TalentSmart EQ Appraisal
The EQ Appraisal scores four skills split two ways - awareness versus management, self versus others - so you can see whether the gap is noticing emotion or doing something useful with it.
Two axes cross to form four boxes, sorting each EQ skill by self or other, and by noticing or acting on it.
Reach for this when…
- Someone reads a room well but can't regulate their own reaction once they're in it.
- A leader knows their triggers but still can't manage relationships under pressure.
- You need a number to anchor an EQ conversation that's otherwise all opinion.
How to run it
- Complete the TalentSmart EQ Appraisal online.
- Review scores across Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Management.
- Debrief the overall score against the norm group with a coach.
- Identify the one skill that, improved, would carry the most leadership weight.
- Assign specific practices to build that one skill, not all four at once.
A worked example
Situation. Milica Jovanović managed a branch of Dunav Bank in Belgrade, Serbia, and her 360 feedback kept using the word 'unpredictable' without explaining why.
Applied. Her EQ Appraisal scored high on Self-Awareness and Social Awareness but low on Self-Management - she noticed her own irritation and read the room accurately, and still reacted before processing either.
Result. She built one practice around the gap: a short pause before responding in tense meetings. Colleagues stopped using the word 'unpredictable' within a quarter.
The catch
A single online appraisal can be gamed by whoever wants to look good, consciously or not, and self-report EQ correlates only loosely with how others actually experience someone. It treats the four skills as separable when in practice Self-Management under real pressure looks nothing like Self-Management in a calm debrief. Norms shift by culture and role, so the comparison group matters more than the headline score.
Noticing the emotion and managing it are different skills - a high Self-Awareness score can hide a Self-Management problem completely.
Origin: Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves / TalentSmart