An Overview of Research on EQ
Here is an overview of just a few findings reported in the literature regarding the impact of EQ in the workplace:
◦ The primary causes of career derailment in executives are attributable to deficits in emotional competencies. The three most important “derailers” are the inability to adapt to change, difficulties working as a member of a team, and poor interpersonal relationships.
- Only 10% of terminations are due to technical deficiencies, that is, the inability to master the skills do the job. 90% of firings result from attitudinal and behavioral problems or difficulties with relationships in the workplace.
- In leadership, almost 90% of what distinguishes “outstanding leaders” from the rest is attributable to emotional intelligence. It is now referred to as “The 90% Factor” in discussions of leadership success.
- 62% of employees who said they have an effective manager intend to stay on the job. 17% of employees who said they have an ineffective manager said they intend to stay. People don't leave jobs…they leave ineffective managers.
- Accurate self-awareness, a core emotional competency, was associated with superior performance in several hundred managers in a dozen companies.
- People with strong empathy who accurately perceive the emotions of other people are better at handling change and build stronger social networks.
- IQ alone is a poor predictor of job success. Various studies estimate that IQ alone accounts for as little as 4 to 10% of success at work.
- At Met Life, a group of job candidates were hired who had failed the normal screening process but had scored high on a measure of optimism. They outsold a group of pessimists by 21% the first year and 57% the second year. They even outsold average agents by 27%.
- Sales reps for a computer company who were hired for emotional competence were 90% more likely to finish their training than reps hired on the basis of other criteria.
- A study of military leaders found that their emotional intelligence was highly related to the presence of emotionally intelligent group norms in the teams they led. Those norms were significantly related to the team’s performance.
- The most effective leaders in the US Navy are warmer, more outgoing, expressive emotionally, and sociable.
- 65% of American workers have not received recognition from their boss in over a year. The Department of Labor reports that the number-one reason people leave their jobs is the feeling that they are not appreciated by their management.
- The higher people rise in the ranks of management, the more likely they are to have distorted self-perceptions. Senior managers tend to rate themselves as much higher on emotional and social competencies than they are rated by their peers and direct reports.
- Supervisors in a manufacturing environment were trained in emotional competencies. This resulted in a 50% decrease in time lost due to accidents; formal grievances dropped from 15 to 3 per year; and, the plant exceeded its annual financial goals by more than a quarter of a million dollars.
- People who are less able to read the subtleties of body language tend to be less academically successful.
- Emotional intelligence is a better predictor of academic success in college than high-school grade point averages.