Why Emotional Intelligence Is Anything But Emotional

One of the more prominent currents of late leadership theory is based on Emotional Intelligence, also known as Emotional IQ or EQ.

The premise is fairly straightforward: In business these days, it’s important to be able to understand and control one’s emotions and integrate them with those of others in interpersonal relationships. Emotional Intelligence is marketed as the tool geared specifically for this very purpose.

Emotional Intelligence is important especially in the modern business world because relationships are so integral. Inasmuch as leadership is the stewardship of relationships, it is crucial for the leader to have self-mastery and be able to connect with subordinates with discretion and empathy.

But there are those who seem to think that Emotional Intelligence must be all about emotions and emoting. Contrary to popular belief, EQ does not mean you have to endure a water cooler therapy session every day.

If you look at this very popular leadership model a bit closer, you’ll find that the name is something of a misnomer—Emotional Intelligence has nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with objective thinking.

Breaking It Down

Emotional Intelligence can be broken down into two categories regarding the self and others, each with two categories themselves having to do with awareness and behavior.

It is helpful to view these as a matrix made up of the following quadrants: Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management (Daft, 2008).

As you’ll see, the main thrust of Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s own impulses and to be able to empathize with others.

The assumption is that this is all about emotions, but the keen observer will note that it is actually geared more for overcoming emotions and learning how to be productive in spite of them.

In fact, the ability to connect with others, understand their condition, and interact in a way that they would understand requires a very particular faculty of objective thinking known to psychologists as Theory of Mind.

Those familiar with personality thinking and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator will recognize that this faculty of objective thinking is most closely aligned with the T category or ‘Thinking’, which is actually on the other end of the dynamic from F or ‘Feeling’.

To put it succinctly, Emotional Intelligence is founded on objective thinking, which is the opposite of the emotional state of mind. It is the opposite of what people think it is.

Conclusion

There can be no doubt that Emotional Intelligence is a valuable addition to the study of leadership and team dynamics. But this is only the case if we view it in the proper sense—that of objective thinking and not of emotions and emoting.