How Emotional Intelligence Helps You Be Successful

Hayley Hesseln, PhD, CEC and co-founder EI Advantage tells us about how her new book: Emotional Intelligence: Your Foundation for Success helps people in the workforce to promote their ability to communicate, collaborate, and to make decisions and handle stress. 

Trained as a natural resource economist, she has worked as a university professor since 1996 in the US and Canada and focuses much of her research on decision making and organizational development. 

Have you ever wondered why some people are wildly successful when you wouldn’t expect them to be? I look back at some of my peers who slacked off in high school and at university—they often went to parties and failed to attend class regularly—and I see now that many have high-profile careers.

Or perhaps it’s the reverse. I also knew people who were operating at a genius level but turned out to be less successful later in life. Taking everything into consideration, it’s clear that emotional intelligence played a big part.

Emotional Intelligence

The concept of emotional intelligence or EI has been around for a long time and has been linked to personal and professional success.  In fact, the questions posed at the beginning of this piece were asked by Reuven Bar-On, a psychologist who found there to be a strong link between emotional functioning and success. 

In fact, he developed the foundations for what is now the EQ-i 2.0 Emotional Intelligence Assessment, which measures a range of emotional skills such as the ability to perceive your emotions, to develop strong relationships, and to handle stress, to name a few.  

So What?

So, you can measure EI; what’s the big deal?  Well, it’s not just about measuring EI.  An assessment can give you a snapshot of your emotional skills at the present and help you to see your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.  For example, maybe you score high in emotional expression meaning that you can easily express a full range of emotions. 

On the other hand, you might score low in impulse control and not realize that you are always the first to talk at meetings and have a tendency to stifle others.

Or, you score high in impulse control meaning you’re very measured and calm and never act rashly.  That’s great but if you don’t have coping mechanisms to help you manage yourself, you might not be able to handle stress.

Enhance your skills!

The good news is that emotional skills can be learned. You can enhance your EI by first identifying areas for improvement and second, by adopting strategies to promote your skills.  I’ve done this myself using exercise from Emotional Intelligence: Your Foundation for Success to become more expressive and assertive at times and I’ve made profound changes in my ability to communicate and collaborate.

Emotional Intelligence: Your Foundation for Success explains why emotional intelligence is important and offers 45 strategies that have been proven to promote emotional skills – I know because I’ve used them!  Practicing the exercises will empower you to develop your emotional skills and give you the confidence you need to succeed personally and professionally.

Don’t miss your chance to join us as we launch our very first book! Register now for free and meet us virtually on October 1st!