The People Management website is offering detailed coverage of speeches at the IPD national conference.

Daniel Goleman made a strong appeal for the development of emotional intelligence - reports Jane Pickard and Eila Rana

"The key to success in a career lies in soft skills such as empathy and self-awareness, rather than in IQ, keynote speaker Daniel Goleman told delegates.

The US psychologist and former journalist said the importance of “emotional intelligence” had come through repeatedly in his research.

He and colleagues had looked at the competency profiles of top performers at 500 companies worldwide and found they coincided with this set of skills, which Goleman has grouped under five headings. IQ got people into their chosen career in the first place, but after that it was irrelevant in predicting who would excel.

Goleman, whose bestseller, Emotional Intelligence, sold four million copies, said the only really significant cognitive ability was a grasp of the big picture and how it might develop in the future."