Do Women Have Higher Emotional Intelligence Than Men?

Welcome to the battle of the sexes! For centuries we humans have gotten a delicious pleasure by partnering with our fellow sex to compete for superiority against the opposition. So it should be no surprise that when it comes to emotional intelligence, I am often asked which sex is more emotionally intelligent. I will also mention, that when I respond with, “What do you think?” My own survey results from men and women alike suggest women are the winners.

Don’t celebrate yet, ladies! As much as I am on your side, the real answer is, it’s complicated.

Women are perceived, and view themselves, as being more empathetic, honest in business, kind, and intuitive to the needs of individuals and groups. These traits are associated with strong leadership values recognized by high performing companies. The Athena Doctrine, one of my favorite books, offers fascinating research on this topic. After meeting with hundreds of companies across the world, they learned that traits often associated as “feminine” help us adapt with much more ease to the fast paced changes of our world today.

“The Athena Doctrine” shows why femininity is the operating system of 21st century prosperity: Leadership: values traditionally associated with women create more effective leadership and organizational strategies in today’s society. Career management and self-improvement traits associated with women–flexibility, empathy, and honesty–underpin career mobility and personal fulfillment. Change management: feminine traits help us adapt seamlessly and effectively to today’s changes.

The Athena Doctrine: How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future by John Gerzema (goodreads.com)

On the EQ scale, women trend higher in empathy than men. As a skill, people who score high in empathy also show higher sales volumes than their peers as well as higher leadership potential in their organizations. This is a great way to strengthen relationships, a key requirement in both sales and leadership.

That solves it! Right? No.

While empathy is often used to describe emotional intelligence, it doesn’t stand by itself. Empathy is just one piece of the social management component which in itself makes up only 25% of the core areas measured to gauge a person’s emotional intelligence. It is one piece of the complex system that makes up an emotionally intelligent leader.

Empathy is a part of emotional intelligence. Empathy does NOT equal emotional intelligence.

Cate Dalton

Just consider the woman who is high in empathy and is able to show caring and concern for others, but lacks optimism, or is unable to objectively navigate emotions. A woman I know scores in empathy. She so easily identifies with other people and where they are coming from, that she finds herself confused in how best to support her friends. “I feel for them. This is just awful.” She would tell me. “What should I do?” Because my friend lacks optimism, her perspective of others situation was often, less than good. She also lacks the ability to identify, understand and navigate her emotions and the emotions of others. When this happens, the “intelligence” of “emotional intelligence” goes out the window and she finds herself “people pleasing” instead of leading, consulting, or advising.

Empathy is key to the third set of competencies, Social Management, of emotional intelligence. Critical to social management is the first set of competencies, Self-Awareness. Identifying emotions, navigating emotions, and building a strong self awareness results in the confidence strong leaders need to communicate a shared vision, enable collaboration, and motivate others to positive action.

While empathy does not appear to be the strong suit of men, confidence and self assurance is. These competencies are just as valuable when measuring emotional intelligence and men score higher in these areas. Men are shown to represent themselves and their businesses with a level of confidence that builds trust with prospects, customers, and teams they work with.

Score a point for men!

Does this mean men are never scared? Are you kidding? Any woman who lives with men knows they face fear like the rest of us. It is their ability to use logic when assessing their fears that give them an advantage.

And the tie breaker? There isn’t one. Assessments show that while these traits trend with one sex or the other, this doesn’t mean men don’t score high in empathy, and women can’t navigate their emotions like the best.

The question of which gender is more emotionally intelligent speaks to a deeper topic, the conscious and unconscious biases we hold about men and women.

Cate Dalton

For centuries, societal beliefs have shaped how we view the role and value of the sexes. These beliefs become biases when we begin to make assumptions about someone because of their sex. Biases can lead to prejudices against others, which can result in inequalities among demographics. Emotional intelligence is not related to nor solves the gender bias issues. However, emotionally intelligent leaders of BOTH sexes have the skillsets to help societies and organizations overcome those biases.

Though research shows patterns in varying strengths among EQ traits in men and women, I caution each of us not to fall into a bias trap. Some of my favorite male mentors have an advanced level of empathy both emotionally and cognitively. I have female friends who, through great practice in self-awareness, are free from self-limiting beliefs and express confidence that is enviable.

Gender bias in the workplace is a very real problem we continue to face today. It takes both male and female leaders, high in emotional intelligence, to realize inclusion and equality.

Emotional Intelligence is a set of competencies that can be strengthened through a commitment to self-awareness and understanding how emotions affect people and relationships, and learning to mange relationships with consideration of the power emotions have over people.

What is your level of EQ today? Check out the Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s four favorite EQ Assessments and find out!