Have you ever suspected that you are much brighter than your boss? Well, it could be true – but that’s no indication that you could do the job better.

Raw intelligence accounts for only about 1% of management success, said Martyn Newman, a clinical psychologist. It gets you into the game but does not determine how things go from there. What really matters when attempting to move into a senior leadership position is emotional intelligence – the ability to identify, assess and manage the emotions of others.

“Technical skills carry you so far but the more you move up the ladder and the greater your responsibilities become, the greater the part that emotional intelligence plays in determining your success,” said Newman. “Typically, people get to middle management on their technical skills and business acumen, but to rise higher you need emotional intelligence.”

Naturally enough, businesses have a vested interest in helping managers to improve their emotional intelligence by identifying and improving weaker areas. “We have leaders who are very strong technically, but a big part of their job is to deal with clients and customers, so getting people to think in a structured way about how they can develop this awareness [is important],” said Stevan Rolls, head of human resources at Deloitte in Britain. Deloitte UK recently used an emotional-intelligence test developed by Newman as part of a development programme. Rolls plans to use it again, though only in specific situations. “It’s not a gimmick,” he said. “It’s about helping people to develop, so you need a wider intervention around it.”

The test, known as the Emotional Capital Inventory (ECI), is a simple online quiz with 77 questions that need to be answered in a particular order. “It does not ask you about your feelings,” said Newman. “It asks you about your behaviour and what you notice about what you do, because these behaviours are closely linked with the emotional drivers inside people.” Respones are required to statements such as “I prefer other people to take the lead” and “I find it fairly easy to bounce back from difficulties”. These help to assess abilities such as self-reliance and optimism, which are both closely linked with success. The results can be used on their own to give people a snapshot of their emotional strengths and weaknesses or, for a fuller picture, combined with an assessment that incorporates responses from colleagues.

Mark Grant, a business coach affiliated to the Action Coach network, said that this sort of test is useful because it identifies specific weaknesses. He argues that many people are used to getting detailed feedback on where they need to improve their technical skills but that soft skills are often dealt with in a less helpful way. “People would say, for example, that you are not very good at Excel or finance and that you need to get those skills,” he said. “That’s quite straightforward. But with emotional skills they might simply say that you are having relationship issues. An assessment tool like this helps people to get more insight and a clear understanding of what their skills are.”

Fortunately, emotional skills can be improved with training. “Personality is about 67% genetically determined and the rest is affected by your early learning environment . . . but emotional intelligence continues to develop,” said Newman. However, such training does not mean sitting in a three-hour seminar and then ticking a box. Improving emotional intelligence requires several weeks of practice before the new behaviour patterns become a habit.

Emer O’Shaughnessy, 29, is a senior manager at Deloitte in Ireland, which started using ECI about 18 months ago. She took the test when she was promoted to senior management and says that she has remained mindful of the findings and has adjusted her behaviour accordingly. But she admits that she wasn’t initially won over by the concept of emotional intelligence. “I am very practical – I am an accountant by training – and I tend to be a bit sceptical of these softer skills,” she said. “To be honest, it seemed a bit waffly . . . but now I would encourage people to do it. It’s a bit of a daunting experience and when you are looking at feedback it’s very personal, but people should view it positively as a learning experience.”

Improving leaders’ emotional intelligence can make a big difference to the atmosphere at work but change will not happen overnight, said Sandra James, a senior manager at Boeing Defence Australia, which has been running an emotional-intelligence programme for some time. She advised making sure that initiatives were explained in simple, understandable terms rather than human-resources jargon. “Engineers and technical folk respond well to objective data, not general statements,” she said. Newman’s programme “took what is an academic concept and broke it down into manageable chunks of information . . . It took a technical approach in that the skills were broken down into components and explained in a way that made sense to them.”

TESTING YOUR ABILITY

Four statements from the Emotional Capital Inventory devised by Martyn Newman

I recognise how my emotions affect my behaviour

I can stay calm in stressful situations

I like the challenge of adjusting to new situations

I find it fairly easy to bounce back from defeat

The responses are scored on a five-point scale: Very seldom true of me / Seldom true of me / Sometimes true of me / Often true of me / Very often true of me

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