Emotional Intelligence:
Frequently Asked Questions

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognize and understand your emotions and the emotions of others, and to use that awareness to effectively guide your actions. Emotional intelligence helps you navigate relationships and make positive decisions in life. 

Emotional intelligence is made up of four core components that pair up under two primary competencies: self-awareness and self-management fall under personal competence, and social awareness and relationship management fall under social competence. 

Research shows that EQ is an essential skillset that drives performance and success in individuals, teams, leaders and organizations. It is also a highly flexible skill, which is why many organizations make EQ training an essential part of their employee development. 

IQ measures cognitive skills like problem-solving and reasoning, while EQ measures how well you understand and manage emotions and how you use those to build and maintain positive relationships. Most emotional intelligence skills have no correlation with IQ. While IQ is often touted as a key indicator of success, studies have shown that emotional intelligence skills are some of the most impactful skills for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Another difference between EQ and IQ is that while IQ tends to stay the same over time, EQ can be developed with practice. According to TalentSmartEQ’s research, emotional intelligence training and coaching programs are proven to help individuals and teams increase EQ over time.

The four core components of EQ are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

• Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and name your emotions in the moment and understand how you tend to act in various situations.
• Self-management is the ability to use self-awareness to effectively manage your emotional reactions in order to make positive decisions in emotionally charged situations.
• Social awareness is the ability to recognize emotions in others and set aside your own emotions so you can understand what is really going on with them.
• Relationship management is the ability to use self-awareness and social awareness to successfully manage your relationships and interactions with others.

At TalentSmartEQ, these four skills are at the core of our assessments, workshops, and coaching because they provide a clear framework for lasting growth.

Emotional intelligence is one of the strongest predictors of workplace performance and leadership success. People with high EQ are better at handling stress, making good decisions, and motivating others. Research shows that employees with high EQ earn more and have stronger work relationships than their low EQ peers, teams with high emotional intelligence are more cohesive and productive, and the emotional intelligence of a leader has direct impact on employee morale and performance. 

For organizations, EQ isn’t just an added bonus. It is essential for leadership, employee engagement, culture, productivity, and overall success. TalentSmartEQ helps organizations harness these benefits through research-based assessments and training that make EQ practical and actionable for individuals, leaders, and teams.

Emotional intelligence is a highly flexible skill that can be improved with the right knowledge and practice. You can increase emotional intelligence by practicing small, daily habits that strengthen your ability to recognize and manage emotions in yourself and others. Simple practices like pausing before reacting, reflecting on your emotional triggers, and working on active listening skills will eventually reshape how you respond under pressure and connect with others. 

To effectively increase EQ, start by assessing your current strengths and growth areas. Once you know what to work on, you can start taking steps toward your goal. While you can increase emotional intelligence on your own, EQ training programs have a proven track record of helping individuals achieve meaningful, long-term improvement in emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is measured by looking at how you recognize, understand, and respond to emotions in real situations. EQ assessments evaluate patterns in your behavior, like how you manage stress, read other people’s emotional cues, manage relationships, and handle feedback. 

At TalentSmartEQ, our assessments measure the four core EQ skills along with 28 specific behaviors, and results include a goal-tracking system, personalized strategy recommendations, e-learning lessons, and a free re-test. Individuals, leaders, and organizations use these assessments to guide training and development that drives meaningful growth.

Signs of low emotional intelligence include poor listening skills, poor communication skills, conflict avoidance, poor decision-making, blame-shifting, disregard for others’ feelings, emotional outbursts, trouble maintaining relationships, social isolation, and high stress levels. 

Low emotional intelligence can show up in the workplace as frequent misunderstandings with coworkers, defensiveness, difficulty accepting feedback, or trouble managing stress. People with low EQ may struggle to read the emotional temperature of the room, come across as insensitive, or let emotions derail decisions. All these signs of low EQ come from a lack of one or more of the four components of emotional intelligence, which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. 

High emotional intelligence looks different from person to person, but it is characterized by a person’s ability to recognize and manage emotions in themselves and in others. The way this plays out depends on the situation, but in general, people with high EQ tend to stay composed under pressure, listen actively, empathize with others, and handle conflict constructively. They communicate effectively, work more productively on teams, and perform at a higher level than their lower EQ peers. They are likely the person others come to in times of stress, the one who remains calm when everyone else panics. They genuinely care about others, and they know how to get things done. 

High EQ isn’t about being nice all the time. It’s about being effective and intentional with emotions and relationships, and harnessing that effectiveness to provide impactful, measurable benefits in the workplace and beyond.

Yes, emotional intelligence is a soft skill, but don’t let the term fool you. While emotional intelligence involves skills that might not be listed on your job description, it directly affects hard business outcomes like performance, retention, and revenue. In fact, human-centered skills like emotional intelligence are being rebranded as power skills, because they are the foundation of effective decision-making, problem-solving, relationship-building, teamwork, productivity, and other essentials for success in business. 

TalentSmartEQ offers a variety of assessments that measure and build emotional intelligence. The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal® self-, multi-rater, and 360° editions give individuals and leaders a clear view of their EQ strengths and growth areas. The Leadership Appraisal® gives business leaders detailed feedback on the 22 leadership skills, including emotional intelligence, that set great leaders apart. We also offer Impact Studies that track how EQ development in an organization improves culture, collaboration, and performance. Each assessment delivers practical results, strategies for success, and the tools you need to reach your EQ goals.

As the leading provider of EQ solutions and services, TalentSmartEQ’s training programs use proven, practical models to translate emotional intelligence theory into practice. Through assessments, interactive workshops and coaching, participants learn specific strategies they can immediately apply to real workplace situations, like handling conflict, giving feedback, or managing stress. By combining assessments with hands-on training, both individuals and organizations can see measurable improvements in teamwork, leadership, culture, and overall performance. Click here for real-life success stories from our clients.

We work with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, healthcare systems, universities, and nonprofits, but any organization that wants stronger leadership and healthier teams, regardless of industry or size, can benefit from our services. HR leaders, L&D professionals, and executives use our EQ solutions to build EQ in individuals, teams, and leaders at every level of their organizations. 

We partner with organizations to create long-term EQ strategies by embedding emotional intelligence into leadership pipelines, employee development programs, and organizational culture. Our ongoing solutions ensure that EQ skills become part of how people lead and work every day to improve leaders, teams, cultures, performance, and lives.