Emotional Intelligence: Why You Need It and How to Spot It at Work The trick? The more you cultivate EQ in yourself, the more easily you can see it in others.

How quickly do you adapt to change at work? Are you skilled at cultivating connection with a remote team? What are your tools for noting racism and fostering diversity while building connection and belonging at work? These self-assessments are indicators of emotional intelligence, or EQ, and come into play every day you're engaged with others. Every organization achieves its goals through a series of daily conversations, interactions and decisions. These necessarily involve humans, and the more emotionally intelligent we are, the more effective we will be on every level.

Take, for example, the EQ competency of exercising emotional self-control. During the times you have impulsive or distressed feelings at work, how often do you manage them in a way that's not disruptive to others? If you have witnessed yourself or a colleague in the clutches of that emotional choice-making, you have experienced emotional intelligence. If you have been part of the fallout of a disruptive display, you've witnessed a moment of low EQ.

Related: Want Influence? Use Intelligent Curiosity