago may be redundant today. The current corporate space is being driven by the skills of the new age among which EQ has gained its own distinct spot. Emotional intelligence or EQ is among the most influential and vital corporate skills in this revamped corporate regime.
In fact, as per Cision, 21 percent of people are of the view that EQ is more significant than IQ in the workplace. Furthermore, it also reveals that 95 percent of HR managers are of the view that employees should have a high EQ.
Besides, it is interesting to know that as per TalentSmart, people with proficiency in EQ earn around USD 29000 more per year than those with low EQ. Did you know that EQ could make such a significant difference to career growth? EQ is certainly at the center stage of the future of the workplace.
The fundamental question is, what makes emotional intelligence so desirable and imperative? How does EQ actually add to career success and why are employers keen on investing only in those employees who come with high EQ. Let us find all these answers in this meticulous and engaging blog. The blog highlights the different ways in which EQ can add to career success. However, before we move to that, just to be on the same page, let us look at the definition of emotional intelligence.
What does emotional intelligence actually mean?
Simply put, emotional intelligence or EQ is an individual’s ability to manage and control their emotions effectively to drive positive outcomes. Further, the definition also extends to the ability to positively manage others’ emotions and feelings as well for producing positive results.
Since employees often find themselves being overpowered by negative emotions and unpleasant influences taking the better out of them, the definition explains the relevance of EQ in the modern workplace. EQ is a paramount soft skill that complements the professional experience and technical expertise that employees carry. Having understood the definition, let us now proceed with the subsequent section.
Ways in which EQ adds value to career advancement
- Promotes greater self-awareness
Emotional intelligence is not only about having great control over your emotions. There is so much more to it even beyond its definition that we usually look at. To explain, emotional intelligence comes with a strong sense of self-awareness. People who have impressive EQ skills are well aware of their strengths and capabilities.
Moreover, not only does self-awareness relate to the realization of strengths but also the weaknesses. An individual with a strong sense of self-awareness will have a greater acceptance of the inefficiencies that need to be worked upon. Having said that, self-awareness fosters greater acceptance among people of what they are capable of and the need for improvement.
Now, when we look at it from a career perspective, self-awareness is highly important. In fact, as per Harvard Business Review, not more than 20 percent of employees have the prerequisite self-awareness. This could well be the reason why a lot of people struggle to advance in their careers. When they are not self-aware, they fail at effectively backing their capabilities to take initiative. Moreover, they also remain in constant denial of the fact that they have some shortcomings that they need to work on.
Therefore, when you work on your EQ skills, you can incrementally increase your self-awareness. You will know exactly what your capabilities are and this confidence is going to add incredible value to your career. Also, it will keep your ego in check and push you to work on areas that have inefficiencies to address for greater career success. Self-awareness is the foundation of actionable self-improvement and it will keep encouraging you to do better.
When you have a high degree of self-awareness, it will be hard for others to pull you down. Your engagement and commitment will not be shaken by what people have to say. Thus, self-awareness being a salient component of EQ can strengthen your career prospects in numerous ways.
- Enhances social skills
Your career success has a lot to do with how effectively you can collaborate with others. This explains why social skills and relationship-building skills are among the most essential soft skills for career success. When you have positive working relationships with your co-workers, it adds immensely to your individual career success as well.
To substantiate, as per Pew Research Center, more than 40 percent of jobs require effective social skills. With the dynamics of employability and success changing so swiftly, this number will only go higher. Besides, SalesForce reveals that ineffective collaboration is cited as the major reason for project failure by almost 90 percent of executives. Clearly, the effectiveness in terms of working in a team and career success complement each other.
When you acquire emotional intelligence, you can cultivate incredible working relationships with others with empathy being at the epicenter. With empathy, you can promote greater trust and belongingness among your team and steer your team to incredible outcomes. Both empathy and social skills are core attributes of emotional intelligence. To elucidate, both these attributes have their own relevance and significance in terms of adding to career success.
You become a far more valuable asset for your employer when you portray empathy and social skills. The exemplary ability to collaborate effectively with others offers you a great competitive advantage. How much effort you are willing to reap the benefits of it is totally up to you.
- Improves resilience
If we look at the top employability skills relative to the present corporate scenario, resilience is becoming increasingly imperative. Employers want highly resilient people in the face of challenges and massive transformations transpiring in the business environment. They want people they can look up to when it comes to unusual circumstances. If you ask modern employers, they want nothing less than a team that has exemplary resilience. For sure, you want to be someone who embraces challenges rather than giving in even without trying.
This is where EQ can again play a superlative role in adding to your resilience. When you have effective EQ skills, you can manage negative emotions in a more efficient way. In this way, you can exhibit greater resilience and better critical thinking skills amid unprecedented challenges. When you are in the right frame of mind, you can plan things better and bring out the best innovation in you.
On the contrary, if you are not resilient enough, you will falter under pressure and fail to deliver what is expected of you. This explains why employers want a resilient workforce that can deliver under all circumstances. Therefore, with high EQ, you can add an impressive dimension of high resilience to your professional personality. Being resilient will imply that you will have greater opportunities and more career prospects.
- Facilitates high learning motivation
Motivation is an intrinsic component of emotional intelligence. Having said that, it is not incorrect to say that people with high EQ carry high motivation that incrementally adds to their capabilities. In these times of enormous competition, you need to embrace openness to learning. The more you are willing to learn the more significant the success that you can add to your career.
As an individual with emotional intelligence, you can keep your motivation high at all times. In fact, this aspect of motivation will not be limited to workplace learning or professional development. With high motivation, you can also deal with challenges in a more confident way.
All in all, with high EQ, you can come across your superiors or potential employers as someone highly motivated and flamboyant. Even in your personal life, you can produce great outcomes with inspiring motivation. Besides, when you have a motivated personality, you can also inspire great motivation in your team members. This is where EQ can make you a far better co-worker and leader bringing the best out of everyone.
There is literally nothing that you cannot achieve with the right motivation. From workplace learning objectives to your SMART goals related to a project, with motivation, you can succeed in every endeavor. Besides, high motivation is not meant to be a one-day affair. It is something that needs to be an innate aspect of your personality that enables you to raise the bar every day. Therefore, for making motivation an intrinsic quality of your persona, EQ is quite indispensable.
- Optimizes leadership qualities
Emotional intelligence is a salient attribute of leadership in contemporary times. When leaders have high EQ, they can steer their team through all sorts of challenges and crises. In fact, it would not be incorrect to say that EQ is far more essential for leaders especially when it comes to leading diverse teams.
As a leader, you ought to promote great coherence in the team and keep everyone on the same page. For that, you need a better understanding of their emotions and the influences that may pull them down. Simply put, to excel in leadership roles, you need impressive emotional intelligence.
Interestingly, as per Vantage Circle, more than 90 percent of top performers in the corporate world have above average EQ. This clearly explains that emotional intelligence makes you far more competitive for managerial and leadership roles.
Having said that, when you work on building EQ skills, you can put up a better claim for leadership and project management roles. You have a better chance of getting promoted to higher designations when you manifest impressive emotional intelligence.
After all, who does not like the idea of career growth and scaling new heights. For that, EQ is proving to be a great catalyst in this revamped corporate world. In the coming years, EQ will surely be the cornerstone of all corporate management styles.
To recapitulate, the present corporate world is more competitive than ever before. The stakes are high and the only way to succeed in your career is to keep adding to your skills. Relative to the latest employability trends, EQ is gaining an edge over IQ as a vital professional skill. This explains why the demand for EQ is increasing in an incessant manner. Besides, as a skill, EQ is a culmination of different qualities that can add multi-dimensional value to your professional abilities and help you advance towards your career goals. The sooner you master the all-important skill of EQ the more beneficial it will be for your career.
