There must be balance between IQ and EQ

I agree with Mr Kwan Jin Yao and Mr Ho Weng Shian that “intelligence” has no direct link to a tertiary degree (“Bosses, MOE of different minds” and “Short-sightedness big reason for elitism here”; May 12).

The only link is academic ability, which may not be what industries really need to compete and succeed.

However, the biggest employer in Singapore — the public service — has traditionally used academic results as a salary gauge for its employees. This has caused a generation of Singaporeans to equate academic excellence with intelligence quotient (IQ).

There are recent studies and new emphases on people’s emotional quotient (EQ), as well as reports of enterprises discovering that their best-performing employees are well-balanced in IQ and EQ.

I would venture that the really successful individuals would also be well balanced in other areas such as motivation, energy, determination, family background and the like. And they would not have developed this success over a short period, either, but over a long time span, as there are late bloomers who often touch the finish line ahead of the early bloomers.