Women with this Emotional Intelligence Trait Earn More Than Their Peers

Do you ever feel that what’s best for you—your physical and mental health and your quality of life—and what’s expected of you at work, are at odds with each other? Do you feel like you have to sacrifice one to achieve the other? 

If so, here’s some good news. There’s one type of emotional intelligence that’s good for you and good for your job as well. 

The EQ trait in question is emotional wellbeing. It is one of five facets that, together, make up a person’s overall emotional intelligence score. It’s a good idea to test your levels of emotional wellbeing, because research findings have shown that women who score higher in this factor earn significantly more than other women. 

That’s an interesting finding on its own. Even more interesting? The fact that men with higher levels of emotional wellbeing actually tend to earn less than other men.

Why is emotional wellbeing a career booster for women and the opposite for men? The research doesn’t really give us the answer. So, let’s look at some possibilities. 

What is Emotional Wellbeing?

One of the five facets that make up Truity’s emotional intelligence model, emotional wellbeing describes how healthy someone feels, emotionally, psychologically and socially.

A high score means you are likely to be upbeat, optimistic and proactive. You make the best of your situation and have a positive view of yourself, your life and the people around you. A low score means you feel less optimistic about the demands of everyday life.

Emotional well-being isn’t dependent on everything going perfectly in your life. It's your ability to focus on the positive that counts. If you can reframe challenges as opportunities, stay resilient and maintain a sense of gratitude, then you likely have high emotional wellbeing. 

What is the Link Between Emotional Wellbeing and Earnings?

We asked 28,000 people who took Truity's Emotional Intelligence Test how much they earned, among other things, then broke the findings down by gender and by the five facets of EQ. The five facets are:

• Self-awareness, the ability to identify and understand your own emotions.
• Social awareness, the ability to identify and understand other people’s emotions.
• Emotional control, the ability to regulate and manage your own emotions—to stay on an even keel.
• Empathy, the ability to see things from other people’s perspectives.
• Emotional wellbeing, a state of emotional and psychological wellness, as we have seen.

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

But when we divided the data further to look at how much these workers earned annually, we saw some striking gender differences. Women who scored higher in emotional wellbeing earned about $3k more per year than women with lower scores. However, for men, it was the opposite: those with higher emotional wellbeing tended to make over $2k less per year compared to other men.

Some Reasons Why Emotional Wellbeing Might Help Women in the Workplace

We don't know why women with higher levels of emotional wellbeing tend to earn more than their peers. However, here are some possible reasons that might contribute to this trend:

• Women are expected to have good interpersonal skills, good relationships, and healthy social networks. Emotional wellbeing might be an indicator of these abilities, which can be advantageous in the workplace.
• There’s still more pressure on women to "do more and be more" in order to be seen as enough. Emotional wellbeing might be seen as a desirable trait in women, as it suggests they can handle more stress and demands.
• It is possible that emotional wellbeing can help women feel more positive and confident. These feelings can act as a positive reinforcement cycle where women feel more motivated and empowered to ask for promotions or salary increases, because they know they deserve them.

What about the men who earn less with higher emotional wellbeing? Again, we don't have a definitive answer. But here are some possible reasons:

• Men may feel pressured to suppress their emotions and not show vulnerability in order to conform to traditional gender norms. This could lead to lower scores on emotional wellbeing and potentially hinder their career advancement.
• There may be a stigma attached to men who prioritize their emotional wellbeing over work and productivity. In a society that values hard work and success, men might fear being seen as weak or unambitious if they prioritize self-care.

Either way, it's clear that emotional wellbeing plays a significant role in both personal happiness and professional success for women. So it makes sense that an investment in your emotional wellbeing could be well worth the effort. The following tips may help.

Strategies to Improve Your Emotional Wellbeing

Work on your overall emotional intelligence

Emotional wellbeing is enhanced by the other traits of emotional intelligence, so it can help to work on your overall EQ as well as each component specifically. For instance, you need self-awareness to help you identify your emotional state in the first place, so you can appreciate the positive emotions and work on the ‘negative’ ones. Take an EQ test to get your baseline score, then read this article for some strategies for increasing your overall emotional intelligence. 

Follow the golden rule

We’re familiar with the advice to treat others the way we’d like to be treated. However, especially for women, it’s often the case that we find it easier to be—or we are expected to be—more gentle, understanding and kind toward others than toward ourselves.

So, if you make a mistake or are having a hard day, think about what you’d say to or do for your best friend, then try to do that for yourself instead of dwelling on your shortcomings. You won’t raise your emotional wellbeing if you are constantly minimizing your feelings or treating yourself harshly.

Have a gratitude mindset

If you are grateful for the good things in your life, you will likely feel happier and more contented with your life, your job and your relationships, and less likely to obsess over the negatives. Especially after a hard day, putting things in perspective and remembering all the good things that are still true can help you manage difficult situations more effectively and bounce back more quickly and completely. 

It can also be a matter of seeing the same things in a positive way. For example, instead of being brought down by your mistakes, you can feel good about yourself by learning from them and celebrate your strength when you’ve overcome something hard.

Practice self-care, including at work

Self-care is about more than bubble baths and spa days. It’s about taking care of your whole self, including your emotions, so you can do your job well without sacrificing your physical and mental health. 

It could be as quick and simple as taking a few deep breaths, making good use of your lunch break to nourish and recharge, or being kinder in the way you talk to yourself when things don’t go perfectly. Nurturing good relationships is also part of self-care. Call a friend or connect with coworkers who make you feel appreciated—feeling socially satisfied is also part of emotional wellbeing, so don’t neglect those relationships.