Emotional intelligence (EI) is often cited as an important development area regardless of your career choice. Although this is true in many respects, successful accountants excel in particular aspects of EI when compared against other professional roles.

How do you feel?

Recognising how you feel in different situations and how effectively you manage these emotions remain priorities for accountants. More commonly referred to as self-awareness, accountants who understand their emotions are more adept at choosing the right action in the right situation.

In a practical sense, self-awareness will help you deal with, and manage, your emotions in a productive way. Ultimately, this means accepting rather than ignoring or suppressing your emotions – the consequences of which can have a longer-term, physiological impact. It should come as little surprise that there is a clear connection between individuals who recognise and accept their emotions and those who manage stress effectively.

Often seen as the foundation of EI, self-awareness often provides the catalyst for improving all other aspects of the emotional psyche. It also provides enhanced insight into the emotions of others – if you recognise your feelings, it becomes easier to understand those of others. This will support your efforts in building effective relationships.

Relationship management

People are drawn to accounting for various reasons, including the careful application of rules, levels of complexity, and an eye for detail. It is these technical abilities that support accountants in conducting their work in a competent manner.

For an accountant to reach the next level in their career, building effective relationships is a priority. Irrespective of whom you interact with and how you do it, meeting a client’s needs involves the ability to form, build and maintain relationships. Such relationships go beyond the formalities of a contract and involve a more comprehensive understanding of one another’s concerns and pressures. Investing time and effort in developing your relationship management skills will bring its own benefits – you will create respect, trust, and higher levels of interest and engagement.

Continued improvement

It is important to recognise and remember that all EI skills can be developed with appropriate training and intervention. Even if you believe that your emotional self-awareness and relationship management skills do not need improvement, the potential for growth will always exist.

Recognising differences

Building effective relationships and understanding the impact of your own emotions are valuable areas of EI for accountants. In other professions, these areas are less relevant as critical success criteria.

For example, an optimistic outlook is essential for individuals working in sales, counselling, and teaching, but less so in accountancy. This may be supported by the fact that a degree of pessimism is actually helpful in accountancy and can drive effectiveness.

Similarly, flexibility is another EI skill that holds less relevance for accountants. To some extent, a flexible approach may hinder an accountant’s ability to carry out their role successfully – respecting the rules, requirements, and standards is an essential part of the profession.