Leading With Emotional Intelligence

Leading with emotional intelligence means recognizing what you're feeling, and what your team members are feeling, before you decide how to respond. It's Step 6 of the 10 Steps to Leadership Development, and it comes down to a choice you make many times a week, whether to react or respond.

step 6 emotional intelligence hero: a balance scale

A reaction is what comes out while the feeling is still in charge, like the quick reply to an email that stung or the sharp answer in a meeting. A response comes after you've noticed the feeling and decided what you want to happen next.

Your team notices the difference. People bring problems to a leader who responds and hold them back from one who reacts, which means you hear about problems later, when they cost more to fix.

Responding is a habit you can build, and the self-check below shows which situations are most likely to trip you up.

What Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Looks Like

Psychologist Daniel Goleman, who popularized emotional intelligence in leadership, describes it in four parts, and each one shows up at work every day.

Self-awareness. Noticing that you're frustrated before a meeting starts, and knowing that you tend to talk faster and cut people off when you are.

Self-management. Waiting until you're calm to have a hard conversation, and keeping a bad morning from spilling into how you treat your team.

Social awareness. Picking up that an employee who's usually talkative has gone quiet, and asking about it later in private.

Relationship management. Giving hard feedback in a way the person can hear, and working through a disagreement without damaging the relationship.

An emotionally intelligent leader still feels angry or anxious at times. The difference is that they notice it and choose what to do next.

How to Respond Instead of React

The gap between a reaction and a response is usually only a few minutes, and these steps help you use them well.

Notice the signal. Most people feel it in their body first, such as a tight jaw or a hot face. Learn your own signals so you catch them early.
Name the feeling. Say it to yourself in plain words, such as "I'm embarrassed" or "I'm worried this makes me look bad." Putting a name to it takes some of the heat out of it.
Buy time. Say "Let me think about that and get back to you this afternoon," or leave a heated email in your drafts until morning. Very few decisions need an answer in the next five minutes.
Decide what outcome you want. Ask yourself what you want the other person to do next, and what you want the relationship to look like next month.
Respond. Say what you need to say, calmly and with the facts, and listen to the answer. If you got something wrong, own it quickly.

Tools for Leading with Emotional Intelligence

The free Leadership Assessment includes a Stability category that covers self-awareness, emotional control and staying steady when things get hectic. Take all 25 statements, then look at your Stability average out of 12 to see how steady you rate yourself under pressure.

The Master Action Plan (M.A.P.) turns one habit into a plan you can follow. Pick one, such as waiting an hour before replying to any email that upsets you, and write it down with the steps, the obstacles you expect and a date to check in.

Leading With Emotional Intelligence Example

Dana is the general manager of a family restaurant with 18 employees, and the owner reviews the labor report every week. Labor is the number she watches most closely, and it's the one most likely to make her defensive.

DANA'S FRIDAY EMAIL

The trigger: At 9:40 on a busy Friday night, the owner emailed: "Labor was 34% last week. Our target is 30%. What happened?" Dana felt her face go hot, because two servers had called in sick and covering their shifts had meant 22 hours of overtime.

Her first draft: She typed a four-paragraph reply listing everything she'd done that week to keep the restaurant running. She read it once, saved it as a draft and went back to the floor.

Her response on Saturday: She sent three sentences. Two sick calls had led to 22 overtime hours, which added about $550 to a week with $14,000 in sales, and she asked to cross-train two hosts to cover server shifts so the next sick call would cost less.

What happened next: The owner approved the cross-training that afternoon, and labor came in under target two weeks later.

Week	Labor as % of sales
The week of the email	34.0%
The next week	30.5%
Two weeks later	29.8%

Dana deleted the four-paragraph draft on Monday, and the owner asked her to bring the cross-training plan to the next managers' meeting.

Leading With Emotional Intelligence FAQ

The questions below address what leaders most commonly ask about leading with emotional intelligence.

Click on the (+) sign below to expand each question. Click the (-) sign to collapse it again.

What does leading with emotional intelligence mean?

It means noticing your own emotions and the emotions of the people around you, and using that awareness to choose how you respond. A leader with strong emotional intelligence can stay steady under pressure and handle hard conversations without damaging relationships.

What are the four parts of emotional intelligence?

Daniel Goleman describes four: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. The first two are about understanding and managing yourself, and the last two are about understanding and working with others.

What's the difference between reacting and responding?

A reaction happens while the feeling is still in charge, often within seconds. A response comes after you've noticed the feeling and decided what outcome you want, even if that takes only a few minutes.

Can emotional intelligence be learned?

Yes. Habits like noticing your physical signals, naming the feeling and buying time before you answer can all be practiced, and they get easier each time you use them.

How can I test my emotional intelligence?

Start with a quick self-check like the React or Respond Self-Check on this page, then ask someone you trust how you come across under pressure. For a fuller picture, 360 degree feedback adds ratings from your boss, your peers and your team.

Continue the 10 Steps Series

See all 10 steps

Step 5: Understand Behavior

Step 7: Learn on the Go

Step 8: Use Wise Words

Richard Gorham has led teams in financial services for more than 30 years, from retail branches and operations to investments and insurance, and he still leads a team today.

He founded Leadership-Tools.com in 2002 to give managers free, practical tools like the ones he used in his various leadership roles. Every tool here has been used in a real workplace and comes with a filled-in example you can follow.

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