Auditor competencies must extend well beyond functional expertise and technical skills.
Knowledge and traditional skills are essential to success, but they can only take an auditor so far. Even for the most adept practitioners, objectives cannot be achieved merely with intelligence, technical proficiency, and expertise. To work effectively with clients, internal auditors need strong soft skills — many of which fall under emotional intelligence, or emotional quotient (EQ). Emotionally intelligent people understand, accept, and manage their own emotions, and they can read the emotions of others. Internal auditors with high EQ treat people with empathy and can manage feelings and relationships just as well as objective, quantifiable engagement goals. Emotional intelligence is vital to fulfilling our professional responsibilities.
