Harnessing Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Career Growth

Emotional intelligence is a term that has grown in popularity over the course of the past decade. It’s been around since the 1990s and was made more mainstream when psychologist Dan Goleman first published a book by the same name in 1995. As people are increasingly interested in how to heal their psychological pain in healthy, effective ways, looking more closely at their internal, social, and professional environments has become a priority. But beyond helping you become a happier family member, student, friend, lover, and co-worker, leveraging your understanding of emotional intelligence can help you become a stronger leader and bolster your professional ambitions.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and process your own feelings, and the emotions of others, in a healthy way. Many people were raised to be reactionary toward things that happen to them, such as getting into a disagreement with a friend or receiving a large sum of money. 

During a disagreement, feelings like anger, betrayal, and fear may lead you to distance yourself from your friend and shut them out permanently. Yet, the healthiest option might be to take a short break and come back together within a few hours or a couple of days to discuss the issue openly and honestly, not throw away the entire relationship over a single bout of tension. 

When receiving a windfall of money, feeling elated, excited, and relieved may lead to you spending irresponsibly and showing off your new wealth to people with nefarious intentions. Not being able to manage your behavior while feeling these emotions can lead you to being manipulated out of some of your new money or even outright robbed.  

There are four key components of emotional intelligence and they are: 

1. Self-Awareness: The ability to stop and take stock of what’s going on within your body and mind. This means understanding what you’re feeling, where that feeling is coming from, and the impact that it’s having on you. 
2. Self-Management: The ability to manage your behavior in healthy ways in spite of feeling strong and/or unpleasant emotions. 
3. Social Awareness: The ability to take stock of what’s going on with the people around you, including co-workers, clients, friends, and family members. 
4. Relationship Management: The ability to empathize and effectively communicate with other people.

Practicing these skills and applying them on a consistent basis can mean feeling more confident and happy while you create enduring, healthy relationships with the people around you. And this includes the people that you work for and with each day. 

Emotional Intelligence in Business

From project coordinators to department heads to CEOs, leaders abound at every level of any size of company. While emotional intelligence is valuable anywhere within an organization, having it in those who are managing others is a recipe for success. Because they can recognize, process, and manage their behavior while experiencing emotions like panic and fear, they work well (and manage others well) in high-pressure situations like involvement with high-profile events or striving to meet tight deadlines. Being able to appropriately nurture their relationships with clients, partners, and employees means that they are better able to get the best out of people. Trust and reliability in a relationship are virtually guaranteed when an emotionally intelligent person is at the helm. 

Emotional Intelligence Can Grow Your Career

Resumes touting extensive years of experience and ample amounts of sophisticated technical skills are great for getting hired. However, holding onto that position and advancing at that company will hinge more on emotional intelligence than work history. 

Becoming More Emotionally Intelligent

Humans aren’t born with high levels of emotional intelligence. At birth, our world mostly revolves around eating and sleeping, and we are extremely selfish and needy. But we can train ourselves to become more emotionally intelligent over time with patience for the process, consistent practice of the skills, and ample grace for our struggles as we work to change ourselves for the better. 

Powerful Pause

Start training yourself to pause before acting. Knee-jerk reactions to given situations are often what leads to less emotional intelligence. Without having the time to process what has happened, it becomes nearly impossible to even consider changing your course of action if you have already started to respond.  Start with simply taking two normal breaths before you move or speak. Even if your response is the same as what it would have been before you paused, you’re training your body not to get swept up in whatever emotions you’re feeling, and that the first reaction should be to stop and process before responding. 

Over time, make the pauses a second or two longer. Then, work on processing the situation during those pauses by acknowledging the emotions you may be feeling in the moment (panic, excitement, fear, joy, anger, etc.), assessing your own physical reactions and body language (racing heart, clenched fists, wringing hands, tearing up, etc.), and paying attention to the reactions of others (wide eyes, pacing, body shifted away from you, avoiding eye contact, etc.). This pause can allow you to practice self-awareness, self-management, and social awareness all in a single step. 

Calmer Decisions

In many business situations, whether they are crises or not, making decisions calmly and objectively can be extremely difficult. But after even just a few seconds of processing, making a decision about what you want to do next is a lot easier. This could mean everything from apologizing to a subordinate to letting your team go home early to preparing your resignation letter. When you’ve processed a situation and deliberately selected a course of action, it tends to be more appropriate than immediately reacting out of habit. 

Even after you’ve made a decision and executed it, get into the practice of reflecting on the decision you made. Not to second guess yourself, but to further explore the other options that were available to you in the moment that you may have overlooked. That way, when a similar situation arises in the future, you could choose an option you’ve already thought through and make that choice more quickly. This reflection can simply be done in your car or on the train on your way home after work, or you could make it a more formal reflection, such as a conversation with a trusted friend or a journal entry at the end of the day. 

Managing Yourself Toward Success

Training yourself to become more emotionally intelligent isn’t something that happens overnight. But making it an intentional daily practice means taking steps to become increasingly emotionally intelligent day after day. Just like practicing any other skill, you will inevitably improve over time, even if the progress is slow. People who can appropriately manage their behavior will do everything that makes them look like a leader in their field and on their team. This includes being able to make mistakes without getting defensive, apologizing for missteps without being passive-aggressive, helping others without becoming resentful if that assistance isn’t returned or profusely praised, and winning without gloating or insulting competitors. These kinds of leaders inspire confidence in those they work with and increase the chances that they will rise in the ranks in their given departments and industries. By taking steps to become more emotionally intelligent in your professional life, you give yourself the best chance at reaching whatever business goals you’ve set for your career.

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Source: https://www.sitepronews.com/2025/06/06/harnessing-emotional-intelligence-in-leadership-and-career-growth/