CQ is the new EQ

Leaders are confronted by a maelstrom of digital disruption. How should you best respond? In a world where decisions are increasingly made through artificial intelligence, visualised in virtual reality and transacted using a token on the blockchain, what are the leadership qualities you need; not just to survive but to thrive and stand out? If robots can do any role that involves thinking, repetition or managing complexity better than you, how do you avoid losing your cherished corner office or the airline lounge pass?

It seems the threat is real in broad economic terms. At the apocalyptic end of the spectrum, a 2017 McKinsey & Co report predicted that up to 375 million people may need to find jobs in a new sector altogether to offset the threat of unemployment posed by automation. But managers and professionals will also need to look up from their spreadsheets and find new ways of creating value. Professor Richard Susskind describes the emergent disruption poetically: “We are advancing into a post-professional society… If we leave it to professionals themselves to reinvent their workplace, are we asking the rabbits to guard the lettuce?”

The good news is that you are currently much better than any robot at expressing or generating emotions, building relationships with other humans, using intuition, creating ideas and entertaining others. But how many of these skills are the reasons for your success in your role? Are you valued for what you know, or how you make others feel? Are you highly regarded for the value that you can accurately measure, or the new potential value that your imaginative ideas might create?

In our work with senior executives at LBS Executive Education, we often challenge our participants not just to consider the strategic and operational challenges of a digitally disrupted future, but to identify and experiment with very different personal responses, new approaches and new ways of working.

It’s not enough simply to be more knowledgeable and articulate on the form and nature of disruptive technology: leaders need to find ways to be personally adaptable and agile and to embrace the new visibly and enthusiastically. Our shorthand for this is to encourage leaders to experiment with new ideas, thorny business challenges and, yes, even ‘experiment’ with themselves. And what’s at the heart of experimentation? The need to find out. What happens if...?

A new way of leading

At a recent workshop, we shared a hypothesis about future leadership from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Chair of Business Psychology at University College London. In the past, leaders stood out through their intelligence quotient (IQ), as their mental abilities enabled them to learn and solve novel problems faster. But then we (their employees, colleagues, stakeholders) required them to develop their emotional quotient (EQ), as their ability to perceive and express emotions, or develop strong interpersonal skills, made them better equipped to navigate organisational politics and take others with them through change or uncertainty.

Dr Chamorro-Premuzic suggests that, in the future, these abilities will still be important, but the differentiating quality for the leader will be how well they have also developed what he calls their “curiosity quotient”, or CQ.

What does high CQ look like?

Leaders with a high CQ demonstrably exhibit a sense of curiosity and proactively develop new habits. They actively invest and reinvest in knowledge acquisition, using a broad range of sources from formal education, science journals and art appreciation to quirkier social media and networking clubs; exercising and honing their ‘horizon-scanning’ habits. To develop that curiosity, they constantly have their radar switched on to detect new ideas and technologies. They may be early adopters of unproven tech and in the workplace enjoy opportunities to try out new approaches and work on new assignments – and not just rely on the skills and expertise that have got them to where they are.