When it comes to leading yourself and others, emotional intelligence – the ability to understand and manage our own emotions and understand and influence the emotions of others – is just as important as IQ, if not more.

Here's why: When you get good at being aware of your emotions and the emotions of others, you can connect with others much more effectively to reach solutions faster. A person's IQ, while certainly required in the role of a leader, cannot travel the same road as fast. It needs to partner with EQ.

Interviewing and Hiring for Emotional Intelligence

Organizations looking for an edge in hiring top performers should put more emphasis on EQ during the hiring process. Previous research conducted with more than 600 HR managers and over 800 office workers adds proof that emotional intelligence is critically important in work settings where professionals interact with a wide range of people. 

For example: 

• Nearly all of the more than 600 human resources managers (95 percent) and 800 workers (99 percent) surveyed said they think it's important for employees to have emotional intelligence.
• More than one in five employees (21 percent) believe EQ is more valuable in the workplace than IQ. Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) said the two are equally important.
• Most workers (92 percent) think they have strong emotional intelligence; slightly fewer (74 percent) believe their bosses do.
• Three in 10 HR managers (30 percent) feel most employers put too little emphasis on emotional intelligence during the hiring process.
• HR managers identified increased motivation and morale (43 percent) as the greatest benefit of having emotionally intelligent staff.
• Eighty-six percent of workers said when a colleague doesn't control his or her emotions, it affects their perception of that person's level of professionalism.

3 Questions to Ask

If you're in a management or HR role, and you'd like to evaluate whether your potential new hires have the EQ you need for top performance, scrutinizing candidates' answers to specific questions can reveal more than you think. Asking the following questions can help assess a potential hire's EQ: 

• How did you handle a day when everything went wrong for you?
• How comfortable are you asking for help at work?
• How well do you handle stress and pressure?

Candidates with high emotional intelligence will demonstrate how they've implemented the best solutions to their problems while keeping the dialogue positive and not blaming other people.

They also have extreme comfort in asking for help and are excellent at handling stress and pressure.

On the other hand, the following answers to the same questions above are clear signs that a job candidate may lack emotional intelligence:

• After a bad day, they couldn't stop thinking about how terrible things were and/or lashed out and blamed others for the things that were happening.
• They are not at all or are only slightly comfortable asking for help at work.
• They handle stress and pressure only fairly or worse and could not come up with concise examples of how they managed stress or conflict effectively at work .

When it comes to asking more open-ended questions about your job candidates' strengths and weaknesses, pay close attention: Those who demonstrate personal attributes like positivity, confidence and diligence in their abilities will typically have higher than average emotional intelligence than those who speak to different attributes.

Finally, a substantial shift (and learning curve) is needed for organizations to be introduced to the idea of an emotionally intelligent-driven work culture.

As more organizations adopt and embed the approach to hiring and growing employees with EQ, the upside over the long term will ultimately result in better team members, better leaders and better performance.

Inc