Yes You Can Be Emotional at Work
My two years back at work since children have been a couple of the most successful of my entire career. I can assure you, that is not because I spent my career break enhancing my technical skills.
I put the lion’s share down to growing my
EQ, or emotional intelligence muscles in my career break. Management texts now
acknowledge coachability, motivation and temperament as much more predictive
of hires' success or failure. If you alienate your co-workers or can’t read
situations, you are not going to get very far no matter how brilliant your
coding or Scaled Agile project management is.
According to leadership IQ, 26% of new
hires fail because they can’t accept feedback, 23% because they are unable to
understand and manage emotions, 17% because they lack motivation to excel, 15%
because they have the wrong temperament for the job, and only 11% because they
lack the necessary skills.
I can see this day after day. If you can’t
connect with any customer/boss/employee, you cannot understand their pain
points and tailor your delivery accordingly. EQ, however, can be referenced too narrowly; it is not just being nice to people.
Entrepreneur magazine says 90% of top performers have a high quotient of the four pillars of EQ: self-awareness,
self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
I only improved in these areas after
children:
I could handle
emotional outbursts better because I had been handling toddlers. I managed my
own stress level and reactions better because again, I had dealt with tantrums. Negotiating? All day, day after day. Stress management? I’d be six feet under
if I hadn’t learned to manage my emotional baseline. Because my instincts had
been tested with kids' illnesses, ageing parents, managing family/school/household
diaries my skills of prioritisation are now off the scale.

Patience of a saint.
And you? I will hazard a guess you have similar expertise. By all means go out and do conversion courses, get industry experience and tech up but promise me, you won’t discount the bargaining power of your emotional antennae.
Companies don't just encompass gender and ethnicity in their diversity quotients, but
age and life stage too. That’s down to EQ. And you? You will be EXACTLY the
same, before you even sit down to pen the “keywords” in your CV. Well done on developing your EQ during your career
break.
Leadership IQ Why New Hires Fail
Leadership IQ Why New Hires Fail
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