The dark side of emotional intelligence
The following is an extract from an article by By Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic about the dark side of emotional intelligence, I just wanted to give my own take on this.
Managers should have higher emotional intelligence (EQ). However, too much EQ may result in counterproductive habits and behaviours that threaten someone’s ability to build effective relationships at work.
For example, very high levels of EQ enable people to hide their emotions, thoughts and intentions, and people with extremely high levels of EQ have been found to be so good at reading and influencing other people’s feelings that they often end up manipulating them.
Another dark-side element of EQ is that, at very high levels, it may hinder ‘coachability’. That is, when you are extremely relaxed, cool-headed and satisfied with yourself, you will probably not feel any need to change.
4. Moreover, people with very high EQ will often ignore negative feedback and fail to assume responsibility when things go wrong.
5. Finally, since EQ has been found to be related to empathy, extremely emotionally intelligent individuals may try too hard not to offend others.
My take on this is that Tomas has hit the nail on the head to the current challenges to EQ training in the current market place. Answering each point one by one:-
For effective and productive teams, there is no point training the upper management in EQ if you are not going to train the rest of the team. By raising the EQ of the whole team will raise the effectiveness, behaviours and relationships of the team. It’s time to train the whole team.
If you train the whole team and raise the EQ level, then the incidents of influence and manipulation are replaced with cooperation and shared vision.
By raising the quality of coach who is specialised in EQ, then they can help the client see the benefit of being coachable and areas of real growth. The use of specialised profiles and reports can also highlight the areas for development areas, growth is a never ending process.
Real EQ training coupled with regular profiles and coaching helps get the client to take responsibility and learn from the process whether the feedback is positive or negative, again it is about growth.
Advanced EQ training helps clients communicate with clarity and never offends others, and if they are offended it is because the person needs to improve their own EQ!
The dark side of emotional intelligence is an opportunity to shine a light on the real growth and for the real stars to shine!
Love
Deepak
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