A word on Emotional Intelligence

Happened to read the ground breaking New York Times best seller “Emotional Intelligence”. According to the author “Daniel Goleman” emotional intelligence can matter more than intelligence quotient.

What is emotional intelligence?
Dan has given a good definition for that indirectly by quoting Aristotle’s lines.

“Any one can become angry -- that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – this is not easy. “

I really admire Dan’s narrative style on this psychological subject. He started it with the human’s mechanism of emotions and adrenaline flow. Even it’s not very important to understand the real core of the book it was good to start with that.

I feel he has given loyalty to his book as he is trying to attract reader’s attention to the important subjects like handling anger and temperament As he is presenting the whole scientifically this may not be advisable for casual leaders.

Then one thing I can not avoid telling you. He tries to make us believe he is presenting something new, when in fact much of what he is reporting has been studied for years under personality research. So the readers who already have some kind of knowledge about EI can get irritated at times.

Also, even though he uses terms such as emotional literacy, emotional health, emotional skill, and emotional competency he never defines any of these other terms, but he equates them all to emotional intelligence.

After all It’s a worth reading book to get at least an overview of the all concept.