Emotional quotient vs. intelligence quotient to achieve professional excellence in life: a systematic literature review

INTRODUCTION

A complete development i.e., 360-degree development of any human being can take place only when all the five intelligence are fed and developed into a child in a balanced manner.¹ Intelligence is described as an individual's aggregate or global capacity to act deliberately, think rationally, and deal effectively with his environment & the Quotient can be used to measure intelligence. Therefore, when we talk about the 360-degree development of any child then we mean that all the five quotients intelligence quotient (IQ), emotional quotient (EQ), spiritual quotient (SQ), adversity quotient (AQ) and creativity quotient (CQ) have to be considered and focused together on a single point of time and not individually, as these are the aspects on which human life finds its base.¹ According to Puspitacandri et al IQ has affected the development of EQ, SQ, and AQ.² Across globe the universal definition of IQ is, “quick as well as fast understanding about the subject concerned and the retention power of the accumulated contents”.² According to Bocchino, since the late 19th century, IQ test scores have been used to predict whether a person might succeed in his or her education, and therefore in his or her entire life.³ But in today’s competitive society an individual is required to be flexible in his/her operations to meet the ever-changing demands of the society. A student who has scored high in the exam is a good student and others are considered to be poor, but a high IQ score was never enough to succeed as proven by the fact that individual who excelled in their school exams were not always the ones who had the greatest careers.⁴ Add to that the fact that there are well-known people who did not receive degrees or attend schools but rose to prominence in their fields, even created marketable companies or being successful politicians and cricketers. Benjamin Franklin is a well-known inventor, scientist, and author who was mostly home-schooled, while Joyce C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark, began selling greeting cards at the age of 18 and never went to college. Now, the main question that comes to everyone’s mind is, if it is not the IQ, then what leads or predicts professional excellence in the working life? Both IQ and EQ are significant in today's world for achieving desired life success. As a result, emphasizing only one feature is insufficient. Emotional Intelligence was invented by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer in 1990, and it is described as "a form of social intelligence that includes the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to distinguish among them, and to use this knowledge to make decisions”. ^4,6-9 Furthermore, a science writer, specializing in brain and behavior research, and psychologist, who trained in Harvard, by the name Daniel Goleman, became aware of the Salovey’s and Mayer’s work, after which one of his books "emotional intelligence" was produced.” Goleman sees EI as having four domains, namely: self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and relationship management.⁹

As a result, an emotionally intelligent individual is one who is very keen in observing, controlling, and motivating both his emotions, as well as the emotions of other people, thereby increasing chances of success in every endeavour, and in life in general. And, because emotions change over time, EI can change and improve, giving a person a better chance of achieving success in life. Emotional intelligence makes individual flexible in their operations so that they will accept the changes with open mindedness. Handling work frustrations is what makes an individual go high in the success ladder. In the most trying cases, he or she maintains a cool and collected demeanour while maintaining a positive outlook. In General, it teaches him how to use these emotions to deal with the daily pressures and demands. Therefore, A person who are not able to deal with the stress, they pay a high price on the professional as well as personal front. They are not able to maintain a healthy work-life balance, resulting in absenteeism at work, work accidents, conflicts, loss of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. According to the literature, "Goleman, Salovey, and Mayer, as well as hundreds of other scholars and professors agree on the importance of emotional intelligence for success at work”. A famous author Warren Bennis concurs that IQ is a threshold competency, it’s necessary for success as a leader but it’s not sufficient without EQ to achieve success. Hence, the current study aims to analyze the research published on the EQ is more important than IQ to achieve professional excellence in life. The main importance of the study searched the literature that allowed us to understand importance of emotional quotient and how EQ plays a major role in achieve success.

METHODS

For this systematic search, we developed a search strategy to identify relevant literature. This search strategy was tailored to two databases: Google Scholar, ERIC, and the search terms used were the following: “emotional quotient and intelligence quotient” OR “EQ and IQ”. All searches spanned from database inception until 2020, and included journal articles, review papers, published in English Only. The selection criteria were based on PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) Statement. The search mainly focused on the mapping existing literature on EQ and IQ in the field of social sciences. The search span was from year 1990-2020. All articles before 1990 were excluded from search. A total of 60 research articles were excluded and 659 records were screened at this stage. Finally, After the screening and eligibility process 10 studies included in data extraction.

RESULTS

The aim of the present study was to assess importance of EQ in the success. As we know that this study is systematic literature review based study. In this study, we used PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) framework. According to PRISMA statement we had selected 10 articles for the study. The publishing year of the selected articles is depicted in (Figure 2). We did not select any article which was from 1900-2000 years, due to screening and eligibility criteria. Maximum of the selected articles was published in between year of 2011-2015. The types of research design like- literature review-based study, exploratory research and correlational study etc is depicted in (Figure 3). According to this figure, maximum of the selected articles was Descriptive study based cross-sectional study.

DISCUSSION

According to Goleman, IQ accounts for only about 20% of a person's success in life and he had focused on importance of Emotional Intelligence in the achieving professional excellence in the life Yet, he noted that there are plenty of other factors that add to success apart from EI.¹⁰ According to Sherry et al, Stalin et al, Ramaraju et al, Coetzer et al, IQ is important to get an entry in the organization but afterward, it is EQ. EQ is the best predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership that gives guarantees success to an individual.^11-13 According to Cotrus et al EQ cannot function isolated, contrary they are in an interdependence relation with IQ. His study data reveals that there is a positive correlation (r=0.271, p<0.05) between IQ and sub component of EQ (Empathy). Individual with higher IQ & EQ level have a greater academic performance.¹⁴ This finding is very similar with Marwaha study finding. She was found that the academic success of students is inevitably related to both their EQ and IQ. However, she was also found that EQ have greater probability of success, because those students who had higher IQ, but less EQ scored less in academics than those having high EQ but lower IQ.¹⁵ Roger Gill, in his secondary data-based study (emotional intelligence and its role in organizational success, 2002) found that emotional intelligence was more highly related to success than IQ.¹⁶ Roger’s finding is very near to close with above author’s findings. It’s meaning our study data shows that EQ is the important factor and play a major role is the success.

CONCLUSION

Swami Vivekananda had rightly pointed out, "It's the heart which takes one to highest plane, which intellect can never reach". Hence, emotional intelligence can make a unique contribution to a better understanding of people and also use their potential to succeed in various aspects of life. An individual with high emotional intelligence is more confident, better learners, have self-esteem, have fewer behavioural problems, and are more optimistic and happier but the present generation is more emotionally troubled than the last generation. In the across world there is a common scenario where people possessing large amount of money can easily make their children available with good education facilities. But this money doesn’t help child to gain balance. On an average, children are growing lonelier and more depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive. Whole education industry is focused on just one quotient which is IQ, Therefore, it’s the duty and responsibility of the whole education system to gives the ability to understand child his or her and other’s emotion because these children are future of our upcoming world and we cannot leave them with their emotional troubles. We all know about the Sachin Tendulkar. He is 10^th passed only and did not graduate from any college because his prodigious skills on the field were apparent from much before that. Aamir Khan (actor of the Bollywood industry) is another example of someone who decided college was not for them and He studied up to class 12 only, then followed his passion. They were aware about their self-emotions and they did accordingly to achieve success in life. Humans must be consciousness enough of themselves to identify what really push them to reach success in some situations because we can see many people who are highly qualified, but they did not get job, even 14.2% unemployed were post graduate & above in India, 2019. Through the EQ a person builds up the ability in the self-adaptation for solving the pressure of life in the competing status of an individual and enhancing communication and decision-making power.

To admit the mistakes and failures courageously and focusing on taking appropriate actions to solve the problem, instead of denying or blaming others. The important thing about emotional intelligence is that, unlike IQ, it can be improved throughout life. Therefore, we can say that emotional intelligence is an important set of socio-psychological abilities that relate to life success and can be instrumental in many areas in the society.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee

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