High Earners and Leaders Have Two Factors of Emotional Intelligence, But May Lack Others, Research Shows

Research has long shown that emotional intelligence (EQ) is a must-have in today’s workplace, in particular for leaders and managers. A person’s ability to understand and manage their own emotions, and recognize the emotions of those around them, has been shown to help work teams get along better, increase workplace productivity and help people be more resilient in high-pressure situations. And nearly two-thirds of employers value emotional intelligence over IQ. 

But what else can emotional intelligence tell us about a person’s career path? And are there certain EQ skills that matter more than others?

At Truity, we set out to answer these questions, specifically looking at how someone’s emotional intelligence affects their career preferences and earning potential. To do this, we surveyed more than 28,000 people who took our Emotional Intelligence Test and asked them about their salary, how many people they manage and how long they’ve been working. 

Key Findings

Individuals who earn more money and manage more people tend to have overall higher levels of emotional intelligence. But when we segmented the five factors of EQ a few of these factors stood out in terms of earning and leadership potential. 

The five factors of emotional intelligence are: 

• Self-awareness: The ability to recognize and identify your own emotional experiences.
• Social awareness: The ability to understand the emotions of others.
• Emotional control: The ability to regulate and manage your own emotions.
• Empathy: The ability to relate to and express sensitivity towards the feelings of others.
• Wellbeing: The overall state of your psychological and emotional wellness.

Notably, we discovered that two specific factors of EQ have the greatest positive association with how much someone earns: social awareness and emotional control. Other components of EQ—namely empathy and self-awareness—are much less correlated. 

What Does This Mean?

Truity’s findings match existing research that supports the claim that overall emotional intelligence is a vital leadership skill, and people who have higher levels of emotional intelligence tend to be more successful at work. However, it’s worth noting that two specific EQ factors—empathy and self-awareness—are actually significantly less represented at the top of the ladder. So, what is going on here? 

• Self-awareness: Research shows that experience and power make people overconfident, which hinders self-awareness. This could be partly because leaders tend to get less constructive feedback than lower-level employees. Another hypothesis is that people who have a closer relationship with their values and passions may steer away from higher-paying (and more stressful) career paths in favor of work that is more personally fulfilling. 
• Empathy: Research suggests that more empathic individuals may be less motivated to compete and “choose occupations that are more socially oriented and less well paid.” 

The research doesn’t suggest that self-awareness and empathy are not important traits for leaders, just that they aren’t as well-represented among the sample of leaders and high earners who took Truity’s Emotional Intelligence test. 

Emotional Intelligence by Number of People Managed

Respondents who manage more people score significantly higher in overall emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence by Years of Experience 

Respondents (in the same age cohort/controlled by age) who have more years of work experience score significantly higher in overall emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence by Yearly Earnings 

Respondents who command higher annual earnings generally score significantly higher in overall emotional intelligence.

EQ Findings By Gender

The research also found some notable differences between men and women when it comes to EQ at work. 

• Men who are able to understand the emotions of others tend to earn significantly more than other men. 
• Women who score higher in the factor of emotional wellbeing tend to earn significantly more than other women. But men with higher levels of emotional wellbeing actually tend to earn less than other men.
• Men who score higher in self-awareness tend to earn less overall than other men. 
• Empathy is the one EQ factor where both men and women who score high tend to earn less than others of their same gender. 
• Overall, men tend to score higher in emotional control and women tend to score higher in empathy and social awareness. 

Impact of EQ Traits on Earnings by Gender 

We analyzed the association between each of the five EQ traits on salary, split by respondents’ gender identities. This plot shows the predicted impact of being one standard deviation higher in each trait (a meaningful increase above the average level) on one’s yearly earnings. 

Compared to their own gender, men who are one standard deviation higher in social/other-awareness tend to make over $13k more per year. Women who are one standard deviation higher in social/other-awareness tend to make approximately $3k more per year.

On the other hand, men who are one standard deviation higher in well-being tend to make over $2k less per year compared to other men. Women who are one standard deviation higher in well-being tend to make approximately $3k more per year.

Emotional Intelligence by Gender 

Overall, women score a bit higher than men in every facet of EQ except for emotional control, and both genders score about the same in emotional wellbeing. 

Conclusion 

There’s still a lot to learn about emotional intelligence, but these results give us insight into which EQ factors are currently most common among leaders and high earners, as well as which factors are seemingly more or less valued in leaders depending on their gender. To find out how you score across the five factors of emotional intelligence, take our free EQ test.