The Intelligence Spectrum: Emotional Intelligence
I’m not sure what prompted this, but recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the very subtle differences between being smart and being intelligent. I think these are two words we often use interchangeably, usually to express different types of intelligence. I call these “types” the intelligence spectrum, and that’s what I want to discuss today.
Intelligence
I am sure that when you read this, what surfaced in your mind was academics. If I weren’t writing a post about the spectrum of intelligence, I know that’s what I would have been thinking for sure.
But taking a closer look at it, intelligence is shown in many different ways - some good, some bad. Since I’m not writing this post to be the moral judge of character, there will be no good or bad in the situations I’ll present.
Exhibit A – Cunning and Manipulative
Have you heard of emotional intelligence before? I’m sure you have. I’m also sure that what you’ve heard about it, or what you know about it, is simply that it’s about understanding your own emotions and how your actions affect the people around you (or how your actions affect the emotions of people around you, specifically). This is correct. However, this understanding has a sort of confirmation bias that usually leads people to think only about the positive aspects. For instance, relationship coaches will tell you that it helps you understand your partner and be a better person toward others.
What people usually don’t like to say and won’t talk about is that emotional intelligence can also teach people how to be manipulative. If you understand how the things you say or do affect others, what’s to stop you from leveraging that to your advantage? If you haven’t caught on yet, this is manipulation - using what you know about people to control them.
Don’t be quick to draw conclusions yet. I am very aware that the definition of manipulation may not win friends, but manipulation is not always a bad thing.
When you research a company you want to work with ahead of your interview, so you can say the right things and land the job, you’re engaging in subtle manipulation.
"Emotional intelligence (EI), also known as emotional quotient (EQ), is the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions."
This is how Wikipedia defines emotional intelligence, and I quite agree with it. Don’t you think that in the job interview scenario, you’re understanding your interviewer’s sentiments about the things you say and using that to win them over?
This week, we had a supervisor visit our school for staff monitoring. From what I gathered from my colleagues, this lady was known to be notoriously ruthless and condescending. So imagine their shock when, after observing my lesson, she praised me to my headmaster. Though I didn’t tell them anything, I knew that she didn’t just like me because of my lesson. I understood the things she’d be interested in and what she wanted to hear, and I gave her exactly that. I’m not boasting, but I like to think that I understand people well. I am very self-aware (one of the superpowers emotional intelligence gives you), so I naturally know how to get along with people if I want. This isn’t manipulation; it’s just understanding people and emotions and using that knowledge to my advantage. This is the type of intelligence many people ignore, and in my opinion, it’s the one that more people need to pay attention to. People management is a great skill in every aspect of life, and emotional intelligence is your key to mastering it.
I’ll probably dive into the other forms of intelligence in my posts over the next few days, but for now, tell me what you think about this one.
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STOPI don't know if this would be a sort of applicable technology that you can master, learn or employ, but let's go beyond it's evil and manipulative uses. I think such tech will actually be useful for someone who is investing on crypto.
Imagine being able to hold even at 99% dip and having that emotional intelligence to know how it'll pan out.
I like the example you've cited. A lot of emotional/psychological actually goes into the workings of the crypto markets. Market makers know how to manipulate charts just small enough to affect peoples' sentinments and force them to make moves they didn't want to make. People who understand these things are the experienced traders who resist allowing their emotions control them in the market. Being able to still hold with a fear and greed so low like what we saw in the just-ended bear takes A LOT of this emotional/psychological intelligence. It's not something many people can do, which is why many people would rather rely on bots to do these trades, since they're emotionless.
Great insight. I think viewing intelligence on a spectrum with a range of aspects to it is spot on. Being very observant of people, I tend to pick up on the subtle cues that they make that even they themselves may not be aware of, and sometimes, those impressions could be used to make(influence) them arrive at a particular outcome that they may not have noticed or overlooked.
Nicely
Sometimes we're even able to help other people understand themselves better with this keen observance and understand. A friend of mine who I normally advise took the lead one of these days, advising me recently about a dilemma I had myself in and he mentioned something about "This is the type of person you are". I paused for a minute, marvelled at the accuracy of his observation and deduction. He was telling me something about myself which I myself was not aware enough to observe, and it really just helped me see the whole emotional intelligence thing differently.
Exactly and rightly so. I think this aspect of Emotional Intelligence is worth understanding and developing as it helps not only us but also the people around us, to view things from multiple perspectives and make better informed decisions.
I’m glad you were able and smart enough to understand the lady who came so that you impressed her. Often it’s because she’s got good rules and has a firm grasp on what should happen, that she takes into her evaluations. What I think it means is that a lot of people are doing the wrong thing either accidentally or intentionally from her perspective and she wants to correct that. I’ve been on the receiving end of that as well as the providing end. We have expectations that we need met based on what we think something should be done as.
I think your discussion here is great and lines up with something I learned a few years ago specifically but knew innately for a while. There is a considerable difference between being smart and being wise.
A smart person can spit off a bunch of information to their audience and keep going.
A wise person gauges their audience and provides that same information in a different manner and in different quantities. Instead of overwhelming them with raw information they review the audience for comprehension both visually as well as from questions. They can then cater their delivery to make sure people understand the content.
Both of those people know the information but their delivery is based on whether they are wise enough to know how important it is that people retain and absorb the information.
Wisdom is what we need more of in the world, and I think you displayed wisdom by understanding the lady reviewing your work, and making sure to cater to a satisfactory end result. In this way, I don’t think I would consider manipulation one of the things you did.
Yeah, I think you said this better than I did. This was actually what I set out to write when I began, but the post took a mind of its own and pivotted.
You're right here as well. I guess I should've been more clear that "manipulation" as I used it in that part of the post was simply just having and using information to your advantage (which is what I did in this case during the supervisor's visit). It's really just wisdom, as you've described.
In my conversation with her, I told her I was going to be taking her as a mentor (and I will). She's involved with some things I hope to play with myself when I grow up, so I figured she'd be the best person for a mentor. It helps that she sounded excited about it as well. hehe
Thanks for the input, man:)
That’s awesome if you can use her as a mentor. Those relationships are great, I have been mentoring some colleagues here and there and it’s a great thing to be able to do!
Posts can have a mind of their own that's for sure. I'm glad you let the juices flow!