High IQ or High EQ?
Published by Jim July 13th, 2007 in creativity, learning, mind, philosophy, quote, self-improvement, success, thoughtWith IQ being Intellectual Quotient (ability to understand and organize information), and EQ being Emotional Quotient (ability to understand and organize people). If we were to assume that they are mutually exclusive so a person could only have one or the other, which would you want?
Why?
I would want a high EQ. That would make it easy to surround myself with people who know more then me (people with a high IQ and low EQ). My high EQ would allow me to know if they were being honest with me when they gave me advice and answered my questions. In exchange I would help them connect with others who have specialized knowledge in other areas.
It isn’t WHAT you know, but WHO you know. I would know all the people who had all the answers, and they would want to share those answers with me.
Thanks to Tricia Ho in Australia for the question via LinkedIn.
I think IQ is overrated. There are actually a few different types of measurable intelligence, including emotional. You can be intelligent athletically, spatially, linguistically, etc. But even with these newer types of recognized intelligence, society still focuses in IQ. Personally, I like to think truly intelligent people are those that excel at a number of intelligence types.
It’s been a while since I came to your site Jim (I usually just read your posts through RSS), nice design.