Speaker says EQ influences success

By Cassie Munoz/reporter

IQ gets a person in the door, but EQ gets them to the top floor, a speaker told NE students at a Let’s Taco ‘Bout It presentation April 5.

Hurst city manager Clay Caruthers spoke to students about the role of emotional quotient and servant leadership in careers.

“IQ [intelligence quotient] is that mental aptitude to do a technical job that pretty much gets you in the door,” he said. “But that EQ to get you to top floor, you have to understand not only your own emotions but that of others.”

Caruthers invited students to lead the conversation as he guided them through the process of comparing and contrasting IQ and EQ. He helped students understand IQ not only open doors, but EQ also plays a role in the hiring process.

“If you have both IQ and EQ when you go in for a job interview, it just makes that door wider,” Caruthers said.

Students also learned about the connection between EQ and servant leadership.

“[Servant leadership] starts with self-awareness and having that ability to understand your weaknesses and strengths,” Caruthers said. “[Understand] how you impact others to make others’ lives better.”

Caruthers said in some cases people in leadership roles do not have high emotional intelligence. He also applied the concepts of emotional intelligence to other settings like the classroom.

“For students, it can just be being aware of your classmates in terms of when they may need help with studies,” he said.

Offering tips for students on how to develop EQ, Caruthers went over some things that helped him with his own EQ.

“Gut is a lot of times a good thing to listen to,” he said. “If your gut kind of sends you the wrong direction, then that’s where you regroup, re-evaluate, learn from it and you move on. You are not going to be perfect but you have to be self-aware.”