How does emotional intelligence affect your leadership skills? -By Aniket from IIM Trichy

Firstly, let us throw out the idea that IQ is not an accurate representation of a person’s intelligence because we all know it isn’t. And I say this because there are a few things that it doesn’t measure or doesn’t measure well enough to have some meaning such as short-term memory, reasoning skills, and verbal ability. So, for now, let’s leave that debate for another article and focus on the notion of IQ vs EQ (emotional intelligence) rather than the holy test.

Humans know a lot - we know how to build, innovate, and discover things. With this power, we have done some marvelous innovations throughout human history by building civilizations, creating art, and choosing what is right for us. We have achieved such goals by learning new things and trying to avoid the mistakes which our ancestors have made. 

But do you know who else also has many of these abilities? Yes, our very own beloved creations, the robots. They can also gather a lot of information, learn from the mistakes that they have made and come up with something better and clever. They can compute data at such veracity and velocity which isn’t in our reach. They can use analytical skills like probabilities and forecasting to give us the most intelligent option ever.

But why aren’t they running the world then? Why are humans still at the center of all the decisions taken around the world? Why are robots still just a tool to serve our purpose? I think the answer is perfectly captured by a statement said by one of greatest American psychologists Robert Sternberg that “It takes intelligence to know how to do things, but wisdom to do the right thing”. 

Human vs Robotic intelligence

I would like to mention one of the iconic scenes from the movie “I, Robot (2004)” starring Will Smith. In the opening scene of the movie, the main lead Spooner (Will Smith) and a young girl are drowning in two adjacent cars. Then a robot enters the scene to rescue them. He lands on the car of Spooner and opens his arms to rescue Spooner. By seeing this Spooner orders the robot to rescue the girl instead of him. But the robot has done all its calculations and has decided that Spooner has a greater probability of surviving, therefore saving him rather than her and letting her drown to death. Analytically speaking that was the best option available to the robot. But was it really the best option because sometimes what seems right might not actually be right. 

Analyze, if we put a human in the place of the robot, things might have been different. A human might have chosen the alternative because most humans tend to try and save the people who are in the most danger.

So, intelligence being a basic requirement to come up with different options that can be chosen, emotions make us humans and lets us choose what is best in that situation. This is because fortunately we are still mostly dealing with humans in our life. As one thing that might work on someone might not be appropriate for someone else. One way of dealing with someone might not be the best for the other. This is because all humans are different and see the world in a very different way than others. 

To elaborate on this idea, let’s assume that you have discovered that one type of food product is best for the health and nutrition of an individual. And now you are set to preach this finding to one of your classmates. But due to some religious or political affiliation, that person has abolished that food item from his life. But on the next day, take one of your research reports and a hefty plate of that said food item you reach his table and offer him to eat. At that moment you might have realised that you have made a huge mistake and are in a position to receive a flying leather chappal in your face. Therefore, to save your life and your citizenship at that moment your intelligence didn’t work. Here you will have to use something called an emotional sense where you have to adjust your decisions according to the environment you are currently in.

So, for a leader both are important. But the power to control, manipulate his emotions and choose the best option for that point of time comes only with emotional quotients.

This article was submitted as an entry to Become an Author 2.0 with Dare2Compete.