Are you Born with Emotional Intelligence?

Are we born with emotional intelligence?

Quick answer… No.  There are two very key reasons we are not born with emotional intelligence.  One is nature and the other is nurture.

Nature

From a nature perspective, our brains are not born fully developed.  When we are infants and children, we are prewired to be narcissistic.  If, as infants, we were to have emotional intelligence, we would also possess empathy and would think through things like waking up our mothers to feed us in the middle of the night because we realized that she may be tired and needs her sleep.  Our primal driver is to have our own needs satisfied.

Our brain’s emotional center – also known as the frontal lobe – does not fully develop until we are about 26-years old in females and sadly, not until 32-years old in males (and some would argue that it never really fully develops in males).  Not until then are we fully capable of completing our emotional intelligence journey.

Nuture

From a nurture perspective, it takes time and experience (from all the trials and tribulations of life) to understand – consciously or otherwise – the components of emotional intelligence, which are…

1. Self-Awareness. The ability to see ourselves and how we respond in certain situations and to other people.
2. Self-Regulation. Developing the ability to control or regulate our response to situations that would, in the past, cause us to feel frustrated, angry, threatened, sad, etc.  Warren Buffet once said: “You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you.  True power is sitting back and observing things with logic (Emotional Intelligence).  True power is restraint.  If words control you that means everyone else can control you.”
3. Motivation. The ability to motivate and inspire ourselves to do things when we just don’t feel like it.  The ability to have optimism when everyone around you is thinking all is lost.  The drive to improve.  The will to improve yourself.
4. Empathy. Is all about understanding other people’s emotional responses and taking the time to analyze what actually may be the driver behind another person’s behaviour.
5. Social Skill. From a leadership perspective, those with high levels of emotional intelligence have been proven to get 20% better overall results than those with lower levels of emotional intelligence.  Social skill is all about building rapport with others, leading change and building engaged teams.

Nurturing one’s emotional intelligence takes a tremendous amount of…

1. Time
2. Attention
3. Persistence
4. Practice
5. Feedback from others
6. Checking your Ego at the door

Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, and International Keynote Speaker. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

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