What is emotional intelligence? Broadly speaking, EQ refers to someone’s ability to perceive, understand and manage their own feelings and emotions. Psychologist Daniel Goleman says it has five core components:

Self-awareness – the ability to recognise and understand your moods and emotions, and how they affect others Self-regulation – the ability to control impulses and moods, and to think before acting

Internal (or intrinsic) motivation – being driven to pursue goals for personal reasons, rather than for some kind of reward (the opposite is external motivation)

Empathy – the ability to recognise and understand others’ motivations, which is essential for building and leading teams successfully

Social skills – the ability to manage relationships and build networks