What I Learnt About Emotional Intelligence From Sitcoms

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REMEMBER SHELDON from the popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory ? If you do, you would remember him as someone who is incredibly intelligent but has difficulty connecting with the people around him.

What about Michael Scott from The Office ? He is, in my opinion, the boss with low emotional intelligence (EI), despite his good intentions.

Bien que ces deux personnages de sitcom télévisés soient fictifs et que leur faible IE crée des situations hilarantes, je suis sûr que nous connaissons tous un « Sheldon » et un « Michael » dans la vraie vie. En utilisant Sheldon et Michael, examinons plus en détail ce qu’est l’IE et comment elle peut vous aider dans votre vie professionnelle et personnelle.

Sheldon

Perhaps you know a “Sheldon” or maybe you see yourself in him? This is the phenomenon that this article from Help Guide explains..

Indeed, a person with a high intelligence quotient (IQ) will be able to accomplish intellectually difficult tasks, make important discoveries that could change the world but if this person does not have emotional intelligence (EI (or emotional quotient {EQ}), they may have difficulty:

So, what is EI? According to Help Guide, it is the ability to understand, use, and manage our own emotions in a positive way to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and resolve conflicts.

As a Talent Specialist at TALTEK, I meet Talents with very different personalities in interviews. Talents with high emotional intelligence often stand out from the crowd in the way they communicate, their listening skills, and the way they tie their responses to my questions.

Recruiters know how important emotional intelligence is in an interview. I have noticed that personalities who are technically talented sometimes have difficulty “reading” the other person’s tone or body language when communicating with them.

When I meet potential talents for the first time to evaluate them, I usually preface the evaluation by explaining that my focus is on searching for the best talent fit for the role that includes a variety of hard and soft qualities such as communication skills, level of EI, technical experience, and etc. I also add that a further discussion on technical knowledge would be further explored with the client if they progressed beyond this evaluation. During one such interview for a technical role, a candidate went into great detail on her technical skills and projects, which unfortunately deviated too much from the purpose of the evaluation.

In my opinion, this person lacked emotional intelligence as she could not identify and adapt her manner of communication to follow the flow of the evaluation despite having informed her at the beginning of the evaluation on how the evaluation was going to proceed.

Michael Scott

This hilarious out-of-touch boss desperately tries to connect with his colleagues and his ultimate goal is to create a positive work environment. He is outgoing and tries to please his colleagues. Despite the best of intentions, he does it very badly. Instead of adapting to the personalities of his employees, he approaches them in a way that he would like to be approached. In other words, he thinks everyone is like him, that they have the same tastes and the same way of thinking which creates very awkward and oh so hilarious situations.

Managers and leaders also benefit from developing their emotional intelligence in their professional lives. The Forbes Empathy Is The Most Important Leadership Skill According To Research article, shows that companies benefit from having empathetic leaders because they can contribute to positive relationships at work but also to improve innovation, commitment, retention, inclusiveness and work-life balance of their employees.

I encourage everyone to dive into the world of EI and discover its benefits. To this end, we will talk about these 4 aspects of EI:

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