To you reading this, we want to make clear: being academically intelligent on its own is not enough to be successful in your career. Being emotionally intelligent is.
According to studies researched by author Ronda Muir, emotionally intelligent lawyers out-perform in production and revenues their less emotionally intelligent colleagues, and then, logically, they also get the most promotions and bonuses.
Emotional intelligence has four components for Muir: emotional perception, emotional empathy, emotional understanding and emotional regulation. She writes that “the emotionally intelligent have an accurate awareness of emotions in themselves and others, can tap into how those emotions feel and are able to understand and manage emotions so as to produce the desired results.”
This is outlined in her book, “Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence”. Most recently, Harvard Law professor Heidi Gardner followed a global law firm to confirm statistically that those lawyers with the EQ skills to successfully collaborate were the ones who had the highest revenues. And the emotionally intelligent also enjoy more profits, not just higher revenues, because their health care and liability costs are lower.
Ronda Muir explains more ideas about EQ in her interview here.