5 Reasons You Need Emotionally Intelligent Employees (and How to Find Them)

Photo by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash

When most entrepreneurs begin the search for employees, they look at their prior experience, their skills, and their long-term goals. Obviously, these factors are important, but they overlook a key factor for employee success: emotional intelligence.

You won’t see it listed on many job interview templates or hear it discussed as the main reason to hire someone, but building a team of emotionally intelligent employees can have a surprisingly powerful impact on your company’s overall performance.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

First, let’s define what I mean by “emotional intelligence,” as it’s a phrase that could have multiple interpretations. Psychology Today defines emotional intelligence as “the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.” In a practical sense, that means an emotionally intelligent person is someone who’s able to recognize their own emotions and keep them in check, and someone who can easily sympathize with others and understand how their emotions will impact their work.

How It Affects Your Workers

Why is this such an important trait for your employees to have?

1. Better communication. Though it’s usually taken out of context, a famous collection of studies from the University of California in the 1960s led to the calculation that 93 percent of communication is nonverbal — either related to tone of voice or body language. Though such a number undermines the importance of word selection, it’s true that our tone and body language — which are dictated by emotion — have a huge bearing in how we understand and talk to one another. An emotionally intelligent employee will have an easier time understanding the meaning and motivations of their coworkers, and will do a better job of expressing themselves at the same time.

2. Even temperament. Work can be stressful, but that stress only multiplies when someone loses their cool. Remaining calm helps you think with more clarity and focus, enabling you to find better, optimal solutions for the problem at hand, while losing your temper could result in damaged relationships, poorly informed decisions, and broken lines of communication. Emotionally intelligent…