Over the past few years, emotional intelligence (EI) has become one of the most popular leadership theories. It looks at how well you manage your emotions and relationships in relation to other people, as well as how well you understand yourself and why you feel certain ways.

Many believe that having high levels of EI can have significant benefits for you in workplace settings and outside of work. These include improved employee productivity, higher engagement, lower turnover, more positive interactions with others, and better job performance.

Given its growing popularity, it is no surprise that there are now many different tests and tools designed to measure someone’s level of EI. Some of these focus only on measuring your overall EI while others look at specific areas such as emotion regulation or empathy.

This article will talk about some easy ways to test your own emotional quotient (or “emotional literacy” if you will). Whether you are looking to improve yours or evaluate another person’s, these tips will be helpful.

Factors that affect one's emotional intelligence

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One of the most important factors in measuring someone’s emotional quotient (EQ) is their understanding of themselves.

This includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses, as well as how you respond to different situations. Some people may perceive you as having low EQ because you sometimes show anger or are perceived as being very aggressive, but this could be due to your strength, which is taking aggression towards other people outside of work.

People who think they have lower EQ than they do might not realize it's because they're insecure about something. For example, if you feel like you're never doing enough at work, then you'll probably believe you have a low EQ.

On the contrary, people with high EQ understand that they can't always control everything, so they learn to live with what they've got and make the best of it. They also recognize their mistakes and try to fix them for next time.

Ways to improve one's emotional intelligence

Increasing your emotional quotient (EQ) is not easy, but it is possible. You can learn how to recognize and manage your emotions in order to achieve this.

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Become aware of your strengths and weaknesses as far as emotion goes.

People with high EQ are able to identify and understand other people's emotions and what makes them feel good or bad. They also know when someone else is feeling happy or sad and try to influence their mood in a positive way by doing something fun or encouraging them.

You can learn to control your own emotions by practicing self-awareness, which includes knowing yourself physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally.

Hold emotional conversations

More important than having a great deal of empathy is being able to hold an honest conversation about emotions. When you are talking about something that matters to someone, you have to be willing to go into it with them as one person to another.

This can mean talking about things such as how their friend or family member makes them feel, why they think something is wrong, or what could help them overcome their problems.

It can also include talking about things like why someone else may not agree with their decisions, but would still respect them for making them.

By putting yourself in their shoes, you will understand their position more clearly. This way you’ll know whether your arguments make sense and if there are new points you should bring up.

You need to be clear and concise when speaking so others cannot misunderstand you or assume the worst.

Be realistic

Most people who test for emotional intelligence use questionnaires that have you rate how you feel about things on a scale of one to five, or even higher. This may not be an accurate representation of someone’s emotional intelligence.

For example, if you were asked what your favorite color is, there are probably many colors that mean different things to you. Some might like blue because it looks good and some could associate it with tranquility.

People also have various moods, so when you ask them their opinion on something they might go in-depth as to why they gave a certain rating.

If you really wanted to know someone’s favorite color, there are ways to do it without asking too much about their emotions. You can find out by looking at pictures, talking to them, or even doing a quick survey online.

Emotions don’t just come and go quickly, so asking about them in depth isn’t very practical. It takes longer than just writing a short answer and then checking off the box next to it!

When trying to determine someone’s emotional intelligence, make sure your questions are relevant and apply to the person being tested.

Share your experiences

People are always sharing their stories, so why not use that as a way to assess someone’s emotional intelligence?

Ask yourself these questions and see if they match up with the person you're trying to evaluate. If yes, then great! They have displayed some form of emotional intelligence.

But remember, it is very difficult to tell how well someone functions in society unless they let something slip. You cannot trust what people say about themselves.

So be careful when asking these questions to avoid false information or exaggerations.

Be honest with your peers

When trying to measure someone’s emotional intelligence, one must be very careful about how they ask questions and what types of answers you get.

It is important to not use closed-ended questions when asking if someone has an understanding of emotions. These include questions like “Do you think people feel emotion?” or “Are there some things that are more likely to make someone else cry?”

Closed-ended questions require only yes or no responses, and therefore do not allow for elaboration or exceptions. They also tend to put pressure on the person being asked to give a clear cut answer. It can easily turn into either a totally false statement or something close to it.

Open-ended questions, however, offer greater opportunity for nuance and insight. They can be thought of as having a higher level of complexity, which makes them better at revealing hidden qualities of individuals.

Be honest with your boss

As mentioned earlier, emotional intelligence (EI) is a very important factor in employee performance. If you have a hard time trusting others, it can be difficult to put trust in other people’s actions.

If someone does something that hurts you or doesn’t seem like they care about what happens to you, it may be harder to let go and move forward. This can negatively impact not only yourself but also those around you who depend on you.

So how do you measure EI? You cannot simply ask if someone is emotionally intelligent or not, because most likely they would say yes! That wouldn’t necessarily tell you much though.

Here are some things to consider when trying to determine whether someone has high levels of emotional intelligence.

Be honest with your friends

When trying to determine if someone is emotionally intelligent, look into their relationships!

Does he or she have close friendships that last longer than two weeks? If so, then they must be feeling some type of emotional attachment to at least one person.

A good indicator that this individual has low EQ is when his or her friend changes due to them not agreeing on something.

They may feel hurt, betrayed, or even angry towards them because of it. This would show lower EI as people tend to place more importance on getting what you want instead of how others feel.

If you are ever in a situation where you think there’s trouble between two people, try looking into their relationship first before assuming anything.

You don’t know what things were outside of the friendship that could be causing problems.