As we move into 2011, we see the economy picking up and businesses starting to grow their teams, it's important to recognize the effect emotions have on performance and consequently the bottom line. In fact, higher Emotional Intelligence (EI/EQ) has been positively correlated with increased employee engagement, lower turnover, and improved job performance. The core attributes for success in today's workplace.

Emotional Intelligence is being smart with feelings, your own and other's. It's about what happens within and between people. The benefits to increased EI have effects at several levels. For the individual, improved EI can lead to reduced stress, improved engagement, and more job satisfaction. For the team, better EI means increased engagement and productivity enhancements. The organization benefits from cultural changes that in turn increase ROI and bottom line numbers.

In the old work culture, emotions were swept under the carpet and some believed that showing or dealing with emotions was unprofessional. In the new work environment, being smart about emotions and managing them is an essential skill.

In hard times, the soft stuff often goes away. But emotional intelligence, it turns out, isn't so soft. If emotional obliviousness jeopardizes your ability to perform, fend off aggressors, or be compassionate in a crisis, no amount of attention to the bottom line will protect your career.

Emotional intelligence isn't a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. It's a basic tool that, deployed with finesse, is the key to professional success". (HBR, 2003) Unlike IQ, which is set when we are young, EQ can be increased through training and life experiences.
"Perhaps the best news: Many of the companies experiencing powerful results from EQ have done so with a modest investment of time and money ". (Freedman, 2010)

The first step to increasing your EQ is to become aware of your current scores. This can be done by taking a short assessment. The next step is to identify areas where improvement is desired and design a plan to do that.

For you and your team, learning skills for controlling and managing emotions in the workplace, i.e. increasing your EQ, will add to career satisfaction, team productivity, and as a result increase the bottom line.