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How can your emotional intelligence help determine your success?

Updated: Jul 26, 2022

How can your Emotional Intelligence help determine your success?

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of people around you.

Research shows that there is a positive correlation between having higher levels of emotional intelligence and having a successful career. It’s like a 6th sense and, unlike IQ, Emotional Intelligence can be acquired and developed.


How does it affect your business?

We have thousands of thoughts each day, and shockingly 70% of those thoughts are negative. These negative thoughts lead to negative emotions. They, in turn, determine our behaviours and decisions which impact our motivation and productivity at work and affect our relationships. To change the outcomes, that is to say our behaviours, we must first understand our thoughts and emotions. If we can master our thoughts, we can master our behaviours.

We can think of our personality or identity as an iceberg to help us understand how this works. In the same way that only 10% of an iceberg is above the waterline whilst the rest remains hidden below the surface, only a small proportion of our identity is apparent to others. The larger proportion of our identity, and what contributes to it, is hidden and is rarely apparent to others. The identity iceberg looks something like this :


It’s what goes on below the water-line, and how we react to our environment, that determines our thoughts and behaviours. So, on one level emotional intelligence can be regarded as your awareness of your own beliefs, values and identity coupled with your ability to manage your emotions and behaviours. On another level, it is concerned with your ability to understand the ‘iceberg’ of those people around you and, consequently, better manage those relationships.

How can you recognise emotional intelligence in people?

There are common traits you see within people who have a high level of emotional intelligence. These include:

  • Being able to handle criticism without becoming defensive

  • Taking responsibility and ownership of situations and projects

  • Holding ourselves to account for the outcomes of our actions

  • Admitting to, and learning from, our mistakes

  • Asking questions and being good listeners

The ‘Point of Power’ is a practical and universally applicable model that is used to help us recognise these behaviours in ourselves and in others. The behaviours that are above the ‘Point of Power’ are closely associated with those of people with high levels of emotional intelligence: ownership, accountability and responsibility. The behaviours below the point are often associated with people with a lack of self-awareness, who fail to hold themselves to account and who quickly blame others or make excuses for their own situation i.e., those with low levels of emotional intelligence.


The reference to ‘power’ in the name of this model is simply that when you have the ‘OAR’, you are in control, you have power. Conversely, when you are in ‘BED’, you are the victim, things happen around you and you have no control or power.

Let’s put it into context…you know that you need to make a marketing and sales push to generate new enquiries for your business and you resolve to call 10 new prospects by the end of the week. Friday comes and you haven’t made a single call. You tell yourself that you were too busy, there was an urgent client situation you had to deal with, your team needed you to resolve a problem they were experiencing and, anyway, you were tired this week and weren’t ‘feeling up for it’. You’ll make those calls next week.

Where does that behaviour sit in our model? Are you taking responsibility for your actions and holding yourself to account? Or are you blaming others and making excuses for not meeting your goal? We all fail sometimes, it’s not a bad thing. But the key is, can you accept responsibility for it, can you understand why it happened and take full ownership of the task to ensure it’s achieved next week?

Practice observing these behaviours in yourself and in others. What do you see?


How can you improve your emotional intelligence?

There are 3 main, practical and easy ways to improve your emotional intelligence, these are:

Look at yourself objectively– Write down your perceptions of yourself, your strengths, weaknesses, areas of development; think about your achievements, what’s important to you, what makes you happy.

Keep a journal– Write down daily thoughts and feelings, successes & failures, priorities, how others perceive you, what you could have done differently, what you can learn.

Write down your goals, plans and priorities–This will help you know where you are heading and keep you on track.


Some other ways you can practice emotional intelligence are:

  1. Practice meditation and other mindfulness habits.

  2. Take personality and psychometric tests.

  3. Ask trusted friends to describe you/ask them for feedback

  4. Ask colleagues for honest feedback (make them feel safe first)


Emotional intelligence is an important quality to develop as a business leader because that awareness of yourself will enable you to learn more, grow more and become more. Awareness of others will help you form stronger and closer relationships with people around you, be that colleagues or clients. Use some of the techniques above to help you assess your current levels of emotional intelligence and to help you develop a greater awareness of yourself and others.


If you’d like to know more about workshops I run on Emotional Intelligence, Mindset and other related themes please email me at info@iniceos.com

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