According to Wikipedia, Emotional Intelligence describes the ability, capacity or skill to manage the emotions of oneself, of others and of groups.

In 1985, Wayne Leon Payne initially coined the term “Emotional Intelligence” in his doctoral thesis, A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence. But it was not until the publication of Daniel Goleman’s bestseller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ that the term became widely popularized. Ever since, there has been widespread interest in Emotional Intelligence (EI), and Emotional Quotient, as it is also known, has taken precedence over Intelligence Quotient (IQ) in management circles around the world.

In his book on EI, Daniel Goleman explains how understanding Emotional Intelligence is increasingly relevant to organizational development, HR activities and developing people. (For a brief introduction to EI, watch a video of Daniel Goleman’s talk at Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hoo_dIOP8k) sfp2007.

Through his years of research as a psychologist and a science journalist, Goleman developed a framework to explain emotional intelligence in terms of five elements viz. fire, water, earth, wood and metal. He described each of them in terms of: