Which matters more for success in a startup: your IQ or your people skills?
Both matter to some degree, of course. But a massive study of more than 65,000 entrepreneurs found their emotional intelligence seems the key to their success: emotional intelligence was twice as important as their mental ability, according to an article the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
Of course any entrepreneur needs adequate cognitive smarts to master the field their business is in. But emotional intelligence matters even more.
There are several ways emotional intelligence can be particularly important for an entrepreneur’s success.
For instance, research at Harvard Business School finds that employees are higher performing on days they are focused and engaged, feel good, and connect well with those they work with.
In my new book Optimal: How to sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence we build on this, showing why and how emotionally intelligent leaders are able to create the workplace environment where great days are more frequent.
On the same hand, studies at Yale show that the mood of a group or team goes up or down depending on the mood of the leader, as does their effectiveness as a team. This matters, of course, because entrepreneurs’ success depends to a large extent on the excellence of their team.
Third, there’s how you react to the inevitable setbacks and obstacles any entrepreneur encounters along the way. Managing your own turbulent emotions is a key part of emotional intelligence.
The entrepreneur who can keep his or her upsets under control while marshaling a positive outlook can radiate a contagious calm and help everyone keep their eye on the goals that matter most.
Last, the second half of emotional intelligence – empathy and social skills – means an entrepreneur can network smoothly and lead that all-important core team more effectively. Being a leader who inspires everyone else means people will give their best for you. And as every entrepreneur knows, handling relationships skillfully makes success more likely.
Onward...
What marks a boss whom people want to stay with?
According to a recent survey of more than 1000 working men and women by consultancy Ernst & Young, a large majority of employees (More than 80%) say empathy from their boss boosts their morale, efficiency, creativity and innovation, job satisfaction, collaboration, and productivity – and this, in turn, seems to boost company revenue and lower turnover.
This aligns with the findings from a more detailed study of how people feel at work, done by researchers at Harvard Business School.
Those findings, which I summarize in my new book Optimal, show that people’s best days at work spawn more creative thinking, satisfaction, productivity, good feelings and positive connections with their co-workers – pretty much the same list.
A key hidden factor here: whether people love or hate their boss. When I’ve asked business groups around the world to describe one quality of a boss they liked or despised, being empathic was one of the main distinguishers. If you feel your boss understands you and your feelings, you feel more connected -- and in turn, all the benefits these studies found will be more likely.
But there’s another reality at play: whether or not you trust your boss to careabout you.
In the Ernst and Young survey, while a leader’s empathy was found crucial, a majority of workers also said they distrusted a boss who seemedto empathize but didn’t show in their actions that they cared – for example, by following through on promises.
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