Emotional Intelligence: Thinking out of the Box

In his treatise Nicomechian Ethics, Aristotle recognized the importance of emotions when he stated: "One must learn to manage our emotional life with intelligence." In other words, how can we bring intelligence to our emotions and emotions to our intelligence? Why do some people with high IQ fail, and some people with low IQ succeed? Successful intelligence represents the consilience of intellectual intelligence, practical intelligence, and creative intelligence. We measure intellectual intelligence by IQ, practical intelligence by years of experience, and creative intelligence—also known as emotional intelligence—by emotional quotient (EQ). Self-efficacy and tacit knowledge have been found to be the two most important characteristics for someone with a high EQ. Ninety-percent of the qualities or "competencies" that make someone excellent or better than average have been identified as characteristics of emotional intelligence. If education teaches intellectual intelligence and industry focuses on practical intelligence, do either learning experiences provide the environment to teach emotional intelligence? In our quest for successful intelligence, who is teaching our students to think "out of the box?"