Emotional intelligence is the key to more successful entrepreneurs

• Entrepreneurs have a key role to play in achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• That is where entrepreneurs — anyone who starts or owns a business — come into the picture.
• Our recent research on how emotional intelligence at the societal level impacts entrepreneurship can help Canada, and other nations, accomplish this.

About the study

• Using entrepreneurial activity data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 24 countries, our study found that entrepreneurship flourishes when individuals in society possess higher levels of well-being, adaptability, self-control and sociability.
• These are characteristics of societal emotional intelligence — a measure of the collective emotional intelligence of a particular society.

Fostering commercial entrepreneurship

• Our research found three characteristics of societal emotional intelligence are more likely to foster commercial entrepreneurship: hedonic well-being, adaptability and self-control.
• Commercial entrepreneurship leads to innovation that contributes to a country’s economic growth by generating wealth.
• In the context of commercial entrepreneurship, having a high degree of adaptability allows entrepreneurs to navigate uncertainty and adapt to changes in the business environment.
• Because self-control is valuable for managing commercial enterprises, societies that have more individuals with higher levels of self-control are more likely to facilitate commercial entrepreneurship.

Fostering social entrepreneurship

• Social entrepreneurship, as previously mentioned, leads to innovation that addresses social issues.
• While the characteristics of eudaimonic well-being are essential for both types of entrepreneurship, societies with higher levels of eudaimonic well-being tend to foster an environment more conducive for social entrepreneurship.
• It plays a more significant role in social entrepreneurship, so societies with a larger amount of individuals with this trait are more likely to facilitate social entrepreneurship.

Fostering emotional intelligence

• For this to happen, Canada should implement strategies to build emotional intelligence among its entrepreneurs.
• One way Canada could do this is by investing in programs to monitor, assess and diagnose ways to improve emotional intelligence among entrepreneurs.
• In addition, given that emotional intelligence can be developed with training, businesses and innovation hubs should develop emotional competencies among their entrepreneurs.