Book review of 'SQ 21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence'

15 March, 2013

The book 'SQ 21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence' is a book for teachers, trainers and educators who wish to incorporate the relevant skills out of 21 spiritual skills to transact lessons. The author of the book, Cindy Wigglesworth, describes spiritual intelligence analogous to IQ and emotional intelligence (EQ) to make readers understand the concept of Spiritual Intelligence. In the title of the book, SQ stands for Spiritual Quotient.

According to Cindy, spiritual Intelligence pertains to the ability to behave with wisdom and compassion while maintaining inner and outer peace regardless of the situation. The book talks about skills that comprise spiritual intelligence and defines them in specific terms. The skill development method has been likened to "spiritual weightlifting" to achieve peaceful Higher Self in a faith-neutral way.

The book suggests that the practitioners of teaching and training must hone these skills step-wise to begin developing your own spiritual intelligence before interacting with educating others so as to acquire a spiritual presence. Using clear and practical language 21 skills and practices thereof have described in the book.

By drawing strength from the theory of multiple intelligences, the author informs that there are multiple lines of human development like cognitive, moral, emotional and spiritual. EQ and SQ developments are strongly related to each other. Accordingly, some basics of EQ are needed to start spiritual development. Some degree of emotional self-awareness and empathy is an important foundation. Vice versa, as our spiritual growth unfolds, there would be a strengthening of EQ skills – which would further reinforce higher SQ skills.

The author holds that the failure to reflect inner growth in the outer world demonstrates incompleteness. The book advocates that these skills are especially crucial for those in positions of leadership, since they help us to make decisions on a higher level while in the midst of stress, complexity, and high rates of change.

The volume published by Kindle Book in 2012 can be useful for educationalists, trainers and organizational heads to translate theory into action and change the institutional and work place environment and practices to develop peaceful, wise and harmonious learners and human resource.