Emotional Intelligence – The X Factor

Emotional Intelligence – The X Factor

 (Excerpt from the Book - Emotional Intelligence: Reflecting on the Prophet’s Way by Muhammad Javed)

 Edited by Fatuma Hirsi

So, what about the age-old formula of success that has been drilled into our heads by our parents, teachers at school, “Study hard, do well at school and you will succeed”?

Interestingly Lewis Terman, a social scientist and psychologist, had a theory that it was the intelligent high IQ individuals that were the movers and shakers, shaping the world in every field of influence from science, politics to business, medicine etc. So, he decided to get evidence to back his theory and selected more than one thousand high IQ students (with IQ score140 and above) and followed them through their adulthood. The results in their adulthood did not quite turn out as he expected.

Indeed, a small portion of them were very successful, but many were average people and a good number of them ended up as failures in their personal, family and professional lives! So, what does this result mean? You could have a very high IQ, but still land up being an average Joe or an abject failure. Others started looking for the ‘X-factor’ that successful influential people had, but if you guessed social Intelligence or Emotional Intelligence, then you guessed right! They knew about themselves, about others, how to work effectively with different kinds of people, to tune into their wavelength and extract the best out of others.[1]

Many other studies have been conducted since then, especially by industrial psychologists and consulting agencies. According to a study by Hay McBer, of the 21 competencies that distinguished high performers from average performers,85% were emotional competencies, 10% intellectual and only 5% was technical.[2] This implies that the success of a majority of star performers can be attributed to emotional intelligence factors.

Daniel Goleman, a leading authority on EI, on his part says that early in one’s career, the intellectual/technical ability plays an important role in establishing a strong footing in your career. But as one progresses in their career, or field, and becomes responsible for other people in supervisory or leadership roles, the intellectual component plays a lesser and lesser prominent role, whereas the EI and personal effectiveness plays a more and more important determinant of success. This holds true especially among a talented group of people who are smart enough (above the “IQ threshold”), EI abilities provides them the edge to be effective leaders and rise to the top.[3]

In today’s world, the rules for work have changed and one is judged, not only by how intelligent they are or by their training and expertise, but also by how well they handle themselves and others. We can see that these rules, which determine who is most likely to become a star performer in their field of work, have little to do with academic abilities that were deemed important in school. The new standard of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) assumes that one has enough intellectual ability to do the job, and instead, focuses on personal qualities or emotional competencies.

In the upcoming posts, we will see how Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence (or Self-Purification) are interrelated and how together they are critical, not just for our success in the worldly sense, but being self-aware, practicing self-regulation, being motivated about Jannah, interacting with others while following the boundaries of Sunnah, and following the examples of the Guide to Mankind, Muhammad ﷺ, is critical to attaining ultimate success in the after-life.

[1]  (Gladwell, 2009)

[2] Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance, Lyle M. Spencer

[3] (Goleman, 2005, p. xiv to xv)