10 May 2007 
 
85 per cent of leadership success in the workplace is contingent on emotional intelligence, or EQ, delegates at the Institute of Chartered Accountants Business Forum in Adelaide were told today.  
 
Speaking about EQ and thinking skills at work, Stuart Taylor, Director, The Resilience Institute Australia defined emotional intelligence as the ability to perceive, appraise and express emotion and dubbed it ‘the essence of leadership’. 
 
Taylor examined the trilogy of brain processes- cognition, emotion and motivation, and warned delegates at the Institute’s forum not to neglect emotive and motivational processes by focusing exclusively on cognition.  
 
‘As you progress to more senior levels in the workplace, the likelihood of succeeding using predominately cognitive decision-making is reduced. If trying to achieve a certain level of performance, the first thing is to adopt behaviour and emotions that support this,’ Taylor said. 
 
Among the gamut of emotions covered by Taylor, self-control was identified as a key component of self awareness, self management and social awareness. Indeed, delegates to the Institute’s forum learned that CEOs display self control seven times more frequently than those not appointed in a CEO position. 
 
The value of empathy in the workplace was also highlighted, with the ability to understand the emotional language of others viewed as imperative for leaders at work. 
 
The Institute’s Business Forum continues in Adelaide for the rest of this week.