Core competency emotional intelligence – how high is your EQ? Take the test

Emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly important in professional life. Many HR managers consider EQ to be more important than IQ. Do you have the necessary tools?

Emotional intelligence not only enables you to perceive and master your own feelings. With a high EQ, you can also correctly interpret other people's emotions and motivations, react appropriately to them and even influence them in a targeted manner. This allows you to remain empathetic in interpersonal relationships and deal constructively with conflicts. That's why a high EQ is considered a core competency for the professional world of tomorrow.

What are the characteristics of a high EQ?

Emotional intelligence reveals how empathetic we are with our fellow human beings. © imageBROKER/Andy Dean/IMAGO

The characteristics of emotional intelligence are a hotly debated topic in research. That's why there are many different EQ tests. However, four characteristics appear again and again in the various scientific approaches:

• Introspection: Good self-awareness is necessary to understand and classify one's own feelings and moods. This also includes one's own impact in the social environment. With a good self-awareness, you also know your own personality with all its strengths and weaknesses.
• Self: With good self-regulation, you can better control negative feelings or impulses. You are not helplessly at the mercy of your emotions. Therefore, do not act impulsively, but prudently – even with strong feelings, such as anger or fear. At work, good self-regulation can also increase one's own discipline – for example, if you do your job first before you get the next coffee.
• Empathy: Emotional intelligence doesn't just mean having your own emotions under control. With a high EQ, you also have a keen sense of other people's feelings. They can put themselves in the shoes of others and react appropriately in social situations. This allows you to build trust and sympathy and, if necessary, elegantly resolve conflicts.
• Social competence: Social competence results from the other three characteristics of emotional intelligence. Because only with strong self-awareness, self-regulation and empathy is it easy for you to establish and maintain social contacts. This is especially important when networking in a professional context. And these qualities also help you to correctly grasp the feelings of other people and direct them in the desired direction. And this, in the end, is the key to sustainable leadership skills.

What is your EQ? Take the test

If you want to assess your own EQ, answer the following questions honestly and with a clear conscience. You will then find out how your emotional intelligence is doing in the resolution.