Previously, a high intelligence quotient was what you needed to succeed in a dream job. At some point, people with lower IQs outperformed those with higher IQs, throwing a spin on the kind of intelligence needed at the workplace and for some identifiable careers.
There are some people with human resources skills who have an unmatched ability to understand, use, manage their emotions, relate to others, communicate, and resolve conflicts like champions, significantly impacting their job performance. That is emotional intelligence.
What is Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage emotions while recognizing and understanding how others feel. This quality allows one to adjust their behavior and determine how they respond to others accordingly.
Workplaces require dealing with diverse individuals. A person with high emotional intelligence, like a security officer, excels by staying calm under pressure, adeptly handling conflicts, listening empathetically, and responding constructively to criticism.
The juxtaposing emotional and intelligence quotients distinguish between the intelligence you need to solve complex mathematical problems and the intelligence you need to understand the complexities of human emotions and behaviors.
So, what are jobs for emotional intelligence?
1. Public Relations Manager
Public Relations Managers are responsible for speaking on behalf of an individual or an organization. To thrive as a public relations professional in an information age, you need more than academic intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is the defining quality in developing a successful career path in public relations. For example, heightened self-awareness is a significant component of emotional intelligence, and it helps an individual keep their cool and perceive and recognize the public’s emotions. That ability determines the information a public relations manager releases to the public.
Like HR managers, the public relations profession also comes with a fair share of controversies, and a professional with limited self-control can quickly lose their temper and affect the perspective of the same public they should be influencing. Self-control is a quality found in people with high emotional intelligence derived from heightened self-awareness.
Finally, public relations require an individual who can say no, a response that is strongly associated with high emotional intelligence. Saying no is an ability linked to improved self-control and is a trait of those with high emotional intelligence.
2. Teachers
Teaching is the process of conveying information to a target audience. Usually, that is the easy part about being a tutor. The hardest part about being in this profession involves recognizing the uniqueness of each target audience. A class of twenty students presents twenty different learning abilities, and disseminating information to these diverse groups and ensuring that each of them has their needs met can be emotionally draining.
A successful teaching career warrants the possession of sheer will and motivation, especially when a teacher needs to create an effective learning environment. An emotionally intelligent teacher will better motivate students while using observational skills to understand their behavioral and psychological well-being.
More often than not, teachers find themselves handling many disruptive behaviors from their students, and dealing with such behaviors warrants a high level of emotional intelligence. Such educators cannot be quick to get angry and let out their anger on the learners. They are more likely to study the said behavior and try to associate it with social and environmental causes that need attention.
Without emotional intelligence, teachers cannot succeed as mentors while empathizing with these students, their parents, and their colleagues. Empaths tend to be teachers who can absorb other people’s emotions, sometimes at the expense of how they feel.
3. Poker Players
Poker is often considered a game of pure chance. However, studies have shown that it is a complex mathematical puzzle involving understanding people. Some people dominate a poker game, and their dominance is not by chance but because they possess high levels of emotional intelligence.
Having emotional intelligence in playing poker can tell the player about their opponent’s next move. This skill ascertains even the slightest change in an opponent’s facial expression and body language. It is no wonder that some poker players will wear dark and oversized sunglasses to deny an emotionally intelligent individual the ability to read their next move and their thoughts. With such a disguise, calling out another’s poker face is hard.
Possessing the psychological ability to read into other people’s emotions is a skill considered better than the ability to strategize or make an odds calculation.
4. Psychologists
Like social workers, psychologists help others live better lives. A psychologist must have high emotional intelligence, probably even higher than those needed in other professions, because their job involves dealing with other people’s emotions and their own emotions.
You can be a good psychologist if you can define your feelings and understand why you feel a certain way every time. The ability to understand your emotions means that you can help others deal with their emotions as well.
Often, psychologists encounter patients who are on the verge of a mental breakdown, and they must choose their words carefully as they help the patient address their demons face-to-face. The choice of words, the timing between words, and the sense of control make psychologists successful in their therapeutic interventions.
High emotional intelligence also gives a psychologist the natural ability to advise and sympathize with their patient. Finally, working as a psychologist can drain your emotional energy, which is emotionally taxing, and patients’ emotions demand an ability to sort through their mental health issues while maintaining an emotional disconnect.
Emotionally intelligent individuals can think and feel logically, making them most suitable for a career path in psychology.
5. Customer Service Representatives
Another profession that requires a high emotional intelligence is that of a customer service representative. On a typical day, a customer service representative works as a company’s liaison, providing customers with company product and service information, answering queries, and resolving emerging problems, sometimes simultaneously. It is an emotionally draining career, which explains why it is part of the list of jobs for emotional intelligence.
Emotionally intelligent individuals can make effective customer service representatives because they do not let themselves get worked up or frustrated, a skill highly valued in the field of business administration. It is the most desirable trait because tensions can run high when dealing with an irate client who is not patient enough to listen to the representative’s suggestions.
If a customer representative loses their cool, there is no telling how an exchange with an equally angry customer could end. Often, dealing with dissatisfied and visibly angry customers requires a genuine expression of sympathy and sincere apologies.
Emotional intelligence skills help a customer service representative understand that the customer’s comments are not personal attacks on their person and that their responses should not also adopt a personal but professional approach.
6. Wedding Planners and Funeral Planners
Wedding and funeral planners work toward different goals but will work with emotionally charged individuals. Individuals planning a wedding worry about getting everything ready before the day of the wedding, often requiring skills in conflict resolution. Meanwhile, individuals planning a funeral are sad about the loss of a loved one while still needing to navigate the decisions associated with a funeral.
A successful career as a wedding or funeral planner means being considerate and respectful of the concerns of the people who trust you with the challenging task. Considering other people’s concerns also means dropping personal beliefs and incorporating their wishes and preferences, even if they do not make sense.
Planning a wedding or a funeral is like taking another person’s vision and organizing the event to reflect that vision. It can be impossible to do that if you do not have the skills to take time to understand what they want properly.
7. Politician
Politicians represent the public in various capacities in an established government setting. The challenges associated with different political seats depend on a politician’s position in the government. Politicians representing local communities do not have a large enough crowd to represent compared to a politician in charge of an entire state, like the governor.
Essentially, politicians have the interests of their electorate on their shoulders, and it can be emotionally overwhelming. It is even more complicated if the electorate has diverse, competing needs, and the politician must decide which issues are a priority and which should be set aside. Such decisions result in controversies, calling on the politician’s emotional intelligence.
An emotionally intelligent politician can make decisions considering all available information to ensure that they make informed choices and serve as an example, showing that emotional intelligence helps them remain impartial.
8. Marketing Analysts
Marketing analysts are also another set of professionals who need high emotional intelligence. A typical day for a market analyst involves analyzing various types of data, especially those that define customer needs and preferences, and using that data to advise a company on the appropriate efforts it should make to introduce its new products to potential customers.
Making decisions on what a customer might need requires significant insight, like trying to think like the customer. Emotional intelligence skills can make marketing analysts thrive because they know how to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and decide what is essential in a product.
Still, emotional intelligence skills can help a market analyst consider fair pricing for specific audiences while showing the company the target market that promises the best returns. The same skills can also make these managers predict customer responses to a marketing campaign and be in a good position when thinking about how to promote a product or service.
Eventually, the number of individuals involved in a single marketing campaign requires high emotional intelligence to remain respectful and considerate of the competing interests of the customer and the company, aligning with the company culture.
Is Emotional Intelligence Enough to Succeed in These Professions?
Emotional intelligence predicts one’s work performance. However, regular interpersonal contact with diverse groups of people can be overwhelming for any individual, high emotional intelligence notwithstanding.
Emotions play a central role in human relationships, and a professional must find a way to connect emotionally with family, friends, and colleagues in the workplace. Individuals must manage their emotions and guide their thinking to include appropriate and realistic actions.
Emotions left to run wild can hijack logic and good reason, even in strong relationships. Emotional intelligence is hardly enough to deal with all the emotions that define our daily human lives, hence the need for de-escalation training services in conflict resolution.
How De-Escalation Training Can Be a Valuable Asset for Anyone Pursuing Any of These Careers
De-escalation training programs help individuals, such as healthcare workers, de-escalate situations that can put them in physical and mental health danger. These programs also help human resources de-escalate situations that could endanger others, thus serving as an example for others in the organization.
There are different types of de-escalation training programs, with some focusing on verbal techniques, which are considered more suitable for a productive work environment. Additionally, specialized programs for police, such as police workshops, emphasize skills crucial for law enforcement, blending verbal de-escalation with situational awareness to effectively manage potentially volatile encounters.
De-escalation techniques are suitable for all career paths as they rely on respect for all persons. For a customer care representative, de-escalation techniques mean reducing the risk of a violent confrontation and calming down the customer as much as possible.
Customer service representatives can do well with the right verbal de-escalation because it helps them escape a crisis before the situation becomes a big confrontation. For psychologists, verbal de-escalation training can help them make the right word choice while reading nonverbal cues and helping clients manage their emotions.
Instructors can use verbal de-escalation training to manage classroom interactions effectively. Social workers can benefit from emotional intelligence as it enables them to better understand and empathize with their clients, manage their own emotions, and navigate complex social situations effectively.
Key Takeaways
A range of job opportunities and careers need high emotional intelligence for anyone to succeed. The secret sauce that powers the success of these individuals, whether in public or private practice, is high emotional intelligence that helps them understand, manage, and use their emotions.
Most of the professions mentioned in this article require high emotional intelligence because they entail dealing with people. Whether you are in medical school or aspiring for a political seat, emotional intelligence is critical.
