The relative importance of IQ and EQ in determining your level of success in life depends upon your defintion of success and the career path you choose. EQ (emotional intelligence) typically means “people skills.” If you have a low EQ, then you are below average in your ability to empathize and connect with others (interpersonal skills). Furthermore, you are probably out of touch with your feelings and their origins (intrapersonal skills). This means that you are more likely to be in conflict with others, have more troubled relationships, and suffer more internal anguish. If you have also a high IQ, there is a good chance this will exacerbate the difficulties you have in understanding others and you will feel intellectually isolated. Therefore if you have a high IQ and a low EQ, you are well advised to avoid careers in sales, politics or public relations where you need to persuade people to your cause or point of view.
In Arthur Miller’s celebrated play Death of a Salesman (1949), the main character, Willy Loman is a salesman who expresses what would become a popularly accepted measure of success:
The man [Willy’s brother Ben] knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of 21, and he’s rich! … The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.
Over and over again, Willy expresses the importance of being liked, and the supreme importance of being “well-liked” as the panacea for achieving the American Dream.
In 2000, Dr. Thomas J. Stanley published the results of his survey of 733 millionaires, soliciting their opinions regarding the most important elements in achieving success in business. Among the factors he investigated were “social skills” and “intellectual orientation.” In The Millionaire Mind, he reported his findings:
Far too many of us believe that success is predetermined, a direct result of genetics, and that successful people just have higher IQs than those who are “less successful.” So what if you receive all As in school and near-perfect SATs? So what if your IQ is in the ozone layer of the intelligence scale? Will these factors assure you of a place among the ranks of America’s millionaires?” It’s doubtful if you don’t get along with people. … The large sample of millionaires surveyed were asked about the importance of intellect in explaining their economic success … Only 20% felt that “having a high IQ or superior intellect” was very important … while 56% felt that getting along with people was very important.
By the dawn of the 21st century, the link between people skills and success in America had been forged in the public conscious. However, research and experience has taught us that many of the wealthiest entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk had very high IQs, but limited EQ.
The stories of Steve’s difficult personality, temper tantrums, and insults have become part of his legend and provide some insight into his intolerance for anything less than perfection. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson reported:
What particularly struck [Joe] Nocera [writer for Esquire Magazine] was Jobs’s almost willful lack of tact. It was more than just an inability to hide his opinions when others said something he thought dumb; it was a conscious readiness, even a perverse eagerness, to put people down, humiliate them, show he was smarter.”
Clearly, Jobs’ success had more to do with his IQ than his people skills.
Martha Stewart’s biographer Christopher Byron reported that on one occasion, Martha and her friend Jill Bowser planned a family picnic. Martha, ever the perfectionist, had prepared an elaborate meal, replete with all the touches of a professional chef, and housed in elaborately decorated picnic baskets. After the picnic was over, Jill started her car to leave and inadvertently backed over the picnic baskets. Bowser reported to biographer Jerry Oppenheimer:
Martha was a raving psychopath, shrieking at the top of her lungs, “You stupid fucking idiot! You dumb fucking bitch.”
Martha and Jill never spoke again. Martha’s ex-husband, Andy Stewart, had described her as bipolar–“Martha A–Nice, and Martha B–nasty.”
If we were able to measure the EQs of the captains of corporate America, we would find that they don’t match the stratospheric levels of their IQ scores–in fact, some might suggest that their collective EQ could be a negative number. However, since the lack of consensus on what constitutes EQ precludes its measurement, the question is moot. To gain an insight into the skills sought by those who are recruiting employees, we look at a sample of interviews of the captains of the giant corporations.
In 1993, Forbes journalist Richard Karlgaard, in a conversation with Bill Gates asked, “What Microsoft competitor worries you most?” Without hesitation, Gates responded, “Goldman Sachs.” When Karlgaard responded with surprise that Gates named an investment banking company rather than a computer company, Gates clarified:
Software is an IQ business. Microsoft must win the IQ war, or we won’t have a future. I don’t worry about Lotus or IBM, because the smartest guys would rather come to work for Microsoft. Our competitors for IQ are investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Indeed, the competition for the best and brightest is a war fiercely waged by the best companies in the hi-tech fields, because these high IQ cognoscenti are the only people capable of pushing innovation to new heights.
Steve Jobs, founder of Microsoft’s major competitor, Apple Inc., explained in an interview with Business Week on October 12, 2004, one of the secrets of his success in hiring employees.
I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Given that, you’re well advised to go after the cream of the cream … A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.
Jeff Bezos echoed the comments of Gates and Jobs in emphasizing the importance of IQ as the most vital element sought in Amazon’s recruitment and hiring of their top people. Mark Leibovich, in his biography of Jobs, observed:
The philosophies Bezos applied at Amazon follow a principle he has long embraced: Intrinsic ability [IQ] rules, trumping acquired skills [EQ] and accumulated experience.
The efficacy of IQ tests in predicting job performance is well established in the research. Psychologist Linda Gottfredson, states:
Personnel selection research provides much evidence that intelligence g, [i.e., IQ] is an important predictor of performance in training and on the job, especially in higher level work. … [In fact] g can be said to be the most powerful single predictor of overall job performance … no other single predictor measured to date (specific aptitude, personality, education, experience) seems to have such consistently high predictive validities for job performance.
In contrast to the strong evidence of a link between IQ and job performance, the argument for EQ as a predictor of job performance in the workplace is weak. In many careers, a high IQ is vital and interpersonal skills are much less important. So, if you choose a career suited to your interests and commensurate with your IQ, you will likely be successful. However, if you want some joy in your personal life, it helps to raise your EQ because people skills are mainly learned behaviors–you just need to pay more attention to them than in past. For a more detailed comparison of IQ and EQ see: https://www.intelligence-and-iq.com/chapter-8/
