7 Reasons LQ is Essential to Your Career Success

Psych2Go cares about your success! With the world ever-changing and evolving, new skills always need to be learned to adapt to this fast-paced age. We want you to be as prepared and confident as possible in pursuit of your dreams and goals. To ensure that you have all the tools and knowledge you need, Psych2Go would like to educate you on the concept of LQ.

Jack Ma, the executive chairman of Alibaba Group, talks about the importance of LQ to be successful in any career sector you are passionate about pursuing. At a Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, Ma said, “If you want to be respected, you need LQ. And what is LQ? The quotient of love, which machines never have.” Over the years, much attention has been given to factors like IQ and EQ when determining someone’s potential to be a suitable asset to the workplace.

Intelligence quotient (IQ) is knowledge-based. It centers on one’s ability to learn, memorize, focus, and problem solve. Emotional intelligence (EQ), on the other hand, is the ability to cooperate and work well with others through understanding other people and their emotions. Both quotients are often considered when carefully evaluating what traits make someone well accomplished and worth looking up to. However, LQ is a rising contender that is beginning to make headlines in the world of business.

Although technology has helped humans progress in the way they live, work, and communicate with one another, Jack Ma believes that no matter how much smarter machines are becoming, they will never be able to compete with the capacity for compassion, love, and understanding that humans have for one another. While there are machines that exist now that have replaced the jobs that people used to work, Ma thinks that they are no match for people who are the only ones that are capable of helping the world progress. Without people’s creativity and hope to change the way business is run by humanizing it, there would be no room for growth or advancement. In other words, there would be no future.

Ma said, “Your love has to be principled. That’s the bottom line. Respect the future, respect the young people.” He believes that it’s not enough to have only a high IQ and EQ. Psych2Go shares with you 7 reasons LQ is essential and the rising predictor to your career success:

1. Through love, you become a good teacher to someone who becomes your student.

Ma learned through his entrepreneurial journey that a good teacher always expects their student to do better than them. Research has shown that the difference between a weak teacher and a strong teacher can have a lasting impact on a student’s lifetime. Good teaching involves rigor, discipline, knowledge of the content, creativity, high expectations, preparation, and passion.

A good teacher also never forgets to be compassionate and caring towards their students. That’s why LQ is essential to sustaining business. You can’t expect good results to come from people who didn’t learn from the very best. Setting an example is everything. Moreover, it’s an invitation to create something better by following in the same inspiring footsteps.

2. Through love, you listen well to others.

The point of listening to others is to gather data in order to enhance their lives. To listen well, make sure not to interrupt others when they speak. Respond to the concerns that they have and validate your understanding of what is being discussed by paraphrasing or summarizing what you think the other person is communicating. Please be sure to also ask questions if you are unsure about something.

People are more prone to look up to and respect leaders who actually take the time to understand where they are coming from. Listening effectively is also essential to maintaining balance in business, because it means establishing good, healthy communication. Without that, there’s no capacity for growth if new ideas can’t be discussed and understood.

3. Through love, you know who is better than you and choose to learn from and work alongside them unselfishly.

Evidence from both evolutionary and developmental psychology has shown that being able to cooperate and work with others is socially rewarding not only to the individual, but to the group as well. The ability to maintain and nurture human relationships that blends elements of cooperation and competition takes a lot of practice and brainpower. But it is an art that is worth mastering. If people exclusively only choose to compete without the component of love, it makes the workplace operate in a very black and white fashion.

This leaves no room for constructive criticism that deprives people of the ability to build their skills. That’s why cooperation is essential. By allowing your brain to switch on and off from competition to cooperation, you learn to ease off on your competitive nature and strive to create win-win situations for everyone who is involved.

4. Through love, you hire people who shows the potential to be better than you and do your best to train, discipline, and support them.

The people you choose to hire will play an important part in maintaining and increasing the success of your business. Part of being a good leader means tearing down your ego and practicing humility. Research has shown that humble leaders have increased self-awareness and experience greater commitment and performance from their employees. That being said, if you don’t believe in the potential of your workers more than your own, than it shows you are only looking out for yourself and not the business in itself. Business is sustained by a collective effort rather than a solo performance.

5. Through love, you learn to respect your coworkers despite different opinions and unite from a common goal or mission.

Diversity is meant to be celebrated, not looked down upon. If everyone liked and thought the same things, then we would live in a boring world deprived of creativity. Part of sustaining creativity means establishing a workplace environment that nurtures different perspectives that can co-exist peacefully. To prevent conflict from arising, it’s important to establish a common goal or mission everyone cares about fulfilling. This helps all of your coworkers focus on the big picture, rather than fight over petty disagreements.

6. Through love, you respect and honor generations outside your own.

Millennials get a bad reputation in the work industry. People who come from older generations see them as self-entitled individuals who grew up with instant gratification and have little patience for stagnation in their careers. Instead of looking down upon young workers, which doesn’t do anything but create more conflict and separation, you can take the time to coach them. Effective coaching builds trust, instills loyalty, and helps your workers build valuable skills that are essential to helping your business succeed.

7. Through love, you measure success not by your worth, but by how many problems you’ve solved and how many people you’ve helped.

Love is meant to be a selfless act. Business relies on that sort of selflessness. For anything to grow and reach others, the intention has to be people-centered, not self-centered. To lead and sustain anything great, it’s important to be resilient in times of struggle and figure out how to effectively solve problems. It also helps to learn from your failures. Never lose sight on helping others, because without making a positive impact on the world, there would be no sense of purpose or fulfillment. Otherwise, your business would only exist for you, and that gets old and lonely fast. Ultimately, business is meant to be shared in order to flourish.

Do you think having high LQ is significant to being successful? Psych2Go would love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment down below!

References:

Bergland, C. (2012, May 1). Cooperation and Teamwork Build Intelligence. Psychology Today. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Breazeale, R. (2011, November 22). Being A Good Listener. Psychology Today. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Gentry, J. (2012, February 13). What Is Good Teaching? Psychology Today. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Jenkins, R. (2017, July 6). How to Cure Millennials of Career Impatience. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

LaBier, D. (2014, October 24). Why Humble, Empathic Business Leaders Are More Successful. The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Schwantes, M. (2017, October 5). Self-Made Billionaire Jack Ma Says You’ll Need This 1 Rare Skill to Succeed in the Age of Machines. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Weisinger, H. (2013, October 13). What’s your Likability Quotient? Psychology Today. Retrieved October 11, 2017.

Edited by Viveca Shearin