There are two more forms of intelligence, which when combined with the IQ, provide a complete image of a person’s intelligence. These are the social intelligence and the emotional intelligence.
According to magazine Psychology Today: “Intelligence is a construct that includesproblem solving abilities, spatial manipulation and language acquisition.”
However, today we believe that IQ is the absolute measurement of intelligence. But this is not true. IQ measures our intelligence quotients, meaning how many languages we speak, the amount of information we memorize, and even how well we can complete math problems. While these are all very important, they are not the “be all and end all.”
There are two types of intelligence that cannot be measured in IQ tests and which are vital for success, leadership and even innovation: The social and emotional intelligence.
Social intelligence
As the name suggests, social intelligence is more visible in social surroundings. In fact, there are several critical traits to recognize people with high social intelligence.
First and foremost, socially intelligent people are able to conduct conversations with various people, and verbally communicate with appropriate and tactful words.
Therefore, they can adapt easily to different social roles, while they perfectly understand the informal rules of the game that are the essence of social interaction.
Of course, these characteristics make them excellent listeners. Socially intelligent people have developed an ability to efficiently analyze what triggers people by paying attention to what they are saying and how they are behaving.
By combining these three aspects, people with high social intelligence not only do they know how to play different
social roles, but they do so in order to feel comfortable with many different types of personalities.
Such a skill is crucial onboard a ship, which houses a vast array of people over the course of some months. Different nationalities, countries, ages and genders mean different cultures and behaviours.
All these people must preserve a proper communication between them so as to get the job done, but also live with each other without problems.
Practicing and training your social intelligence, will prepare you to deal with different types of people, and be able to understand your surroundings, in order to feel comfortable.
Emotional intelligence
In contrast to social intelligence, emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others. This type of intelligence includes three key traits:
- Emotional awareness
- Applying emotions to processes
- Emotion management.
As a matter of fact, companies now give a great deal of emphasis to this kind of intelligence. By asking questions such as “how do you handle tough questions?”, and “can you stay focused?”, the goal is to see how a person handles emotions in a constantly-changing, fast-paced environment.
And a ship is such an environment. Constantly being aware for imminent dangers in the sea, mechanical problems and of course damaged psychology due to the separation from one’s family and friends, can apply a great deal of pressure to seafarers.
Being emotionally intelligent, will at first give the seafarer the ability to know why they are feeling what they are feeling, and in a second stage it will provide the tools to be resilient and find solutions to the problems that come up.
Social and emotional intelligence = ESI
Despite their differences, social and emotional intelligence combine to form ESI. ESI competencies are “linked to self-awareness, self-management and relationship management, which enable people to understand and manage their own and others’ emotions in social interactions.”
This is one definition, but what does it mean? As we said, IQ by itself is not enough to determine who is smarter, or a better leader. ESI comes to fill this gap, by indicating those people that pose all three aspects of intelligence. Being ‘’book smart’’ and ‘’street smart’’ is a necessity at today’s society.
And while IQ may be difficult to change – if not possible at all – ESI can be learned and improved during a person’s whole life course.
Social vs emotional intelligence
Both intelligences are important for advancing innovation. However, there are certain aspects during our life, where one or the other is more beneficial.
We could say that social intelligence focuses more on the future. It can be considered as primal survival instinct, where people must find ways to coexist with someone, and find benefits from every situation.
Once again, IQ is very important, but we are surrounded by people daily. If we do not have a proper social intelligence, we will develop stranded relationships, based on improper foundations.
On the other hand, emotional intelligence is more about the present. Emotional intelligence relates to our and others’ emotions and feelings.
If you can read someone’s face and be able to tell if they are happy, sad or nervous, then this is an indication that you have developed a proper level of emotional intelligence.
Of course emotional intelligence applies to our feelings as well. By knowing why we are feeling what we are feeling, it gives us a great deal of self-awareness, which in turn gives us full control of ourselves.
