Why Emotional Intelligence Beats Technical Skills Every Bloody Time

Most successful executives I know aren’t technical geniuses. They had something infinitely more useful: the ability to pick up on what others are feeling.

After over a decade advising the country’s major players, I’ve seen brilliant specialists crash and burn because they couldn’t navigate the human side of business. Meanwhile, mediocre talents with strong EQ keep climbing the ladder.

What really gets under my skin: companies still hire based on formal education first, emotional intelligence second. Totally stuffed approach.

The Real World Reality

Recently, I watched a department head at a well-known company completely ruin a essential client presentation. Not because of weak analysis. Because they couldn’t sense the client’s concerns.

The client was noticeably anxious about cost implications. Instead of responding to this emotional undercurrent, our team head kept hammering technical specifications. Disaster.

Progressive organisations like Atlassian and Canva have worked it out. They make central emotional intelligence in their people decisions. Evidence is everywhere.

The Four Pillars That Actually Matter

Self-Awareness

Too many professionals operate on default mode. They don’t understand how their emotional states influence their judgment.

I’ll admit something: Not that long ago, I was totally oblivious to my own reactive patterns. Stress made me irritable. Took honest conversations from my team to get through to me.

Social Awareness

This is where most technical experts fall down. They can understand spreadsheets but can’t tell when their colleague is under pressure.

Speaking frankly, about most of team tensions could be eliminated if people just paid attention body language.

Self-Management

Being able to stay calm under pressure. Not bottling up emotions, but directing them effectively.

Watched firsthand high-level bosses lose their minds during challenging circumstances. Kiss your promotion goodbye. Meanwhile, emotionally intelligent leaders use tough times as motivation.

Relationship Management

This separates good managers from great ones. Establishing rapport, handling disagreements, getting the best from others.

Organisations like Woolworths spend big into building these skills in their leadership teams. Wise investment.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Hard skills get you hired. Emotional intelligence gets you successful. That’s the bottom line.

Let me be clear that hard skills doesn’t matter. Essential foundation. But once you reach leadership roles, it’s all about human dynamics.

Consider this: How many your daily challenges are just about data? Perhaps a quarter. The rest is relationship challenges: handling personalities, building consensus, driving results.

The Australian Advantage

Our culture have some natural advantages when it comes to emotional intelligence. Our directness can be incredibly useful in business settings. Typically we avoid play political games.

But here’s the catch: sometimes our bluntness can appear to be insensitivity. Getting better at read the situation without losing authenticity is vital.

Darwin companies I’ve worked with often find it challenging with this middle ground. Too direct and you damage relationships. Too soft and decisions stall.

Where Most People Get It Wrong

Huge oversight I see: assuming emotional intelligence is nice to have. Wrong. It’s hard business skills.

Organisations with emotionally intelligent leadership show improved profitability. Data suggests results get better by around a quarter when people skills develop.

Second major mistake: misunderstanding emotional intelligence with people pleasing. Complete nonsense. Frequently emotional intelligence means confronting issues head-on. But doing it effectively.

The Action Plan

Stop making excuses. If you’re finding difficulty in relationships, it’s not because your colleagues is unreasonable. It’s because your people skills needs development.

Start with brutal self-honesty. Get input from people you trust. Avoid justifying. Just absorb.

Then, develop skills in other people’s emotions. Pay attention to facial expressions. How are they really expressing?

Finally: emotional intelligence is learnable. Not like IQ, which is relatively fixed, emotional intelligence grows with effort.

Companies that master this will lead. The ones that don’t will struggle.

Decision time.

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