Re-visiting EQ

Dear Pastors

It is an intriguing thing that in an age of ‘information obesity’ how quickly good ideas I mean really really good ideas come along and then almost as quickly disappear from view. And we are onto the next great idea. We spend a little time skimming and scanning and do some fast reading and fast listening (TED Talks and podcasts) but fail to dive deeper into an idea, work the angles on it and squeeze every bit of truth out of it.

This week I would like to re-visit EQ or Emotional Intelligence. The idea has been around now for some 15 years. It is a term created by two researchers – Peter Salavoy and John Mayer – and popularised by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name. Here is a 5 minute video piece of Goleman describing the idea of EQ.

What is emotional intelligence or EQ?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at school and work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

Emotional intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes:

1. Self-management – You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviours, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.
2. Self-awareness – You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behaviour. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.
3. Social awareness – You have empathy. You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.
4. Relationship management – You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict. In many ways it is bringing the above three attribute together and applying them to building and maintaining healthy relationships in all the sphere’s of your life.

Why is emotional intelligence so important?

As we know, it’s not the smartest people who are the most successful or the most fulfilled in life. You probably know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships. Intellectual ability or your intelligence quotient (IQ) isn’t enough on its own to achieve success in life. Yes, your IQ can and will help you get a job but IQ alone is not enough to keep you in that job certainly not these days. IQ and EQ exist in tandem and are most effective when they build off one another.

There is a bit of irony here I think. You would think that people who choose ‘people type jobs’, like social work, nursing, teaching and pastoring are naturally high on EQ. This is counter-intuitive but they are not necessarily. In fact some of these folks including pastors are…..shall I say, shockers! They blunder around saying and doing things that are causing relational harm and most tragic of all are not aware of it.

Pastor. How is your EQ doing? I mean honestly? Both you and I have met leaders for whom EQ is quite underdeveloped. They blunder around standing on sore toes left, right and centre all the while unaware that they are causing confusion at best and hurt at worst in their family, at work in fact wherever they go. You may be a fantastic preacher, a gung-ho administrator and even an inspirational visionary leader but not at all flash when it comes to your own self-awareness.

It's somewhat counter-intuitive. You would think that people who go into the ‘people helping professions’ such as nursing, social work, teaching and pastoring would score high on EQ. In fact, this isn’t necessarily true. A surprising number are simply average and sadly some are well………shockers! It almost feels like that they don’t even like people. Their EQ is so under-developed that being around them is both awkward and embarrassing resulting in staff and others asking the question (in hushed tones of course), how did she, how did he get that job?

But here is the kicker for us who are pastors. The Holy Spirit is at work in us and offers us nine Fruits of the Spirit. I want to suggest that if we cultivate these nine we are well on the way to a mature EQ.

What do you think? I would love to hear from you. Just ‘hit’ reply (ignore ‘no-reply’) and drop me a note.

Blessings

Alan

I always love hearing from my readers. Please hit reply (ignore the ‘no-reply’) and drop me a note.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Next week Tuesday 25th February Dr Michael Brown (USA) and Prof Paul Moon (NZ) will be speaking in Auckland. Can I encourage you to carefully consider coming to this event?

I would like to add a note about a ‘sensitivity’ that many Pastors have in NZ. It’s basically summed up like this, “I do not want to get involved in politics”. I say, “fair enough”. Neither did I when I was pastoring a church, at least not in partisan politics. However, if politics in general terms is about how a nation Governs itself and how we live together in peace then surely that is of great interest to us as Christians. As believers we care deeply about the welfare of the city and nation, about basic human rights, about justice issues and about the Kingdom of God coming to earth (in greater measure) as it is in Heaven. It is this that this conference seeks to explore…….pure and simple. It is about understanding what is going on in our culture and how we can make an informed biblical response. This I am confident about - you and I will be left with lots to think and pray about if we attend this event. And that has to be a good thing.

All details and registration can be found here.

Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.