The term emotional intelligence was proposed by journalist Daniel Goleman’s in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

What is emotional intelligence?

In 1921, Dr. Lewis M. Terman, a Stanford University psychologist and a pioneer of the I.Q. test, selected 1,521 children who had high IQ (135 or over) to test his new intelligence test, the Stanford-Binet. This became a life-long study that yielded a lot of information.

For example, Terman studied the same children and his findings added to the debate about the influence of I.Q. on life success: it turned out that intelligence is not the only ingredient for outstanding achievement. Successful participants, who now are over 80 years old, showed greater “will power, perseverance and desire to excel”.

Another famous test, the marshmallow test on delayed gratitude suggested the importance of sel-control and ability to sacrifize immediate satisfaction for the greater good in the future. In this test Walter Mischel gave children the option to have one marshmallow right now, or two if they can wait before eating them. The findings of this famous research showed correlation between delayed gratification and self-control and better school grades, earnings and job satisfaction.

Emotional intelligence consists of 5 areas:

self-awareness,

emotional control,

self-motivation,

empathy,

relationship skills.

All of those qualities or areas are equally important for communication with others, therefore they are important for better learning, academic success, friendships, and employment.

Unfortunately, this important skill is not taught at school, and this leads to many issues, including conflicts, misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Nevertheless, big companies and researchers become aware of importance of emotional intelligence and employees with this skill are valuable assets to any team.

Margaret M. Hopkins in her study on managing conflict with emotional intelligence, found that there were significant relationships between emotional intelligence and participants’ conflict management styles. Such parts of emotional control as problem solving, social responsibility, and impulse control were the most directly related to how participants’ abilities to manage conflict at the workplace.

Emotional intelligence often provides the foundation for future habits later on in life, not only in work environment, but in personal life as well.

References:

Hopkins, Margaret M., Robert D. Yonker, (2015) "Managing conflict with emotional intelligence: abilities that make a difference", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 34 Issue: 2, pp.226-244, https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-04-2013-0051

Mischel, W. (2004). Toward an integrative science of the person. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 1–22.

Shurkin, Joel (1992). Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted Grow Up. Boston (MA): Little, Brown.