EQ, Mirror Neurons & Paul’s Letter to Corinthia: How to Lead with Empathy
Written by Sarah Loogman
We are generally familiar with the idea of IQ, or intelligence quotient. The ability to cognitively reason, measure logic and process information is the developing aim of most educational institutes and is a cultural bar of functionality within the professional world. We admire genius IQ scores and credit these people with some of the greatest advances in technology and the propulsion of human modernization. Our IQ is important to operate in the world.
But have you heard of EQ? The notion of an emotional quotient or “emotional intelligence” wasn’t coined for more than 50 years after the research emphasis was made on IQ, and then not really popularized until the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman was published in 1995. Defined by “the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan, and achieve in one's life,” emotional intelligence is about the discernment between varying emotions and how to use this information to guide interaction and behaviors. Our emotional intelligence is important to operate in relationships.
According to the founding principles of emotional intelligence as defined by Goleman, there are five key elements that make up our ability to lead and live with this quality:
Self-awareness: to understand how you feel, have a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses and be able to act with humility.
Self-regulation: to be able to control the impulses of emotions and remain accountable, calm and flexible.
Motivation: to have the capacity for hard work ethic, stay challenged and have a high standard for quality.
Empathy: to be able to recognize and appropriately respond to the emotions of others, giving respect and appreciation.
Social skills: to be able to resolve conflict, communicate effectively and manage change.
The modern world and western education models put a heavy emphasis on IQ and this sort of cognitive ability is certainly important. Personally, I feel more comfortable to ride in a plane engineered by someone with a high intelligence quotient than to know that they are resourceful, friendly and helpful. The disproportionate attention, however, culturally given to IQ begs for a greater conversation revolving around interactive human relationships, especially as it relates to leadership. When it comes down to it, most of our experience is defined by the people we surround ourselves with and those multi-dimensional dynamics that bring us stress, joy, fear, excitement and anger.
Leaders need to be more than just “smart” - they ought to be kind and empathetic, too. In fact, Goleman makes a sound argument for how emotional intelligence might matter more than traditional markers of IQ and the current condition of humanity seems to make that need abundantly more clear. From medicine to politics to the disputes you’re in with the HOA, we’re not getting along in the way of our design.
Yes, we are designed for companionship and love. But it’s more than just a vague conversation about feelings.
IQ and EQ don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, in trying to understand more about emotional intelligence, let’s tap into the quotients of our reasoning, logic and the deductive ability to analyze information. Let’s talk about mirror neurons.
“I Feel Your Pain”
The research into mirror neurons is widely considered one of the most important advances in neuroscience research of this generation. The mirror neuron system (MNS) is a “group of specialized neurons that ‘mirrors’ the actions and behaviour of others”. Implicated in functions that include social cognition, language and empathy, this phenomenon was first observed in 1992 in monkeys of which the premotor cortex of one monkey would charge by observing another monkey’s actions in the same manner as if it were doing the action itself. As in, as far as a specific region of the brain there was observably no difference between “monkey see” and “monkey do.”
Since that time, multidimensional courses of research have helped us to understand how humans also utilize the MNS in functions of social cognition, language and empathy. A search on US National Library of Medicine for “mirror neurons” pulls up more than 32,000 research papers and implicative theories have risen up in psychology, addiction recovery and educational models, among others.
This circuitry is the mechanism by which we wince in pain if we see a needle prick someone’s finger or a weight drop on their toe, even if it’s not actually happening to us. The MNS is the systematic mechanism by which we can recognize facial expressions of irritation, sadness or joy and often absorb similar moods - ever notice how you get grouchy around grumpy people? It’s how we learn to improve sports performance by watching professionals or mimicking a teammate. Conversely, the dysfunction of mirror neurons has been inconclusively, but plausibly, researched in the socially impaired behaviors of those with autism and other social or language disorders.
For a person in a role of leadership, understanding the functions of the MNS can be especially helpful to facilitating a highly attuned process of mapping out our relationship with others. Our perception of the actions and emotions of others isn’t just a vague concept of “intuition,” but is a neurologic adaptation to deepening our multi-sensory prediction of our own and other’s behaviors.
Understanding the MNS just might help us to love better.
Love is..
In Saint Paul’s famous letter to the church in Corinthia, he describes love as patient, kind, without envy or pride, polite, serving, good, joyous, complete and truthful. As one of the leader’s of the first generation of the follower’s of Jesus, his surviving letters have had a tremendous impact on Christianity - his first letter to the Corinthian church in Greece among them.
In this letter, Paul addresses reports he hears about this church with some sadness regarding dissension and quarreling. Though he addresses big topics of spiritual gifts, morality and the stewardship of “God’s mysteries” (4:1), perhaps the most famously quoted passages of his letter today is the Way of Love. Where faith, hope and love abide, says Paul, “the greatest of these is love” (13:13).
The collective, comprehensive, universal love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13 is best understood as a way of life, a living imitation and reflection of the life of a man named Jesus. This kind of love is not one of intellect, per se, and countercultural to the ways of the world (especially in the times of the Roman Empire and pride of Greek culture). The love that Jesus demonstrated in action and state of being weren’t practical or sensical or logical - in fact, it got him killed as a criminal. It was relational, it was empathetic, it was the representation of how we were biologically created to manifest the spiritual presence of a supernatural God.
Love is action and it is commitment, yes - love is not love if we do not live and relate according to it. As leaders, lovers and friends, how we “are” or “be” love is the ultimate and most important question.
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