Do we really understand what we mean by EQ? Dr John Mervyn-Smith, chief psychologist and co-founder of The GC Index, explores the dangers of labelling.
As we go through life, many of us will seek out PLUs – ‘people like us’: it’s often the basis for forming social strata, societies and ‘hiring in our own image’.
We can trust PLUs on the basis that we share with them a whole host of characteristics that we think we understand. We don’t trust NPLUs because they don’t. We can feel comfortable in the fact that we have established an “I’m ok – you’re ok” (Dr Eric Berne) relationship that doesn’t threaten our view of the world.
PLU as a label will seem crude and unsophisticated to many people. But is it any different from hundreds of other labels that we might use? Human beings have a fascination with individual differences and we can trace the history of labelling to Ancient Greece, where personality types were classified into the four humours.
Labelling has been strongly influenced by the world of medicine and, as a consequence, seeks largely to describe pathology. Psychiatry and psychology have been influenced by this work.
In the past two decades it’s been commonplace to use a framework that has its origins in psychiatry; a framework that describes personality disorders. Using this framework, people can declare that “Donald Trump is a narcissist” or “Jair Bolsonaro is a psychopath”. Of course, while some would label Trump a narcissist, others would label him a saviour – another framework for understanding individual differences.
This framework has also been used in the corporate world; for example, to help us understand a CEO’s behaviour, we may describe them as a sociopath. With labelling, we seek to make sense of individual differences manifested in behaviour.
Despite the complexity of these frameworks, they often get used in the binary way and certain labels become ‘socially desirable’. The consequence can be a sense of not fitting for individuals and, in turn, a pressure to conform.
The labelling of EQ is a case in point. People are often described as emotionally intelligent – or not – in life and work settings. As a construct, it has found its way into assessment frameworks for job selection, thus reinforcing its social desirability.
In my role as a leadership capability profiler, I have seen three predictable consequences of this.
1. It’s possible to fake some aspects of EQ (superficially).
This is the “have a nice day” phenomenon. The charming, socially skilled sociopath can feign EQ in ways that are manipulative. Think the nanny (played by Rebecca De Mornay) in the film The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. People may be able to come across as authentic, and if they are in a position of power there is often a desire, among those they have power over, to see them as genuine.
2. Some people will actually appear less authentic as they seek to sound emotionally intelligent.
“Oh, that must have been so distressing for you”, we say in an empathic tone while distracted by our mobile phone. We will not be trusted as people will spot the disconnect between our words and the intent, reflecting that apocryphal saying “speaking with forked tongue”.
3. There is assumption that talented people are (or need to be) emotionally intelligent.
This allows us to dismiss or discredit those who are not emotionally intelligent (even if EQ isn’t really needed for the role they perform).
The painful consequence of this, in my experience, is that organisations deprive themselves of some very talented people: all too readily, they can discount the socially clumsy, deeply reserved, obsessive, challenging, questioning, self-unaware individuals who might have, nonetheless, the potential for genius; the next Steve Jobs perhaps.
The paradox with the use of all labels, including EQ, is that we not only diminish others when we use them (we see them through a narrow lens) but we diminish ourselves.
However, looking past labels can be challenging as it often requires us to suspend judgement and live with uncertainty. Inherent in much labelling is a drive to reduce the anxiety that can be born of dissonance, complexity and ambiguity.
We tend to feel more comfortable when we have labelled someone because we can make decisions about them; we can decide whether or not to trust them, to invest in them, to be loyal to them, to vote for them. We can be comfortable in the illusion that we ‘know’ someone.
But although labels may have their uses, they must be a starting point for a conversation of understanding, rather an end point.
Most of us have people in our lives who see ‘bits’ of us, but few who see all of us. Perhaps the best way to avoid being diminished by labels is to work at being seen – embracing the vulnerability that comes with this – and get better at accepting ourselves (and other people) ‘warts and all’.