Fine-tune your EQ to improve workplace performance

Technical knowledge of investing and financial planning is critical for financial advisors but they're not the only capabilities you need. Emotional intelligence, or EQ, can be just as important because understanding and managing your positive and negative emotions can improve your work and client relationships.  

Dr. Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, studies emotions and how they affect behavior. He believes emotions not only play a huge role in how we interact with others but also directly affect productivity and effectiveness.

In fact, a growing body of science has identified direct links between emotions and performance. A 2021 Gallup poll found that 36% of American workers are completely engaged with their jobs, while 15% are actively disengaged.  This lack of engagement impacts a business' bottom line because research shows that disengaged employees cost their companies the equivalent of 18% of their annual salary.  Brackett says these feelings can affect everything from decision making to mental health and can also impact on-the-job performance.

It doesn't have to be that way. People can learn to manage their emotions. "The distinguishing variable is the skill of emotional intelligence," Brackett says. "People who have the ability to regulate their emotions are the ones that achieve the greatest products."

Emotional intelligence starts with you. Master these five skills to enhance your own emotional intelligence first and later your team members':

1. Recognizing: Accurately identifying your emotions and those of others. "Are you reading people's emotions accurately in their face, in their body, in their voice?" Brackett asks. Especially in the era of the virtual interaction, not all emotions are easy to recognize; people often see different emotions in the same expression. Misreading emotions can lead to miscommunication. Instead of assuming, be sure to ask the individual how they're feeling to clarify the emotions being presented.
2. Understanding: Knowing the causes and the consequences of emotions, including how they affect your thinking, judgments, and behavior. Disappointment, for instance, has to do with unmet expectations but it's often confused with anger, which is more about unjustness or unfairness. Striving to understand the true underlying emotion will help you deal with it most appropriately. All emotions are valid but the emotions need to be understood to be dealt with appropriately.
3. Labeling: Using words to describe what you're feeling. "You have to name it to tame it," Brackett says. "If you don't have the vocabulary, if you don't know what you're actually feeling, it's hard to know how to regulate it." There are many emotions whose names are often used interchangeably—such as jealousy and envy—that mean very different things. If you don't have the correct vocabulary to name what you're actually feeling, it's really difficult to regulate that emotion.
4. Expressing: Knowing how and when to express emotions with different people across different contexts and demonstrating sensitivity to their backgrounds and culture. Individual differences, social norms (including family and business norms), and cultural norms all impact how we express emotions. Expressing emotions is especially important in the business world, since the more you suppress your emotions, the less you are able to process new information. Instead, you can become fixated on the emotion that you're feeling.
5. Regulating: Matching your emotional expression to the situation and using thought and action strategies to prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain, and/or enhance emotions. Employing cognitive strategies such as self-talk (talking to yourself, either positively or negatively) or reappraisal (reinterpreting the meaning of an emotion) will help you down-regulate emotions. Regulating your full range of emotions can better equip you to deal with the everyday stresses in life.

Adopting an emotional-intelligence strategy requires patience and practice. Financial professionals who hone their emotion-management skills can create positive outcomes that could improve personal and team performance and productivity and generate a heathier work environment—which ultimately can enhance firm performance.

What you can do next

• Download our RIA Talent Advantage® Recruitment Playbook and get tips, tools, and resources on developing talent at your firm.
• Consider a custodian that invests in your success. If you're thinking about becoming an independent advisor, contact us to learn more about the benefits of a Schwab custodial relationship.