The Heart of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence, otherwise known as ‘EQ’ is highly topical these days, however it is not a new trend or concept. Psychologists have been trying to understand the correlation between behaviour and personality and studying the positive effects that good relationships combined with coping strategies can have in personal and working lives. Emotional intelligence relates to our emotional and social skills and how they influence our own perceptions and expressions, our interactions with others, our ability to cope with challenges and to use emotional information meaningfully.
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Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book entitled ‘Emotional intelligence’ brought the topic to everyone’s attention and became known worldwide. The book focuses on how EQ could be more important than intelligence or ‘IQ’ in terms of personal success. The concept of emotional intelligence was being studied well before that during 1980s by psychologist Dr. Reuven Bar-On. He was keen to explore why some people seemingly possessed greater emotional well-being than others and understand how that could impact on a person’s success. His studies led him to develop the Bar-On model of emotional intelligence, a development tool which examines emotional quotient ‘EQ’. This instrument became known as the EQ-i (the Emotional Quotient inventory).


The EQ-i 2.0 is the tool that we use at Coaching Direct and is an extremely powerful tool for leadership and employee development. It can also be used to create your own organisational ‘Star Performer’ profile for recruitment and succession planning. The model is based on five main areas covering self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision making and stress management and then divided again in fifteen sub-scales shown in the EQ-i 2.0 model. Each area of the model influences the other areas to create an overall healthy emotional intelligence and as the model is circular, there is no start or end point. This is the first scientifically proven emotional intelligence tool and an excellent resource for employee, leadership and management development.Look out for the next blogs in this series on emotional intelligence where we will be exploring each of the five areas of the model. We will provide an overview of each of the subscales to show how they relate to healthy emotional and social functioning and the impact each element can have on overall well-being and happiness.