Who’s got the emotional intelligence to be president?

At WINGS, we’re constantly monitoring how students are progressing on the factors that make up emotional intelligence. Lately, I’ve found myself measuring up a much different demographic…our country’s leaders.

The subject’s coming up more often in mainstream media, too. In analyzing the performance of vice presidential candidates in last week’s debate, for instance, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation told George Stephanopolus that “Joe Biden was forceful, disciplined, gracious and showed he had a higher emotional IQ.”

As I watched the program, it struck me that as we choose a new president, we should all be considering how the candidates’ EQ – emotional quotient – stack up. For leaders, a high EQ is in some ways even more important than an analytical IQ because the ability to monitor personal emotions makes for more thoughtful decisions and actions.

But it can be tough to decipher. Being socially and emotionally intelligent amounts to much more than whether you’d enjoy sharing a beer with one candidate or feel inspired by the speeches of another. I like to use the last presidential elections as an example: In 2004, a majority of voters rated Bush as the most likable guy, but four years later polls show nearly 70 percent of the country thinks something is missing in his EQ or IQ. 

We’ve created a tool to make it easy for you to rate the candidates. Check it out here, and see how I’ve rated them myself below.

How do you think the candidates stack up? Here’s how I ranked them according to my assessment of their EQ:

It’s best to have a cross-section of the five skills that make up social and emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, responsible decision-making and social awareness.

Keeping the five components in mind, the congenial give-and-take of John McCain’s town hall meetings clearly shows he’s got strong relationship skills. But he falls short in responsible decision-making. In his autobiography, “Worth the Fighting For,” he says that “often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”

The soaring rhetoric of Barack Obama’s speeches has inspired stadiums full of people, showing he can tap into the dreams and hopes of the electorate using his social awareness skills. But he’s been criticized for sometimes seeming less warm and spontaneous than voters would like, indicating weaknesses in some relationship skills.

The choice of Sarah Palin energized Republicans across the country, and triggered an outpouring of excitement. She demonstrates powerful social awareness and relationship skills. The way she expresses herself creates strong interpersonal connections, and people believe she would empathize with their problems.  

I scored Joe Biden high on relationship skills because he expresses himself with empathy and authenticity in way that helps voters relate to him. Politicians on both sides of the aisle testify to his ability to forge alliances that enlist the cooperation of others. But his habit of speaking without thinking, which has necessitated frequent apologies over the years, shows that he has deficits in self-management. His recent comment that Hillary Clinton “might have been a better pick than me” for the Democratic vice presidential spot is an example.