Competencies, Skills and Intelligence

Today I read a web page created by a management consultant who says he subscribes to the "original 5 EQ competencies identified by Goleman. (source) This reminds me that defining any form of intelligence as "competencies" quickly leads us astray. Competence is not the same as intelligence. If the two were the same we would not need both terms. A person may be intelligent, yet incompetent. (see note)

In any case here are the five "competencies" Goleman offered us in his 1995 book.

Awareness, Empathy, Regulation, Motivation, Social Skills

There are serious problems with each of these.

As for awareness and empathy, it is possible a person with high innate EI could later have life experiences which numb them to empathy as well as to awareness of other people's or their feelings.

With respect to the others, they too are highly dependent on one's life experiences.

First, as often stated on this site, if a person comes from an abusive home, they will have trouble with regulating (managing) their emotions.

Second, abused people are also much more subject to depression, which kills motivation in spite of one's original, innate level of emotional intelligence.

Third, social skills are by their very definition skills, and not a form of intelligence. One can have high innate intelligence, but be unskilled, or taught in dysfunctional ways.

Confusing skills with intelligence is a common mistake in the writing on emotional intelligence.

S. Hein
July 4, 2007

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Intelligence vs Comptence

I did a search on "Intelligence vs Comptence" and found one result. I also did a search on "Comptence vs Intelligence" and found no results.

Here is the one result I found

Source

Here is the actual page. And my back up copy