15 interview questions to measure emotional intelligence

Earlier this year, Container Store CEO Kip Tindell said one of the most important things a leader can have is high emotional intelligence.

“Emotional intelligence is the key to being really successful,” he told Business Insider’s Jenna Goudreau.

Perhaps that’s why more and more companies are asking interview questions that are designed to measure a candidate’s emotional intelligence — which is the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions.

According to Phil Johnson, founder of Master of Business Leadership (MBL) Inc., an online coaching platform, these are some of the most common ones:

1. How will this role help you to achieve what you want?
2. What makes you laugh?
3. When is the last time you were embarrassed? (What happened? How did you handle the situation?)
4. What activities energize and excite you?
5. How do you have fun?
6. What are two personal habits that have served you well?
7. How good are you at accepting help from others?
8. How good are you at asking for help?
9. What is one of the internal battles to have each day?
10. What makes you angry?
11. What aspect of your work are you passionate about?
12. How could you create more balance in your life?
13. Who inspires you? Why?
14. On an “average day” would you consider yourself a high or low energy person?
15. On an “average day” is your main focus on results and tasks or people and emotions?

“Emotional intelligence multiplies the results and effectiveness of intellectual intelligence,” Johnson writes in a LinkedIn post. “Emotional labor is the most difficult type of work to do and up until now, the easiest to avoid. It is the essential education we need to embrace the unimaginable.”

This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Jacquelyn Smith joined Business Insider as the Careers Editor in February 2014. 

Image: Unemployed Belgian Mohamed Sammar (R) answers questions during a simulated job interview, which is recorded to help him get feedback afterwards in Brussels July 2, 2013. REUTERS.