Interview with Jean-Philippe Doumeng of Napo Pet Insurance

Building a company from grief demands more than emotion. In this interview, Jean-Philippe Doumeng explains how personal loss became a disciplined strategy for category leadership at Napo Pet Insurance. The conversation explores empathy as an operating advantage, the systems that turn care into scale, and how high-performance cultures are built without sacrificing humanity.  

Can you share the moment or experience of personal grief that inspired you to found Napo Pet Insurance, and how it reshaped your vision for the company?

Napo started with my dog, Napoleon (“Napo”). Toward the end of his life he could not walk much, so we moved him around in a wheelbarrow. He actually loved it. When he passed away, my family and I were heartbroken, and it forced me to confront how stressful and fragmented pet care becomes when emotion is already high. 

That experience crystallised what pet insurance should be: fast, fair, and human – designed to provide clarity when people need it most. But clarity alone is not enough. We are building to win: protect pets, support their people, and help millions give their pets longer, healthier, happier lives. 

The vision is deliberate: best-in-class insurance as the foundation, then selective expansion into services that support pets through critical moments. Insurance earns trust. Trust creates the platform for what comes next. We are not interested in being a good insurance company. We are building the category leader. 

Many entrepreneurs experience setbacks or losses, but turning grief into a business mission is unique. How did you channel that personal experience into a concrete strategy for growth?  

The personal story gave direction, but strategy had to be practical. We translated grief into a clear operating goal: build the kind of insurance we would want for our own pets, fast decisions, fair pricing, and human support. Then we executed relentlessly to make it repeatable.  

We translated grief into a clear operating goal: build the kind of insurance we would want for our own pets, fast decisions, fair pricing, and human support.

We invested early and heavily in claims workflows, quality control, and data so decisions are consistent, not dependent on individual heroics. We use automation where it improves speed and fairness, and we keep humans at the centre where judgement and empathy matter. This is operational discipline, not sentiment. 

Growth then becomes a by-product of trust. When customers feel supported at the hardest moment, retention improves, referrals follow, and economics strengthen. That creates durable growth rather than growth at any cost. But make no mistake: we are scaling aggressively. The market is ours to take. Partnerships are strategic, not opportunistic. If you want to deliver ongoing value across a pet’s life, you need to collaborate with best-in-class players across pet care rather than trying to build everything yourself. We partner to move faster and capture more value, not out of necessity. 

How did that moment of personal loss change the way you approach leadership today, especially in motivating and guiding your team? 

That moment of loss made the work feel deeply real, but it also widened my perspective beyond my own experience. Everyone goes through difficult periods at different points in their lives: grief, health issues, family challenges, or simply moments where things feel heavy. Work does not exist in isolation from that reality. 

But understanding that reality does not mean lowering the bar. I wanted to build an environment where people do not have to pretend everything is fine all the time, and where there is room for honesty without compromising standards. At Napo, we aim for radical transparency: being open about challenges, supporting one another through difficult moments, and holding ourselves to uncompromising expectations.

That balance is non-negotiable. Empathy without structure becomes inconsistency. Structure without empathy becomes brittle. High-performing teams need both, but performance comes first. When people feel trusted and supported, they take ownership, make better decisions, and show up fully for customers. And when they do not perform, we address it directly.

Empathy is often seen as a ‘soft skill’ in business. How have you transformed empathy into a measurable competitive advantage at Napo Pet Insurance? 

Empathy is not soft. It is strategic. In any business that serves people at vulnerable moments, genuinely understanding someone else’s position means you can solve their problem better, faster, and more profitably than competitors. When you take that seriously, it stops being abstract and starts shaping how you build and operate a company to win. 

At Napo, empathy is designed into the operating system and measured ruthlessly: speed of resolution, clarity of communication, customer satisfaction, retention, and complaint rates. We structure claims journeys so routine cases are handled quickly and consistently, while complex cases get time, judgement, and human support. This creates competitive moats through retention and lifetime value.

It also shows up in how we build the team. We screen hard for empathy during hiring because culture compounds and mediocre culture kills velocity. We look for people who can combine judgement with care, and who understand there is no such thing as a “small” job when you are dealing with someone’s pet. Early on, my co-founder was on the phone at midnight helping an early customer through a difficult situation. That was not kindness for its own sake. It was setting the standard.

Empathy also means going the extra mile in small, deliberate ways. When a pet passes away, we send flowers. We mark puppy birthdays and adoption anniversaries. These are not marketing gestures – they are cultural reinforcement and competitive differentiation. They signal to the team and the customer that we see the pet as a family member, not a policy number. That consistency between internal culture and external experience is what creates trust at scale. And trust converts. 

As a leader, how do you model and embed empathy in your organization’s culture in a way that drives both team engagement and high performance?  

For me, it starts with a simple premise: we are all human. Startups are intense. People bring their own triggers, insecurities, and life events into work, whether they talk about them or not. If leaders pretend they are immune to that, the culture becomes performative and people stop being honest. 

Teams that feel supported make better decisions under pressure, recover faster from setbacks, and take more ownership. That is how you build a team that wins.

So I try to lead with transparency. I have been open with the team about challenges I have faced personally, including the mental strain that can come with building a company. Not for sympathy, but to normalise the reality that high performance and vulnerability can coexist. The first step in a strong culture is psychological safety: people feeling they can speak up early, ask for help, and be truthful when something is not going well.

But psychological safety is not permission for low standards. We try to build a culture where people know they have each other’s back, especially on bad days. That shows up in how we run teams, how we respond when someone struggles, and how we handle mistakes: with accountability, but without blame. Accountability is sacred. Blame is wasteful.

Empathy, in that sense, is not softness. It is resilience. And resilience drives execution. Teams that feel supported make better decisions under pressure, recover faster from setbacks, and take more ownership. That is how you build a team that wins.

When personal experiences drive business decisions, it can be both inspiring and risky. How do you balance the emotional motivations with objective business strategy? 

Emotion is the compass. Strategy is the weapon. Emotion defines what you will not compromise on: fairness, transparency, and long-term trust. Strategy is what makes it sustainable: pricing discipline, strong unit economics, and operational control. And discipline is what allows you to scale without breaking.

There are constant temptations to take shortcuts, especially in competitive markets. But shortcuts often create hidden costs later: complaints, churn, adverse selection, and reputational damage. We refuse to compete on price alone. We compete on value, and we win on execution. The balance is not emotion versus logic. It is values setting boundaries, and strategy finding the most aggressive path within them.

That is also how we think about the next phase. Expanding into services beyond insurance is not about doing everything. It is about selective moves, grounded in economics, and partnering with best-in-class operators so we can deliver more value without losing focus on the core. We move fast, but we move with intent. And when we move, we move to dominate.

What advice would you give to other leaders who are seeking to turn personal challenges into purposeful, high-impact ventures, while maintaining empathy at the core of their approach? 

Start with the real problem your experience revealed, then build systems that solve it at scale. Personal stories create conviction, but conviction does not create repeatability. Operating models do. And operating models executed relentlessly create category leaders. 

Treat empathy as an execution capability. Define how it shows up in decisions, communication, and metrics. Pair it with standards, because the most trusted organisations are both human and rigorous. Rigour without humanity is brittle. Humanity without rigour is amateur. 

Finally, resist the instinct to build everything yourself. The biggest opportunities often sit between sectors. Leaders who build partnerships well, share value fairly, and connect complementary strengths create more durable impact than those who try to control the whole stack. But be clear: you are building partnerships to accelerate, not to compensate for weakness. Partner from strength, not need. 

Executive Profile 

Jean-Philippe Doumeng is Co-Founder and CEO of Napo Pet Insurance. He founded Napo after losing his dachshund, Napoleon, determined to build a better kind of pet insurance. Driven by personal experience, Jean-Philippe focuses on fairness, care, and long-term support for pets and the people who love them. 

The post How Empathy and Discipline Are Building a New Pet Insurance Category appeared first on The European Business Review.

By Amy Jacobson

Adopting artificial intelligence in workplaces isn’t always easy. There is often a divide within organizations with people that embrace AI versus those who resist it. The key to managing both is to embrace emotional intelligence and change intelligence and meeting your team members where they are before guiding them forward.

Is it really AI that your teams are pushing back on, or is it the extreme level of change that comes when we start automating tasks? With 96% of organizations undergoing some form of transformation or change right now, only 34% of change initiatives succeed. To make positive changes stick, it’s integral to not just focus on the actual change, but also on helping people understand the relationships their minds have with overall change. This is standard with any form of change, especially large-scale, intense changes like automation and AI implementation. Emotional intelligence, specifically change intelligence, is integral to adopting AI or any other new system.

There are three key messages to mastering change intelligence:

1. You don’t have to love change.
2. Change is never perfect.
3. The mind is always losing something.

You don’t have to love change

Being forced or told to love change doesn’t work and doesn’t help anyone. Each one of us has a relationship with change that has been embedded in our neural pathways throughout our lives, complete with different ideas of what change looks and feels like and what is “normal” when it comes to change.

Picture our change relationship as a scale from 1 (“I loathe change and prefer consistency”) to 10 (“I love change and sometimes will voluntarily change for the sake of change”).

In every workplace, we need those people that are happy to do the same thing and do it well every day. Those team members consistently deliver quality results and aren’t knocking on your door asking for a new job — they’re content to do what they are good at and continue like this for years to come. These people are going to be found closer to the 1 on the change relationship scale. These people likely won’t be great with change.

We also have team members that always come up with new ideas, innovations and ways to improve. They have a fast-track career plan or are always looking for the next shiny object. These people will be around 10 on the change scale. We need these people too! They’re great with change and likely already have ideas to help facilitate the change.

Everyone else generally will fall somewhere between those extremes.

It may help leaders and staff to hold an exercise in which the team physically moves and stands along this scale of change when faced with different simulations, opening real conversations to understand how people were wired for change and why they are so good at their chosen skills. When we understand why we do what we do, the way we are wired and that no part of the change relationship scale is right or wrong, the battle eases and we can work together more effectively.

A successful workplace isn’t about loving change. It’s about having a balanced team. Help people to understand their relationship with change and work with it rather than against it. Don’t force something that goes against their wiring. Instead, leverage their wiring to implement changes effectively while making it clear that change will happen regardless. They don’t have to love it, but they still have to do what it takes to understand and keep up with it.

Change is never perfect

Acting like the change you’re trying to implement will be life-saving, magical and perfect won’t work, and you’ll quietly hear some of those that are resistant to change get ready to show you downsides to the new methods.

The truth is, change is never perfect. When we decide on a change, we do it because the pros outweigh the cons. We focus on pros in order to sell the change to others, but pretending it will be perfect sets unrealistic expectations. There will always be things that don’t quite go according to plan and things that might be better the old way.

These people may take pleasure in pointing out kinks in new methods and tools, which adds another layer of defense to their pushback against the overall change. It’s important to not shy away from these hiccups or sweep them under the rug. Be up front, own the fact that there are bumps in the road, and be transparent along the way when things aren’t going to plan or are being tweaked, while also sharing the brilliant wins of the change.

The mind is always losing something

With every single change, the mind loses something. Whether it is simply losing the habit that has been embedded in our mind or losing something like our purpose and drive, there is always a loss, and this loss must be owned.

Even with what seems to be the best changes comes losses. It’s amazing how teams fight to let go of a rundown, leaking old building that they have complained about every day in the past year when they move to a shiny new high tech building, simply because their mind is struggling to let go of all of the memories, habits and familiarity that they lose when they begin the transition into the new building.

Now think about the last change in your workplace. What did the team lose? Introducing AI has so many benefits, but there are obvious losses: processes, jobs, human interactions, once-valuable skills and time are just a few examples. When our mind loses something, alarm bells go off in our amygdala and trigger fight or flight responses. Our mind must create new neural pathways to align with the change, and our willingness to and relationship with change will determine how quickly we adapt and create those new pathways.

Owning loss is the first and most important step to change intelligence. If we don’t let people own their losses, face their emotions, and find closure, their minds will remain in battle mode, desperately clutching the past neural pathways and familiar comfort for as long as they possibly can.

About the Author

Amy Jacobson is an emotional intelligence specialist and speaker who helps individuals, teams, and companies harness EQ in order to excel. She is the author of The Emotional Intelligence Advantage: Mastering Change and Difficult Conversations and Emotional Intelligence: A Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement, and Ownership.

The post Emotional Intelligence is Key to Adopting Artificial Intelligence appeared first on The European Business Review.

Far from being a trend reserved for yoga studios or self-help circles, spirituality is quietly becoming a leadership advantage. When combined with analytical thinking, it helps leaders access a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them leading to smarter, more authentic decision-making.

The Intuitive Edge: Why Logic Alone Is No Longer Enough

For decades, business schools have taught that rational analysis is the key to success. But in the real world, even the most experienced CEOs admit that some of their best decisions were guided by intuition, that “gut feeling” that seems to know before the mind does.

Research in neuroscience supports this. Studies show that intuition is not random guesswork; it’s the result of the brain processing vast amounts of data subconsciously. The problem is, most professionals are so disconnected from their inner selves that they ignore these subtle signals.

Developing spiritual awareness through meditation, reflection, astrology, or tarot, helps reconnect that inner compass. It doesn’t replace logic; it enhances it. A spiritually aware leader can blend analysis with insight, reason with intuition, and make choices that align not just with profit, but with purpose.

Emotional Intelligence and Energy Awareness

The best leaders today are not just managers of people, they’re stewards of energy. Every decision, every conversation, carries emotional weight that influences the entire organization. Spiritual awareness helps leaders recognize and regulate these energies.

When you cultivate practices like mindfulness or guided introspection, you learn to read the “energy” of a situation whether a team is motivated or burnt out, whether a partnership feels aligned or forced. This awareness allows leaders to act with empathy and foresight, creating environments where people feel valued and inspired.

Incorporating tools such as astrology or tarot may seem unconventional, but these systems have long been used as frameworks for self-understanding. They offer symbolic maps of behavior patterns, emotional triggers, and growth opportunities, helping leaders anticipate challenges and respond with balance rather than reactivity.

The Science of Stillness

Modern neuroscience also validates what ancient wisdom traditions have taught for centuries: stillness leads to clarity. When we silence external noise and enter a state of presence, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making functions more effectively.

Executives who practice meditation or other forms of spiritual grounding report higher levels of focus, creativity, and emotional stability. They are less likely to make impulsive decisions under stress and more capable of seeing the bigger picture.

This doesn’t mean abandoning spreadsheets and strategy sessions; it means complementing them with inner clarity. The future of decision-making will not be about choosing between data or intuition, but integrating both into a more holistic process.

Spirituality in the Modern Workplace

Progressive companies are already taking notice. Global brands like Google, LinkedIn, and Salesforce have introduced mindfulness and emotional intelligence programs to enhance creativity and resilience among their teams.

The reason is simple: when leaders operate from a place of inner balance, they inspire trust and authenticity, qualities that can’t be faked or taught in a textbook. A spiritually grounded leader communicates with purpose, listens with empathy, and motivates through vision rather than fear.

And this influence spreads. When organizations encourage reflection, empathy, and personal growth, employees feel more connected not only to their work but also to each other. The result is a culture of coherence where people align naturally around shared goals and values.

Finding Tools That Work for You

Spiritual awareness doesn’t look the same for everyone. For some, it may involve meditation or journaling. For others, it could mean exploring symbolic systems like astrology or tarot as tools for personal insight.

The goal isn’t to predict the future, but to understand yourself, your motivations, strengths, and blind spots. When you approach decision-making from that space of self-awareness, your choices become more intentional and aligned with your true values.

The growing interest in online tarot reflects a broader trend among professionals seeking holistic methods to enhance self-awareness, balance, and emotional intelligence, skills that underpin effective leadership in a fast-changing environment.

The New Leadership Paradigm

The era of the purely rational leader is fading. The leaders of tomorrow are those who can harmonize the analytical with the intuitive, the mind with the spirit.

Incorporating spiritual awareness into business doesn’t mean embracing mysticism blindly; it means recognizing that human beings are more than numbers and titles. We are emotional, energetic, and deeply connected to one another. When leaders acknowledge and nurture that truth, their organizations thrive on every level.

As Albert Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” The challenge and opportunity for modern executives is to restore that balance, allowing insight and awareness to guide strategy and success.

The post How Spiritual Awareness Can Boost Your Decision-Making in Business appeared first on The European Business Review.

By Beatriz (Béa) Victoria Albina

Perfectionism among women leaders often looks like competence and control, but underneath lies stress physiology that erodes health, creativity, and connection. This piece explores how the nervous system under patriarchy wires women toward relentless self-monitoring, and how emotional intelligence paired with nervous system regulation offers a way to break the cycle.

Perfectionism has long been praised as the secret engine of women’s success in leadership. This is the leader who never misses a deadline, who manages every detail, who absorbs the late-night texts from colleagues without complaint, who sleeps with her phone under her pillow with the ringer turned all the way up.This is often who gets promoted, who is deemed “reliable,” who is praised for putting the company first – always. But what looks like strength on the outside often comes at great hidden cost. Behind the glossy mask of “having it all together” is often a nervous system in chronic overdrive, and a body paying for that vigilance.

The Biological Weight of Perfectionism

From a biological standpoint, perfectionism isn’t just a personality quirk. It is a survival strategy etched into the nervous system. Under patriarchy and late-stage capitalism, women are taught – implicitly and explicitly – that their worth is contingent on flawless performance. The nervous system adapts accordingly, shifting into chronic sympathetic activation: heart rate elevated, cortisol coursing, the body bracing as if failure were a threat to safety.

This isn’t a metaphor. Research shows that prolonged perfectionistic striving correlates with higher cortisol levels, impaired sleep, increased cardiovascular strain, and burnout syndromes. The prefrontal cortex – seat of executive function – gets hijacked by amygdala-driven stress responses, impairing creativity and flexibility. Leaders who outwardly appear calm may inwardly be locked in survival physiology.

The Emotional Intelligence Gap

While many leadership programs herald emotional intelligence as the essential remedy, this approach – however valuable – often remains incomplete. Self-awareness, empathy, and relational acuity matter profoundly, yet without addressing the nervous system’s deeper currents, emotional intelligence risks becoming a purely cognitive exercise, confined to the neocortex or executive function part of the brain, rather than supporting more presence overall. Leaders may possess intellectual clarity about their stress responses yet find themselves defaulting to perfectionist behaviors, their nervous systems convinced that hypervigilance remains the guardian of safety.

This reveals the need for a more integrated approach: emotional intelligence anchored in somatic wisdom. The leader who can not only recognize her stress but also attune to the constricted breath, the tension held in her jaw, the subtle electric current of anxiety coursing beneath her skin—and then consciously regulate these embodied signals—possesses access to profound resilience. She can remain present within difficult conversations, neither collapsing into self-recrimination nor spiraling into compulsive or default over-functioning.

How Perfectionism Shows Up in Women Leaders

Consider how perfectionism manifests in the everyday life of women leaders. The executive who maintains relentless control over every detail appears competent and thorough, yet her nervous system remains locked in sympathetic overdrive – fight-or-flight physiology that may express as hypertension, insomnia, or a reputation for micromanaging that undermines her team’s confidence. Her reluctance to delegate, born from hypervigilance and the fear of losing safety, leads to exhaustion and stalled team growth while inadvertently communicating that others cannot be trusted with important work.

The leader who over-prepares for every meeting, spending hours crafting perfect presentations, may actually be experiencing a freeze response disguised as thoroughness. This survival state reduces creativity, creates rigidity, and can make her appear unapproachable to colleagues who sense her underlying tension. Similarly, the woman who avoids feedback unless she feels perfectly prepared is often in dorsal vagal shutdown – a collapsed state triggered by perceived shame that leads to isolation, stalled professional development, and a reputation for being defensive.

Working late becomes normalized, praised even, yet represents chronic stress activation that depletes the adrenal system while modeling unhealthy boundaries for her entire team. The inability to say no to requests – appearing as dedication – actually signals a collapse into compliance mode that erodes personal boundaries and can paradoxically damage her reputation as others begin to see her as a pushover rather than a leader.

Even conflict avoidance, which may look like diplomacy, often stems from nervous system shutdown designed to prevent perceived threats. This creates team dysfunction and builds a reputation for being conflict-avoidant precisely when decisive leadership is needed. The compulsion to be the smartest person in every room – driven by competitive stress responses – feeds imposter syndrome while alienating both peers and direct reports who sense the underlying anxiety.

What appears as professional competence often masks somatic survival strategies. Without addressing these nervous system roots, even the most sophisticated leadership interventions remain surface-level, leaving the underlying physiology unchanged.

The Gendered Landscape of Perfectionism

It matters that this perfectionism is not equally distributed. Patriarchal systems reward women who suppress needs, who manage their teams like invisible mothers – anticipating, soothing, fixing. The cultural script tells women leaders: your safety lies in being beyond reproach. That script is especially acute for women of color, queer women, and women with disabilities, whose every misstep is even more heavily scrutinized.

What looks like an “individual failing” is really the body’s adaptation to systemic threat. Recognizing this shifts the narrative from self-blame – “I should relax, I should be more confident” – to an understanding that the nervous system is doing its best to protect under unequal conditions. This reframing is essential for sustainable leadership.

Breaking the Cycle: From Overdrive to Regulation

So how do women leaders step out of the perfectionism loop? Not by just thinking their way out. The nervous system does not relax just because the mind instructs it to. The path forward is through practices that bring the body into safety, paired with the self-awareness of emotional intelligence. The path forward starts with presence.

Some starting points include:

• Interoceptive awareness: Noticing early signals of stress physiology – tight shoulders, shallow breath – before they spiral.
• Micro-regulation breaks: Briefly orienting to the room, lengthening the exhale, standing to shake out tension. Small interventions shift state more effectively than occasional vacations.
• Boundaried leadership: Naming when a request exceeds capacity, and staying regulated through the discomfort of holding that line.
• Relational co-regulation: Seeking supportive peers who can offer grounding presence, instead of isolating in hyper-independence.
• Contextual reframing: Recognizing when perfectionism is a survival habit shaped by systemic inequities, not a personal flaw.

These are not abstract strategies. They reshape physiology over time, widening the “window of tolerance” in which leaders can respond flexibly instead of reactively. Neuroscience shows that vagal tone improves with repeated practice, increasing the body’s ability to downshift from threat states into connection.

The Future of Leadership

The leaders who will thrive in the decades ahead are not those who sacrifice health at the altar of perfection. They are those who integrate emotional and nervous system intelligence, who model resilience not as endless stamina but as the ability to recover, recalibrate, and stay present in relationship to others and most importantly, themselves.

When women leaders free themselves from the nervous system cycle of perfectionism, they reclaim energy not only for themselves but for their organizations. Creativity flourishes. Teams are trusted to grow. Decisions emerge from clarity rather than fear. And perhaps most importantly, leadership becomes sustainable – not another site of bodily depletion, but a place where women’s intelligence, authority, and vitality can flourish.

About the Author

Beatriz (Béa) Victoria Albina, NP, MPH, SEP is a Family Nurse Practitioner trained in integrative and holistic medicine, a Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, and a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. She writes and teaches about perfectionism, people-pleasing, codependent habits, and nervous system science through a feminist lens and coined the term End Emotional Outsourcing. She is the host of the acclaimed Feminist Wellness Podcast and author of End Emotional Outsourcing: How to Overcome Your Codependent, Perfectionist & People-Pleasing Habits (Hachette Balance NYC). You can learn more at BeatrizAlbina.com

The post The Hidden Toll of Perfectionism on Women Leaders – And How Emotional Intelligence and Nervous System Regulation Can Break the Cycle appeared first on The European Business Review.

By Scott Hutcheson

Emotional intelligence is often described in vague or idealistic terms, but its real power lies in how it shows up moment to moment in tone, timing, posture, and behavior. This article explores emotional intelligence through the lens of behavioral biology and shows what it looks like when practiced with signal clarity.

What Emotional Intelligence Really Looks Like in Action

Emotional intelligence is often described as the ability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own emotions while also recognizing, understanding, and influencing the emotions of others. This two-part framework, popularized by Daniel Goleman, has shaped leadership development for decades. But for many leaders, the concept still feels abstract and more like a personality trait than a set of observable actions.

What’s missing from most discussions of emotional intelligence is what happens between awareness and impact. Emotion is not just a feeling. It is part of a biological sequence. Leaders who understand this sequence can manage their behavior in ways that shape performance, trust, and engagement in real time.

The Biology of Behavior and Emotional Intelligence

Emotions begin in the body. A leader sends a signal through tone, posture, language, or timing. That triggers a physiological reaction in others. The nervous system responds first, activating energy across systems like the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. This energy isn’t metaphorical. It involves real changes in breathing, heart rate, and gut tension, often directed by the autonomic nervous system.

Those physiological shifts prompt a cascade of neurochemical responses. Depending on the nature of the signal and the context, the body may release cortisol, dopamine, norepinephrine, or oxytocin. These chemicals help the brain interpret what the body is experiencing. The result is a felt emotion. Trust, anxiety, curiosity, or defensiveness, to name just a few That emotion shapes behavior, which becomes visible through actions, expressions, and engagement.

Finally, the leader can observe that behavior and adjust their signal if it is not producing the intended effect. This five-part loop forms the Biology of Behavior Cycle:

1. Leadership signal
2. Physiological reaction
3.  Emotion interpreted by the brain
4. Behavior
5. Leader observes behavior and adjusts signal

This is not metaphor. It is how social behavior works. The body responds before the brain constructs a feeling. And that feeling becomes behavior, setting the emotional tone of a room long before any content is processed.

Emotional Intelligence Is Observable

Leaders often talk about emotional intelligence as something to cultivate. But few describe what it actually looks like.

It looks like pacing your speech intentionally when tensions rise. It looks like adjusting your tone when you sense fatigue or confusion in the room. It shows up in how you listen without interrupting, and how you pause before speaking to let others catch up or settle in.

These are not soft or vague behaviors. They are observable, trainable, and grounded in biology. Others interpret your presence long before they evaluate your strategy. And they behave accordingly.

Signal Clarity Is the Real Skill

Most emotional intelligence models focus on internal awareness. But in behavioral terms, what matters most is signal clarity, whether the emotional message others receive is consistent with your intent.

When a leader expresses appreciation but remains visibly distracted, the signal is unclear. When someone encourages openness but communicates judgment with body language, the signal backfires. Signal clarity is not about perfection. It is about alignment between what you intend and what others perceive.

Clarity builds trust. Trust makes collaboration easier. Over time, that consistency shapes group norms and performance patterns.

How to Practice Emotional Intelligence Through Behavior

Instead of treating emotional intelligence as a mindset, consider treating it as a set of micro-behaviors that shape how others feel and respond. These practices allow you to shift from passive awareness to intentional influence.

1. Anchor your physiology

Your nervous system broadcasts signals constantly. Before important moments, take a breath. Adjust posture. Let your physical state match your desired message.

2. Set emotional intent

Ask, “What emotional tone do I want others to feel in this moment?” Use that to guide how you show up—your timing, phrasing, and level of energy.

3. Observe others’ behavior

If people become quieter, more guarded, or disengaged, consider whether your signals might be contributing. Look for nonverbal cues, not just spoken feedback.

4. Adjust in real time

When your behavior is not producing the outcome you hoped for, shift. Acknowledge it. Calibrate your next move. This responsiveness is one of the most respected forms of leadership.

Emotional Intelligence Shapes Systems

Framing emotional intelligence as a behavioral process helps explain why it matters. The signals leaders send affect how others feel, and those feelings shape how others behave. Over time, this process sets the emotional tone of the team and, eventually, the culture of the organization.

The stakes are high. When signals create uncertainty or tension, cognitive resources are drained. Teams struggle to focus or adapt. When signals create coherence and psychological safety, teams align more quickly and perform more effectively.

What distinguishes emotionally intelligent leaders is not how much empathy they feel, but how consistently they regulate the signals that shape group behavior.

About the Author

Scott Hutcheson, PhD, is a professor at Purdue University and author of Biohacking Leadership: Leveraging the Biology of Behavior to Maximize Impact. He specializes in leadership, team, and organizational performance through the lens of behavioral science and human ecosystems. Learn more at www.biohackingleadership.com.

The post The Most Misunderstood Skill in Leadership: What Emotional Intelligence Really Looks Like in Action appeared first on The European Business Review.

Introduction 

It is evident that conflict is an integral part of work places because individuals come from different background, have different personalities and different working styles. Conflicts can occur due to difference in communication channels, expectations-terms of working, provision of resources-services or personal conflict. Some conflicts can foster creativity and innovation while other unsolved conflicts will be damaging to the context, have negative impacts on productivity and will demoralize employees. (Šustek, 2024) Another aspect which can prove very helpful when it comes to resolving workplace disputes is Emotional Intelligence (EI) (Sharma et al., 2024). 

According to different sources, Emotional intelligence refers to the capacity of an individual to accurately perceive, understand and manage emotions-both theirs and of others in a given relationship. Regarding the workplace, EI concerns itself with how one is able to handle conflicts, assert himself/herself in any interpersonal communication and how he/she is able to create interpersonal relationships. In the present world the demands that organizations make on them have become more complex and diverse, thus there is a need for employees to exercising high levels of EI in handling conflicts (Altaras et al., 2024). 

Studies also reveal that applicants with high level of emotional intelligence are capable of handling issue purely because they are able to control their emotions, understand the feelings of the other party and express themselves in an appropriate manner. Consequently, this research seeks to establish the role of EI in conflict management in relati (Sahoo et al., 2025) on to the importance of developing effectiveness in conflict resolution, promoting a healthy organizational climate, and the beneficial influence of EI on the production process and success of the enterprise. The objective of this study is what is the relationship between EI and conflict resolution in workplace. 

Literature Review 

Emotional Intelligence (EI) 

The idea of EI was initially introduced into the public domain by Salovey and Mayer (1990) and was later Goleman (1995) who described it as the capacity to understand and manage feelings in one as well as in other people. EI involves five key components: Skills like self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathetic ability, and interpersonal skills mentioned in early model by Goleman (1995). These components help people to solve social issues and keep interpersonal relationships that are crucial for solving conflicts at the workplace (Antonopoulou, 2024). 

Workplace Conflict 

Workplace conflict can be described as a disagreement between two or more persons or groups regarding matters of interest to them. According to Hoogenboom et al., (2024), workplace conflict can be categorized into three types: whereby they include task conflict, relationship conflict and process conflict. Task conflict is that occurs due to the actual performance of the activities in delivering a particular project and their objectives, while relationship conflict is Conflict that stems from the interpersonal relationships among the members, and process conflict is disagreement as to how the particular tasks listed in the project are to be done. 

Inadequate conflict management to a certain extent often leads to following negative repercussions on an organization. Among the consequences of interpersonal conflict on organizational outcomes are decreased job satisfaction, low organizational commitment and ultimately, low organizational performance. But, resolution of conflict increases the coordination and, in turn increases problem-solving and creativity (Hermawan et al., 2024). 

Emotional Intelligence Concerning Conflict Organization 

Conflict management skills are widely accepted to be influenced by emotional intelligence. In conflict situations, there is evidence that people with high EI remain better at controlling their emotion thus promoting conversations as opposed to fighting (Bhusan & Jain, 2024). To be specific, EI allows a person learn what emotional needs of the parties engaged in the conflict s/he has to meet in order to reach a common ground for effective conflict solution. 

For instance, Côté (2005) showed in a study that HI- EI people were able to manage workplace relationship conflicts because of the ability of interpreting emotions during conflicts and managing distress before it gets out of control. In the same context, Lawani et al., (2022) pointed that people with high levels of EI are likely to use cooperative strategies to deal with conflict than the competitive or avoiding tactics. 

EI and styles of conflicts solving at the workplace 

This arrives at the finding that various conflict resolution styles can mould the results of confrontational situations at the place of work. According to Nikitara et al., (2024), there are five conflict-handling styles: The primary strategies include competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding as well as accommodating. The collaborating and compromising are the most common because emotionally intelligent people are more inclined towards win-win strategies. EI helps to build cooperation because a person can stay calm and take into account other people’s opinions. 

A study comparing conflict-solving ability and EI, done by Riaz, (2024), showed that people with high EI tend to have better collaboration skills in conflict resolution and avoid destructive conflict behaviours as they tend to aim at win-win. 

EI, Empathy and Conflict Resolution 

In this paper it will be demonstrated that empathy, one of the EI elements, has a proactive role in conflict management. Empathy helps the peoples to be able to be in the ‘shoes’ of the others and this is especially helpful to seek for the consensus if the disagreement happened. A study carried out by Atta et al., (2024) noted that the workers who are empathetic when handling conflicts within the workplace are likely to facilitate positive relations than those without it . someone should be able to listen, say ‘I understand’ and be able to suggest solutions that will solve the emotions of the other person. 

Professional Advantages of EI  

Hear dispensing Emotional intelligence in the workplace organizations have enhanced conflict solving. Another study done by Jordan and Troth found that teams that are high in EI are better at conflict management because the attendees are open and are able to put themselves in other’s shoes. This results to the promotion of healthy organizational culture and better satisfaction of the employees. 

Moreover, EI in conflict resolution can result in improved decision-making, especially since an ability to perceive emotions enables one to consider structural and cross-systematic approaches and make decisions with decision-makers on the basis of agreement (Sharma et al., 2024). Emotional intelligent organizations expand the capacity to address the challenges of workplace conflict and to foster a positive and effective culture. 

Research Questions 

1. How does emotional intelligence contribute to effective workplace conflict resolution? 
2. What are the key components of EI that play a significant role in resolving conflicts? 
3. How does the level of EI vary across different workplace roles? 

Methodology 

Research Design 

This study employs a quantitative research design using a cross-sectional survey approach. The research aims to assess the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict resolution effectiveness in workplace settings. A structured questionnaire was distributed to full-time employees across various industries to gather data on their emotional intelligence levels and conflict resolution styles. 

Participants 

The study included 50 full-time employees from diverse organizations in the IT. The participants were selected to provide a broad perspective on how emotional intelligence influences conflict resolution in different organizational settings. The demographic details of the participants are presented below. 

Demographics of Participants  

The study included 25 participants, with 36% aged 18–25 (9 individuals) and 32% aged 26–35 (8 individuals). Gender distribution was equal, with 36% male and 36% female, while 28% identified as “Other.” Job roles were also balanced, with 36% managers and 32% each as team leaders and staff members. In terms of experience, 40% had 1–3 years, 24% had 4–6 years, and 24% had over 6 years, with 12% having less than 1 year of experience. This diverse demographic ensures a comprehensive perspective for the study. 

Sampling Technique 

A convenience sampling technique was used to select participants for the study. Participants were chosen based on their availability and willingness to participate in the online survey. This technique was chosen due to its efficiency in gathering a sample within a limited timeframe.  

Data Collection 

The data was collected through a structured questionnaire via google form. The questionnaire contained items both the Emotional Intelligence and the Conflict Resolution that were taken from previous studies. Questionnaire was distributed to participants via social media platforms.  

Data Analysis 

The collected data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the demographic information, while correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict resolution styles.  

Results and Findings 

1. Emotional Intelligence Levels Across Job Roles

Data revealed that employees in managerial roles scored significantly higher on EI compared to non-managerial staff. This aligns with the expectation that leadership positions demand higher levels of emotional regulation and interpersonal skills. 

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Average AI Score as Job Role of Respondents

2. Relationship Between EI and Conflict Resolution Effectiveness

Table 2: Correlations between Emotional Intelligence (EI) Scores and Conflict Resolution Effectiveness

A positive correlation (r = 0.68, p < 0.05) was observed between EI scores and conflict resolution effectiveness. Employees with higher EI demonstrated better communication, reduced escalation of conflicts, and more collaborative solutions. 

3. Key EI Components Influencing Conflict Resolution 

• Empathy: 78.46% of respondents emphasized the importance of understanding others’ emotions during conflicts. 

Figure 1: Percentage of Emotional Intelligence of Participants

• Open Communication: 80% highlighted the role of controlling emotional impulses in de-escalating conflicts. 

Figure 2: Percentage of Conflict Resolution of Respondents 

Discussion 

These results support the hypothesis on the practical importance of EI in managing conflict situations. People with high EI can easily diagnose the source of conflicts, manage pressure and encourage employees to work as a team. For instance, the results explained how empathy solved a conflict between staff members. 

The findings of this study highlight the significant role of emotional intelligence (EI) in enhancing conflict resolution effectiveness in workplace settings. The positive correlation (r = 0.68, p < 0.05) between EI and conflict resolution suggests that employees with higher EI are better equipped to manage workplace conflicts through effective communication, reduced escalation, and collaborative problem-solving. 

The descriptive statistics revealed that employees in managerial roles had higher average EI scores (M = 78) compared to team leaders (M = 73) and staff members (M = 65). This finding aligns with the notion that leadership positions demand advanced interpersonal and emotional regulation skills. Managers often require the ability to navigate complex workplace dynamics, making higher EI critical for their roles. 

Further analysis of EI components showed that self-awareness, social skills, and empathy were key contributors to conflict resolution effectiveness. Skills such as active listening (77.6%), open communication (80.8%), and conflict de-escalation (75.2%) were particularly important in resolving workplace disputes. Empathy, rated as essential by 78.46% of respondents, was especially critical for understanding the emotions of others and fostering collaborative solutions. 

The results underscore the need for organizations to prioritize EI development in their workforce. Training programs focusing on empathy, communication, and social skills can empower employees to navigate conflicts effectively. Moreover, targeted EI development for employees in leadership roles could further enhance their ability to manage workplace challenges. 

The present findings are in line with previous work asserting that EI improves interaction processes (Yao et al., 2024). However, the study also underlines the need for wonder role, EI training programs that are aimed at the non-managerial staff group which had lower scores on EI. 

Conclusion 

Emotional intelligence plays a critical role in resolving workplace conflicts effectively. By fostering self-awareness, empathy, and communication skills, organizations can enhance their conflict resolution processes. This study recommends incorporating EI development into employee training programs to create a more cohesive and productive work environment. These findings contribute to the growing body of research emphasizing the importance of EI in organizational success. However, the study’s reliance on convenience sampling and self-reported measures may limit generalizability. Future research could explore EI and conflict resolution using longitudinal designs to assess causality and include diverse industries for broader insights.

References 

• Ahmed, S. K. (2024). How to choose a sampling technique and determine sample size for research: A simplified guide for researchers. Oral Oncology Reports, 12(100662), 100662. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oor.2024.100662 

• Altaras, A., Nikitović, T., Mojović Zdravković, K., Krstić, K., Rajić, M., Pavlović Babić, D., & Marjanović, Z. (2024). The role of emotional intelligence in collaborative problem solving: A systematic review. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne. 

• Antonopoulou, H. (2024). The Value of Emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, and Empathy as Key Components. Technium Education and Humanities, 8, 78–92. 

• Atta, M. H. R., Hammad, H. A.-H., & Elzohairy, N. W. (2024). The role of Empathy in the relationship between emotional support and caring behavior towards patients among intern nursing students. BMC Nursing, 23(1), 443. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-024-02074-w 

• Ayeni, F. (2024). Nigerian Brewery Industry Leaders’ Perceptions of Emotional Intelligence as a Strategy to Improve Employee Job Satisfaction and Organizational Performance (Doctoral dissertation). 

• Bhusan, B., & Jain, P. (2024). Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyst for Leadership Development: Enhancing Emotional Intelligence in Leaders. International Journal of Innovations in Science, Engineering And Management, 263–269. 

• Hermawan, F., Purnomo, H., Kusumastuti, D., Fitriana, R., Octaleny, E., Ie, M., & Sudadi, S. (2024). The role of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational commitment on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of SMEs employees in the digital era. Journal of Infrastructure Policy and Development, 8(7), 5194. https://doi.org/10.24294/jipd.v8i7.5194 

• Hoogenboom, L. M., Dijkstra, M. T. M., & Beersma, B. (2024). Conflict personalization: a systematic literature review and the development of an integrative definition. International Journal of Conflict Management, 35(2), 309–333. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijcma-09-2022-0142 

• Lawani, K., Arias Abad, L. A., Craig, N., Hare, B., & Cameron, I. (2022). Exploring emotional intelligence and conflict management styles in Dominican Republic construction industry. Journal of Engineering Design and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1108/jedt-09-2021-0485 

• Nikitara, M., Dimalibot, M. R., Latzourakis, E., & Constantinou, C. S. (2024). Conflict management in nursing: Analyzing styles, strategies, and influencing factors: A systematic review. Nursing Reports, 14(4), 4173–4192. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep14040304 

• Riaz, L. (2024). Conflict Management style and project success, moderating role of team effectiveness (Doctoral dissertation). 

• Sahoo, D. K., Kumar, A., Chandel, A., & Wijethilak, H. P. (2025). Cultivating Emotional Intelligence: A Catalyst for Entrepreneurial Success. In Supporting Psychological and Emotional Wellbeing Among Entrepreneurs (pp. 93–116). IGI Global. 

• Sharma, P., Dhanta, R., & Sharma, A. (2024). Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Resolution in the Workplace. In Leveraging AI and Emotional Intelligence in Contemporary Business Organizations (pp. 102–121). IGI Global. 

• Šustek, R. (2024). Macroeconomic forecasting and analysis at the Czech National Bank: a review. 

• Yao, G., Dato’Mansor, Z., Ghazali, H. B., & Yan, Z. (2024). Impact of psychological capital on job satisfaction: Moderating role of perceived organizational support and emotional intelligence. Environment and Social Psychology, 9(6). https://doi.org/10.59429/esp.v9i6.2444 

The post The Impact of Emotional Intelligence for Workplace Conflict Resolutions   appeared first on The European Business Review.

Introduction 

Emotional well-being and mental health of employees have become an increasing concern over the last few years. The modern workplace have witnessed a significant transformation. Employee well-being has increasingly gained attention in modern organizational practices, especially within human resource management. With a growing recognition of its impact on productivity, mental health, and job satisfaction, many organizations are investing in strategies that focus on enhancing the psychological health of their workforce. Mental health is a state of well-being in which an individual realizes their own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to their community  (Herrman et al., 2004). Programs like Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), leadership development, and promoting psychological safety are just a few methods used to address these needs.

This article will explore the various ways HR practices influence mental health in the workplace. It will highlight the importance of implementing psychological safety and mental health initiatives, as well as the role of EAPs and leadership development in improving employee well-being, preventing burnout, and fostering a supportive work environment. Case studies, such as Caterpillar’s hybrid EAP model, will provide insight into how these strategies are applied and the benefits they bring to both employees and organizations.

Importance of emotional well-being 

Outside the field of organizational sciences, “happiness” is often understood as psychological well-being (PWB), which is sometimes referred to as personal or subjective well-being. PWB is generally described as the overall effectiveness of an individual’s psychological functioning. Unlike job satisfaction, which includes both cognitive and emotional components, PWB is primarily an emotional experience. It refers to the ability to manage emotions effectively, and cope with the challenges and stresses of daily living.  

Relationship between job satisfaction and performance

For decades, researchers have explored the theory that happiness and job satisfaction are directly linked to productivity, with studies dating back to the early 20th century consistently examining this relationship. Two primary theories emerge from the literature a) Human Relations Theory, and b) Emotion theory. Let us have a closer look at the two:

1. Human Relations Theory originating nearly a century ago, suggests that higher employee well-being, often assessed through job satisfaction, fosters higher morale, which subsequently enhances productivity.
2. Emotion Theory suggests that positive emotions and moods enhance motivation and performance, either directly or by influencing attitudes and behaviours. These frameworks highlight the significant impact of well-being on workplace outcomes.

Burnout

The adage “Happier workers work better” serves as a driving motivation to Human Resources departments to create a healthy and psychologically safe workplace for the employees. One of the main issues standing in the way of employees being happy is burnout. Maslach and Jackson (1981) conceptualized job burnout as a stress syndrome with three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a diminished sense of personal accomplishment. It is a state of chronic physical, emotional and mental exhaustion. Burnout is not just about being tired, it represents a deeper crisis in which stress exceeds an individual’s capacity to cope effectively. Burnout has been a prevalent issue for a long time, but it is only in recent times that it has gained attention. Historically, the concept of burnout was not fully understood or acknowledged, and workers often pushed through stress and exhaustion without considering the long-term impact on their health or productivity. In many cultures, especially in highpressure industries, there was an expectation of constant output, and signs of burnout were often seen as personal failings rather than systemic issues. However, as awareness of mental health and well-being has grown, burnout has increasingly been recognized as a serious concern. The impact of burnout on productivity, job satisfaction, and overall health has prompted companies and HR professionals to take more proactive measures in addressing the issue. 

HR Strategies for Fostering Mental Health

In recent years, organizations have begun to prioritize employee well-being, implementing strategies such as mental health support programs, stress management workshops, and policies promoting work-life balance. There is also a growing emphasis on creating psychologically safe environments where employees feel supported, heard, and empowered to manage their workloads effectively.

Figure 1. Created by the author

Psychological safety

Psychological safety is described by Edmondson (1999) as the “shared belief held by members of a team that their team is safe for interpersonal risk taking – that others will not embarrass, reject, or punish them for speaking up”. Psychological safety is broadly defined as a climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves. More specifically, when people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution. They are confident that they can speak up and won’t be humiliated, ignored, or blamed. They know they can ask questions when they are unsure about something. Psychological safety is an essential component of a healthy and highperforming workplace culture. When organizations prioritize it, they tend to experience lower turnover rates, higher employee engagement, and improved productivity. Employees in such environments feel valued, respected, and supported, which leads to greater job satisfaction and better overall performance. In contrast, a lack of psychological safety can foster a toxic work environment. Employees may become hesitant to speak up, share their ideas, or voice concerns, which stifles innovation and creativity. This is especially harmful for marginalized or underrepresented groups, who may already feel vulnerable or excluded, making them even more reluctant to express themselves in a psychologically unsafe environment.

HR practices play a crucial role in implementing psychological safety. Behaviourally, psychological safety leads employees to engage in open communication, voice their concerns, and seek greater feedback; all of which are interpersonally risky behaviors (Pearsall & Ellis, 2011). HR can also promote inclusivity by ensuring that all employees, especially those from marginalized groups, feel heard and valued. Training programs on empathy, bias reduction, and conflict resolution are often part of this approach, helping to create an environment of trust and respect. By embedding these practices into organizational culture, HR can help ensure that psychological safety becomes a foundational element of the workplace. This shift reflects a broader cultural change that recognizes the importance of sustainable working conditions for long-term success, both for employees and organizations alike. By implementing psychological safety in the workplace HR ensures reduction of stress and anxiety, enhanced emotional wellbeing, lower risk of burnout, encouragement of help-seeking behavior, positive organisational culture, increased job satisfaction and motivation which then sums up to positive impact on employees’ mental health.  

Occupational Health Psychology

Occupational Health Psychology is a field that is increasingly utilized by HR departments to improve mental health of employees within organizations. Occupational health psychology (OHP) is an interdisciplinary field focused on the well-being—specifically health and safety— of individuals in the workplace. Worker well-being is a crucial outcome for the employees themselves, as good health and safety directly impact their personal lives. Management often prioritizes employee well-being, recognizing that it can lead to valuable organizational outcomes such as lower healthcare costs, reduced absenteeism and turnover, and increased productivity. Thus, worker health is vital not only to the individual and the organization but also to society, as it affects national healthcare costs, productivity, and overall quality of life.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

These programs provide confidential counseling and support for employees facing personal problems, including mental health issues, substance abuse, and work-life balance challenges. Research consistently demonstrates that EAPs provide a significant return on investment by reducing absenteeism, improving employee productivity, and addressing mental health issues effectively, thereby enhancing overall organizational performance (Attridge, 2009). HR promotes and administers these services to help employees manage stress and maintain mental well-being.  

Wellness Programs

HR may implement initiatives focused on improving employees’ physical and mental health. Examples include fitness challenges, meditation sessions, ergonomic assessments, or providing resources for healthy eating. These programs are designed to improve employee well-being, reduce absenteeism, and increase overall productivity.

Stress Management Training

HR offer stress management workshops or seminars to teach employees techniques for coping with workplace stress, building resilience, and improving time management skills. This helps reduce burnout and improve overall job satisfaction.

Leadership Development Programs

HR often provides training for managers and leaders to enhance their emotional intelligence, communication, and conflict resolution skills. Leadership development programs have been shown to enhance leaders’ skills, foster team cohesion, and improve organizational effectiveness by creating a culture of trust and empowerment” (Day, 2000). These programs aim to help leaders create a positive work environment and manage teams more effectively, which directly impacts employee morale and productivity.

Case Study: 

Evaluating the Impact of Caterpillar’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) on Workplace Outcomes

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) have become a cornerstone in supporting employee well-being, particularly in addressing work-related and personal challenges. Caterpillar, a leading manufacturer, conducted a study to evaluate the effectiveness of its EAP in improving work performance and overall life satisfaction. This case study details the methodology, findings, and implications of the study. 

Study Design

The study used a repeated-measures design to assess changes in five workplace outcome scales (WOS) before and after the utilization of EAP services. Key aspects of the study included:

• Data Collection: Initial data were gathered during EAP intake, while follow-up data were collected 90 days post-EAP service (Caterpillar Inc., 2015).
• Participants: Only employee clients (excluding family members) were included, with no incentives for participation (Caterpillar Inc., 2015).
• Methodology: Each participant served as their own control, reducing the influence of demographic and clinical factors (Caterpillar Inc., 2015).
• Limitations: The study lacked a comparison group, and potential biases due to non-random sampling and self-selection could not be fully examined (Caterpillar Inc., 2015).

The primary goal was to determine whether improvements in work performance persisted three months after using the EAP.

Results

The analysis revealed statistically significant improvements in several workplace and life satisfaction metrics (Caterpillar Inc., 2015). The table below summarizes the findings:

Discussion

The results of the study revealed significant improvements in absenteeism, presenteeism, and work distress, along with a modest increase in life satisfaction. These findings suggest that Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) can play a crucial role in enhancing key workplace outcomes.

Notably, absenteeism showed the most improvement, indicating that addressing personal issues through the EAP may help reduce the time employees take off work. Similarly, presenteeism was reduced, implying that employees were able to focus better on their tasks as personal problems had less of an impact on their work.

However, the study found no substantial change in work engagement. This may reflect the limitations of EAPs, which, while effective at supporting individual well-being, may not have the capacity to directly address larger organizational factors that influence engagement.

These outcomes align with other studies that suggest hybrid EAP models, particularly those emphasizing face-to-face services, can provide notable benefits in improving employee productivity and reducing workplace stress.

Conclusion

Caterpillar’s EAP proved effective in enhancing employee well-being and improving workplace outcomes. The study highlights the value of EAPs in addressing absenteeism, presenteeism, and work distress, as well as their role in fostering overall life satisfaction (Caterpillar Inc., 2015). These findings underscore the importance of integrating EAPs into organizational strategies to promote a healthier, more productive workforce.

Organizations leveraging similar hybrid EAP models can expect comparable benefits, particularly when focusing on personalized and accessible services. However, broader systemic interventions are needed to address areas like work engagement that extend beyond the EAP’s scope.                                                                                                              

Conclusion

In conclusion, HR plays a vital role in shaping employee mental health by implementing programs and fostering a workplace culture that prioritizes well-being. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), such as the hybrid model used by Caterpillar, are a prime example of how HR can support employees through both onsite and offsite counselling services. By addressing personal challenges that affect work performance, EAPs help employees overcome issues like stress, burnout, and anxiety, which can otherwise hinder productivity and engagement. These programs not only support employees’ mental health but also contribute to a healthier, more productive workforce.  However, the effectiveness of EAPs and other mental health initiatives relies heavily on the environment in which they are delivered. Creating a psychologically safe workplace is crucial to ensure that employees feel comfortable accessing these services. Prioritizing mental health is not just a benefit for employees; it’s a key factor in building a resilient, engaged, and high-performing workforce.

About the Author 

Semra Delić is 26 years old with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and in currently pursuing Master’s degree in Business Psychology at the Media University in Frankfurt am Main. Her research interests are related to emotional well – being and mental health. Her business article describes how HR practices influence mental health at work. 

References

1. Herrman, H., Saxena, S., & Moodie, R. (2004). Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice [Dataset]. In PsycEXTRA Dataset. https://doi.org/10.1037/e538802013009

2. Maslach, C, & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 2, 99-113.

3. Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44,350–383.

4. Pearsall, M. J., & Ellis, A. P. J. (2011). Thick as thieves: The effects of ethical orientation and psychological safety on unethical team behaviour. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96,401–411.

5. Attridge, M. (2009). Employee Assistance Programs: A Research‐Based Primer. International handbook of work and health psychology, 383-407.

6. Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development:: A review in context. The leadership quarterly, 11(4), 581-613.

7. Workplace mental health – caterpillar. (2015). https://workplacementalhealth.org/casestudies/caterpillar

The post Emotional Well-being and Its Relationship to Employee Productivity: How HR Practices Influence Mental Health at Work  appeared first on The European Business Review.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into workplaces is rapidly changing the nature of work, particularly in fields like human resources (HR) and customer service. As AI-driven tools become more prevalent, a new set of skills are needed for effective human-machine collaboration. This article examines the critical role of emotional intelligence (EI) in navigating this evolving landscape. Specifically, it addresses how EI influences employee collaboration with AI tools in HR and customer service and its significance in fostering trust and engagement in human-AI workplace interactions. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for organizations to prioritize EI development to ensure a smooth transition into an AI-driven future.

Introduction

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming workplaces across industries. As AI-driven tools become increasingly integrated into HR and customer service, the nature of work is evolving, requiring a new set of skills for effective human-machine collaboration. Emotional intelligence (EI) has emerged as a critical factor in navigating this changing landscape. This report examines the impact of EI on human-AI collaboration, addressing two research questions:

1. How does emotional intelligence in employees influence their collaboration with AI-driven tools in HR and customer service?
2. What role does EI play in building trust and engagement in human-AI workplace interactions?

Literature review

Theoretical Foundations of Emotional Intelligence in HCI

Understanding the basic tenets of emotion and EI is essential to exploring how these factors influence human-machine collaboration. Martínez-Miranda and Aldea (2004) define emotions as encompassing physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and affective components, all of which shape user experience with AI systems. This complexity highlights the importance of emotion-oriented design in human-computer interaction (HCI), where users’ emotional responses must be factored into interface design. Building on this, appraisal theory, as discussed by Silvennoinen and Jokinen (2020), emphasizes that emotions arise from cognitive appraisals of situations, influencing users’ interactions with AI-driven systems. This suggests that AI tools must align with users’ emotional expectations to foster positive interactions.

Additionally, the shift from Emotional Quotient (EQ) to Emotional Intelligence (EI) underscores the importance of flexibility and context in emotional skills within modern workplaces (NeuroLaunch, 2023).

Unlike EQ, a static measurement akin to IQ, EI reflects a broader, adaptive skill set that involves managing and responding to emotions in a dynamic, context-sensitive way. This distinction is essential in HCI, where interactions with AI require not just a fixed score of empathy or self-regulation, but a continuous, situational ability to respond thoughtfully. Thus, the term EI better captures the evolving skill set needed to manage emotions in nuanced interactions with AI, where emotional sensitivity and adaptability enhance user experience and collaboration.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Human-AI Collaboration

Emotional intelligence (EI) encompasses the ability to recognize, understand, use, and manage emotions in oneself and others. In the context of human-AI collaboration, EI is crucial for:

1. Effective Communication: AI-driven tools often require clear communication of needs and interpretation of outputs. Employees with high EI can effectively convey their requirements and understand the information provided by AI systems, enhancing productivity and minimizing errors (Pandey, 2023).
2. Building Trust: Trust is essential for successful collaboration. Employees who trust the AI tools they work with are more likely to use them effectively and embrace their recommendations. EI allows employees to understand AI’s limitations and interpret its outputs with appropriate caution, fostering trust in the system (Martínez-Miranda & Aldea, 2004).
3. Managing Emotions: Working with AI can evoke a range of emotions, from excitement to anxiety. Employees with high EI can regulate their emotions and respond constructively to the challenges of human-AI collaboration.
4. Empathy and Understanding: As AI tools become more sophisticated, they can increasingly understand and respond to human emotions. Employees with high EI can contribute to developing these systems, ensuring they interact with users in an empathetic and ethical manner (Peter & Urban, 2011).

Emotional Intelligence and Human-Machine Trust

For effective human-machine collaboration, trust is essential. Chaudhary, Nandan, Arya, and Binjola (2023) argue that EI skills, such as empathy and self-regulation, enable employees to interact with AI tools more openly, leading to greater trust. EI helps users manage expectations, understanding both AI limitations and capabilities, which fosters a realistic sense of reliance on AI-driven outputs. Similarly, Peter and Urban (2011) underscore the importance of integrating empathy into AI systems to make them more responsive to human emotional cues, thereby improving trust and overall engagement. Trust, as described by Gherson (2018), relies not only on AI’s ability to interpret and respond to human emotions but also on users’ constructive engagement with these systems.

AI in HR and Customer Service

AI is rapidly transforming many industries according to Shukla, A., & Agnihotri, A. (2022), (Figure 1). More specifically in this paper we look at AI transforming HR and customer service, automating tasks and providing new insights into human behavior. In HR, AI tools are used for:

1. Recruitment and Talent Acquisition: AI tools can screen resumes and identify potential candidates based on predefined criteria. High-EI employees can interpret these AI-driven suggestions with empathy, ensuring the AI’s recommendations align with company values and candidate potential.
2. Personalized Learning and Development: AI-driven systems can offer personalized recommendations, helping employees learn and grow. Employees with high EI can leverage these insights to maximize development opportunities.
3. Compensation Planning and Performance Management: By recognizing patterns and biases in AI data, high-EI employees contribute to fairer, more transparent HR practices (Pandey, 2023).

In customer service, AI is used for:

4. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants: Offering 24/7 support and quick responses, chatbots are common in customer service. Employees with high EI collaborate effectively with these systems, improving customer experiences and satisfaction.

5. Predictive Analytics: Anticipating customer needs through data-driven insights is another key role of AI. High-EI employees utilize this data to make personalized recommendations and address customer concerns empathetically (Chaudhary et al., 2023).

Shukla and Agnihotri (2022) further argue that EI supports adaptability in customer service, where emotionally intelligent employees help AI tools like chatbots provide personalized responses to customer needs. This balance between automation efficiency and personalized service is particularly relevant in emotionally charged customer service contexts.

Building Trust and Engagement in Human-AI Workplace Interactions

Trust and engagement are crucial for successful human-AI collaboration. Employees who trust AI tools are more likely to use them effectively and be engaged in their work. EI plays a vital role in building trust by:

1. Promoting Transparency: Employees with high EI effectively communicate AI’s limitations and decision-making processes, fostering understanding and trust (Silvennoinen & Jokinen, 2020).
2. Fostering Empathy: EI allows employees to consider how AI might impact others, leading to more responsible use of these tools (Gherson, 2018).
3. Addressing Concerns: Employees with high EI can address concerns about AI objectively and compassionately, building trust and mitigating fears of job displacement.

Ethical Considerations and Emotional AI

As AI systems become more prevalent, there are ethical concerns regarding their influence on emotions in workplace interactions. Silvennoinen and Jokinen (2020) highlight that emotionally intelligent AI requires ethical guidelines to avoid manipulative practices. This aligns with Gherson’s (2018) assertion that AI-driven tools must operate transparently to retain user trust and engagement, especially when handling personal or emotionally sensitive information.

Conclusion

As AI continues to transform the workplace, EI is increasingly critical to successful human-machine collaboration. Humans being emotional beings will result in the importance of having emotional AI as well as emotionally intelligent workers to cultivate a better human computer collaboration at workplaces.

Employees with high EI will be better equipped to:

• Communicate effectively with AI systems.
• Build trust and engagement in human-AI interactions.
• Leverage AI insights for better decision-making and performance.
• Ensure ethical and responsible use of AI tools.

Organizations should prioritize developing EI skills in their workforce through training, coaching, and a supportive culture that values EI. By embracing EI, organizations can unlock the full potential of human-AI collaboration, creating a more productive, engaging, and fulfilling workplace.

Discussion

The findings of this report suggest that while AI has introduced efficiency and precision into many workplace functions, it also brings challenges that require high levels of emotional intelligence to navigate effectively. As AI-driven tools are deployed across HR and customer service roles, they frequently handle sensitive, human-centered tasks such as candidate selection, performance management, and customer interactions. Integrating EI in these areas addresses several core issues:

1. Trust and Engagement in AI-Driven Processes

The relationship between trust, EI, and human-AI collaboration is complex. Trust is not only an essential component for successful collaboration but also a potential barrier when lacking. As noted by Martínez-Miranda and Aldea (2004), emotions play a significant role in shaping user perceptions of AI systems. Employees with higher EI levels are better positioned to foster trust by accurately interpreting AI outputs and recognizing AI’s limitations, which encourages more responsible and effective use. This foundation of trust is critical, as without it, employees are less likely to engage meaningfully with AI tools, and the benefits of these technologies may not be fully realized.

2. Enhanced Decision-Making and Empathy in HR and Customer Service

In HR and customer service, AI’s capacity to analyze data quickly and objectively can sometimes conflict with the need for empathetic judgment. Emotionally intelligent employees can mediate this tension by interpreting AI-driven insights through an empathetic lens, ensuring that decisions align with organizational values and human needs. For example, during candidate recruitment, high-EI employees can use AI’s insights on candidate fit while also weighing interpersonal skills or cultural fit—factors that AI may not fully capture. Similarly, in customer service, EI enables employees to support AI-driven chatbots in ways that prioritize empathy, enhancing overall customer satisfaction (Chaudhary et al., 2023; Shukla & Agnihotri, 2022).

3. Ethical Implications of Emotionally Responsive AI

As AI tools evolve, they are increasingly designed to respond to human emotions, raising ethical considerations. Silvennoinen and Jokinen (2020) argue that for AI to remain trustworthy, it must operate transparently, particularly when interpreting or responding to emotional cues. Emotionally intelligent employees are more adept at recognizing when AI behavior may unintentionally infringe on ethical boundaries, such as privacy concerns in data handling or manipulative emotional responses. EI skills enable employees to use AI ethically, promoting transparency and respecting users’ emotional boundaries. Ensuring ethical guidelines in emotionally responsive AI is critical as these systems become more capable of influencing users’ emotions.

Figure 1: Various Industries utilizing AI (Shukla, A., & Agnihotri, 2022)

References

• Averill, J. R. (1980). A constructivist view of emotion. In R. Plutchik & H. Kellerman (Eds.), Emotion: Theory, research, and experience: Vol. 1. Theories of emotion (pp. 305–339). Academic Press.
• Bower, G. H. (1992). How might emotions affect learning? The Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory, 3-31.
• Chaudhary, T., Nandan, A., Arya, M., & Binjola, R. (2023). Connect between artificial intelligence and emotional intelligence at workplace. ResearchGate.
  https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.11440.28169
• Darwin, C. (1872/1998). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. Oxford UniversityPress.

• Gherson, D. (2018). The business case for AI in HR: With insights and tips on getting started.
• IBM Watson Talent.

• Magapu, S. S., & Vaddiparty, S. (2019). The study of emotional intelligence in artificial intelligence. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 4(1), 594–602.
• Martínez-Miranda, J., & Aldea, A. (2004). Emotions in human and artificial intelligence.
  
  Computers in Human Behavior, 21(2005), 323–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2004.02.010

• Pandey, P. (2023). Emotional intelligence skills in the age of AI: A review. International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research (IJFMR).
• Peter, C., & Urban, B. (2011). Emotion in human-computer interaction. In P. Petta, C. Pelachaud, & R. Cowie (Eds.), Emotion-oriented systems: The humaine handbook (pp. 27-39). SpringerInternational Publishing.

• Shukla, A., & Agnihotri, A. (2022). Emotional intelligence is now more necessary than ever due to the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. International Journal of All Research Education and Scientific Methods (IJARESM), 10(9).
• Silvennoinen, J., & Jokinen, J. P. P. (2020). The appraisal theory of emotion in human–computer interaction. In R. Rousi, J. Leikas, & P. Saariluoma (Eds.), Emotions in Technology Design: From Experience to Ethics (pp. 27–39). Springer International Publishing.
  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53483-7_3
• (2023, October 5). Emotional intelligence vs. emotional quotient: Key differences and why they matter. NeuroLaunch.
  https://neurolaunch.com/emotional-intelligence-vs-emotional-quotient/

The post The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Human-Machine Collaboration in the Workplace appeared first on The European Business Review.

By Jason Woldt and Mary Sue Woldt

What makes a great leader? Can children be trained for leadership right from the cradle? In this article, Jason and Mary Sue Woldt explain how children´s books and a robust reading culture help to develop emotional intelligence and the needed soft skills for managers.

The great NFL Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi (2023) said, “Leaders are not born, they are made.” Those who believe this to be true have long tried to determine the right skill set and training to cultivate a great leader. Using successful leaders as units of study, researchers have found the defining trait separating a good individual contributor from a good manager is a high level of emotional intelligence (ie, soft skills) (Goleman, 2017). A leader with a high level of emotional intelligence can more easily defuse conflict, empathize with others, develop deeper relationships, and ultimately motivate better team performance. To that end, organizations spend billions of dollars every year on emotional intelligence and soft skills training (Research and Markets, 2022). Furthermore, expensive leadership graduate programs continue to be in high demand as a viable path for mid-career professionals to develop and refine their managerial skill set and move up the corporate ladder. Yet, there is still a dearth of talent and a limited number of candidates who truly possess and desire the managerial skill set that is in such high demand. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2023), there are 1.1 million management vacancies each year, and the growth for management professionals over the next eight years is expected to outpace the total average growth across all other professions, demonstrating the current and future supply and demand imbalance.

In this paper, we address two fundamental questions:
What is the managerial skill set that is in such high demand?
How does one build the foundation for the managerial skillset early in one’s life?

The Managerial Skillset In High Demand

Measuring the managerial skillset can be difficult to define and assess. As such, we seek insights from the profession to understand what organizations most desire. The World Bank in collaboration with LinkedIn publishes data showing how professional skill requirements have changed over time using updates made to member profiles (World Bank, 2023). When LinkedIn members update the skills in their profiles, they do so to reflect the valued needs of their professions. The data collected from 2015-2019, show that the top four soft skills for managers and management consultants were: 1.) Leadership 2.) Communication 3.) Teamwork and 4.) Negotiation. Interestingly, there was little deviation associated with the rankings of these skills across the five years. Furthermore, the mass of literature that exists on these topics suggests that these same managerial soft skills have been in demand for decades.

Building The Managerial Skillset

While training at any stage of life can be beneficial, simple exposure to positive examples at a very young age can lay the groundwork for one to learn managerial norms and mimic best practices, giving one a head-start in developing important managerial and life skills.

Acquiring the managerial skillset can also be challenging with many managers finding themselves unprepared for the role. Research shows that developing high levels of emotional intelligence and a wide breadth of soft skills requires training, experience, and deliberate practice (Cooper, 1997). This raises the question of why the formal training process starts so late in one’s life. While training at any stage of life can be beneficial, simple exposure to positive examples at a very young age can lay the groundwork for one to learn managerial norms and mimic best practices, giving one a head-start in developing important managerial and life skills. This paper uncovers the important links between the themes in bestselling children’s books and the managerial soft skills that are in such high demand, making the case for more exposure and deliberate practice earlier in one’s life.

Children’s Literature As A Deliberate Practice

Before one can read or even speak, managerial training tools exist in the simplest form: children’s books. Reading, especially nonfiction, can broaden one’s exposure to new information and expand one’s vocabulary, anchoring experiences, and allowing one to keep an open mind in difficult situations. Research shows that the single biggest reading success factor is reading loud to children (Trelease, 2013). Furthermore, the American Academy of Pediatrics (2021) recommends reading aloud to children as young as six months old. It is no surprise that many of our nation’s most successful business CEOs are known to engage in this deliberate practice by reading several hours a day (Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey) (Seifert, 2020).

As a society, if we want managers to possess and model the traits that we most desire, it is imperative that we teach and reinforce those traits early to ensure there is a reasonable level of managerial literacy.

Engaging short stories consisting of colourful pictures and talking animals could be seen as allegories offering insight into real-life managerial scenarios. The elements of any children’s book consist of five components: 1.) characters 2.) plot 3.) setting 4.) conflict 5.) and theme. Comparable structural elements exist in any managerial environment. On a daily basis, managers must also navigate the complexities associated with 1.) internal and external stakeholders 2.) competing strategic objectives 3.) tenuous environmental factors 4.) personality conflicts 5.) business implications and performance assessments. Through stories, children are provided a pseudo stepping stone to a future managerial skillset. Sharing stories with cultural implications has been a foundation of civilisation. Stories rich in cultural meaning offer specific reference points that can consciously or subconsciously anchor behaviour. As a society, if we want managers to possess and model the traits that we most desire, it is imperative that we teach and reinforce those traits early to ensure there is a reasonable level of managerial literacy.

Parents and guardians should be aware of the influence that they have on a child’s early development. Research shows that two-thirds of a child’s lifetime vocabulary is formed by the age of two, underscoring the importance of exposure to children’s literature as a deliberate practice. During this period of neuroplasticity, repetitive exposure to words, phrases, concepts, and themes is critical for language development and formative in how a child makes associations (Trelease, 2020). Reading aloud is not only an efficient formula for scaffolding literacy development, but it builds emotional circuitry that allows children to wrestle with the chaotic journey of the human experience. Children who are read to early and often, benefit from rich oral tradition and deep emotional bonds with caring adults. Amid the widespread educational/mental health crisis, reading aloud can be considered a nutritional jumpstart to IQ and EQ.

Access to a wide variety of high-quality children’s literature has for decades been one of the great equalisers in our country. The free use of a wide variety of high-quality children’s books at public libraries across the country eliminates one of the larger financial barriers to entry. Yet, it is important to note that children cannot decide to pick up these books on their own. Arguably, the biggest barrier is the important role of parents and guardians in encouraging and promoting this deliberate practice. Research shows that it just takes reading aloud fifteen minutes per day to have a transformative impact on child development (Trelease, 2020).

Connections Between Children’s Literature And The Managerial Skillset

In any context, research shows that increasing one’s skillset to the level of expert requires deliberate practice (Gladwell, 2008; Ericsson, 2008). Being exposed to different scenarios, being forced to make decisions, and being assessed on the quality of those decisions enable managers to fine-tune their skill set. While we acknowledge there is no good substitute for managerial experience when one is a manager, we argue that regular exposure to high-quality children’s literature allows a path to model that same deliberate practice when one is only a child. In the Appendix, we show the direct connection between ten of the bestselling children’s books and the elements of the managerial skill set. By following the suggested deliberate practice of just reading fifteen minutes per day, this reading list can serve as a starting point that can be completed in less than a month (423 pages * 1 minute per page/ 15 minutes per night= 28.2 days.

Empowering children to eventually take the career path they most desire is always good practice but enabling them to have the most opportunity should be a best practice. Exposure to stories where characters encounter diverse challenges offers potential managers in training heartwarming and simple reminders that reinforce interpersonal and managerial best practices paving a path from cradle to manager. Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want your children to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

Appendix

About the Authors

Jason Woldt – University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Email: woldtj@uwosh.edu. Dr Jason Woldt is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Supply Chain Management at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. With 20 years of experience in industry and academia, he published ten peer-reviewed articles in top management journals focusing on topics related to supply chain disruptions and big data.

Mary Sue Woldt – Appleton Area School District (Retired). Email: mswoldt@gmail.com. Mary Sue Woldt is a retired elementary reading and writing teacher with over 25 years of experience working with children across many grade levels. Her graduate thesis work focused on the impact of reading aloud to children. She is also a published children’s book author. 

References

• Cooper, R. K. (1997). Applying Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace. Training & Development, 51(12), 31-39.

• Einstein, A. (n.d). Goodreads. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/14912-if-you-want-your-children-to-be-intelligent-read-them, accessed: 2023

• Ericsson, Anders K. (2008). Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A General Overview. Academic Emergency Medicine, 15(11), 988-994.

• Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. (Little, Brown).

• Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard Business Press.

• Lombardi, Vince. (2023) Goodreads. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/464361-leaders-aren-t-born-they-are-made-they-are-made-by Accessed: November 20, 2023

• Research and Markets. (September 6, 2022). Global Soft Skills Training Market to Reach $47.16 Billion. Retrieved from: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-soft-skills-training-market-to-reach-47-16-billion-301618215.html#:~:text=The%20global%20soft%20skills%20training,12.3%25%20during%202022%2D2027 . Accessed: November 20, 2023

• Seifert, C. (2020, March 6). The Case for Reading Fiction. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved November 13, 2023, from: https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-case-for-reading-fiction

• Start Reading to Your Child Early. (2021). American Academy of Pediatrics: Pediatric Patient Education. 10.1542/peo_document382 Retrieved from: https://publications.aap.org/patiented/article-abstract/doi/10.1542/peo_document382/82001/Start-Reading-to-Your-Child-Early?autologincheck=redirected Accessed on: November 20, 2023.

• Trelease, J. (2013). The Read-Aloud Handbook. Penguin.

• US Bureau of Labor Statistics. (September 6, 2023). Occupational Outlook Handbook, Management Occupation. Retrieved from: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/home.htm Accessed: November 20, 2023.

• World Bank, (January 19, 2023). “World Bank LinkedIn Digital Data for Development” by World Bank Group & LinkedIn Corporation, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Retrieved from: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0038027/Skills—LinkedIn-Data Accessed: November 10th, 2023.

The post From Cradle to Manager: Children’s Books as a Pathway to Build Emotional Intelligence and the Managerial Skillset. appeared first on The European Business Review.

The idea of cold and hard-nosed business leaders is not exactly en vogue in today’s landscape. Rather, executives and managers across the globe are starting to recognize that emotional intelligence can be a game-changer on multiple levels. This shift in attitudes recognizes that emotions and how we navigate them are an important part of running a business, rather than necessarily a hindrance to it. 

Among the primary benefits of emotional intelligence is how you can handle negotiations and resolve conflicts. Situations in which you have to navigate disagreements or seal a deal can involve a lot of pressure and a range of psychological and emotional influences. The better you can understand and work with emotions, the more effectively you can navigate tough circumstances. So, let’s take a closer look at what emotional intelligence is in these kinds of situations and how to develop the relevant traits. 

What Is Emotional Intelligence? 

There are multiple types of intelligence for business leaders to cultivate in order to achieve success. You may already be familiar with attributes like interpersonal intelligence that helps your professional relationships or the collaborative intelligence that is essential to leading teams. Emotional intelligence, though, is one of the most important for negotiations and conflict resolution. Put simply, it’s your ability to navigate emotions; both your own and those of people around you. 

Let’s break this down a little further to highlight its relevance here. Having a solid sense of your own emotional state empowers you to manage your feelings and behavior. Difficult circumstances, such as disagreements with colleagues or high-pressure negotiations can take a psychological and emotional toll. Your ability to spot early signs of this and the trigger points for the emotions allows you to take effective management measures. 

Similarly, your awareness of others’ emotions makes for more considerate, respectful, and effective interactions. Having the ability to recognize what emotions may be driving conflicts can give you insights into how to manage the situation to a mutually positive outcome. By the same token, understanding the emotional perspectives of negotiation partners can enable you to mirror their emotions to boost your connections or provide reassurances to uncertain partners. 

This makes it essential to develop your skills in emotional intelligence across a range of areas. We’re going to take some time to explore some of the most pertinent of these for negotiation and conflict resolution. 

Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation 

As we’ve already touched upon, self-knowledge is one of the key aspects of emotional intelligence. When you’re developing this ability, you should focus on the twin traits of self-awareness and self-regulation. What this means is that you can more effectively identify and understand your emotional state during challenging situations. You can then manage your emotions to the benefit of the immediate circumstances and your long-term relationships. 

Self-awareness 

Developing your emotional self-awareness is really a process of getting to know yourself better. Make a habit of checking in with yourself throughout the day to note what experiences you’ve had, the emotions you felt from them, and how this influenced your physical and psychological responses. In particular, pay attention to your emotions before and during both conflicts and negotiations. It can help to keep a daily journal so you can notice consistent effects and become more adept at identifying and managing them. 

Self-regulation 

Self-regulation is often harder to achieve than self-awareness. It’s about managing the behaviors and thoughts that can feel like perfectly natural outcomes to certain emotions. Unfortunately, it’s these instinctive behaviors that can affect your sense of control, agility, and positivity during situations like negotiations and conflicts.   

There are several practices you can start implementing, including: 

• Cognitive reappraisal: Cognitive reappraisal involves recognizing tough emotions and taking a mental step back from them. You can then examine how helpful or accurate the emotion is. Challenging inaccurate emotions can also give you a greater sense of agency over your feelings. 
• Positive self-talk: One of the issues with emotionally difficult circumstances is it can be easy to talk yourself down. This can trigger further negative emotions, leading to a spiral that isn’t helpful in conflicts or negotiations. Start to identify positive attributes and feelings about yourself. Learning to focus on the positive in conflicts and negotiations can help you feel more engaged and effective. 

It can be challenging to develop both emotional self-awareness and self-regulation. If you find you’re struggling with these elements, spending time with a therapist can be a good way to better understand and manage your emotional states. 

Empathy and Social Awareness 

The people you’re engaging in negotiations or resolving conflicts with are humans with complex emotions. Just as you need to recognize your own feelings, emotional intelligence is about ensuring that you can respect and navigate others’ emotions too. Of course, people’s responses to emotions vary, so the main skills to develop when interacting with others are empathy and social awareness. 

Empathy and social awareness are closely tied concepts. Effectively, they describe the ability to consider, understand, and respect the emotional perspectives of others. In particular, appreciating the emotions of a diverse range of people with lived experiences different to your own. In essence, you’re putting yourself in their shoes to imagine what the situation is like for them, the feelings they’re confronted with, and the challenges this may create. In conflicts, this is key to experiencing others’ sides of the disagreement and finding a way to work together toward a conclusion. In negotiations, it shows you’ve considered partners’ needs, allowing you to work toward mutually beneficial outcomes.  

While empathy is often considered a natural trait, you can learn and develop it. Begin by simply reaching out and asking people how they’re feeling in different situations. This is particularly important with regard to social awareness, as the aim is to meaningfully interact with people from various backgrounds. These diverse interactions not only develop your emotional intelligence but can also give you a better understanding of the multitude of challenges people face.  

Training yourself in active listening skills is also key to being able to spot verbal and body-language signs of emotions. Importantly, be willing to open yourself up regularly to imagining yourself in different emotional and social positions and experiencing the feelings that come with these. 

Keeping All Parties Meaningfully Involved 

In conflicts and negotiations alike, it’s very easy as a leader to approach the process from an individual perspective. You may want to control the situation and direct it toward what you feel is the best outcome. Nevertheless, the emotionally intelligent approach is to remember that all of these situations involve multiple people. Whatever your goals are for the situation, it’s wise to help everyone feel as though they have a certain amount of agency in achieving its outcome. This makes the process more of a collaboration that suits everyone’s needs, rather than a battle. 

One solid area of focus is your own employees and colleagues. Securing team buy-in is vital because it gives everyone a sense of ownership of projects and the business, which tends to make them more emotionally and practically engaged in achieving positive outcomes. You can gain buy-in by being transparent about goals and objectives, which aids clarity and builds trust.  

Another tactic is to regularly recognize the contributions of your team, which helps them feel valued. These emotionally intelligent steps minimize the potential for conflicts. Your efforts also build trust, which can make navigating conflicts easier if they arise.  

When it comes to negotiating with external parties, keeping them involved tends to mean encouraging them to be vocal about their needs and interests. This not only shows them you’re considerate of their perspectives, but also gives you information you can make informed decisions about. When all parties commit to being meaningfully engaged and communicative, you can boost your emotional connections with one another and set a positive atmosphere. 

Conclusion 

Developing your emotional intelligence can empower you to be an effective leader throughout negotiations and conflicts. There are various traits to focus on here, from greater empathy to emotional self-regulation practices.   

Remember, though, that building your emotional intelligence isn’t just a way to become a more agile, competent, and relevant businessperson. Pursuing greater emotional sensitivity and perceptiveness is also an exercise in being a more well-rounded human, which may improve your personal life as well as your professional goals.

About the Author

Indiana Lee is a writer, reader, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. An expert on business operations, leadership, marketing, and lifestyle. 

The post Enhancing Negotiation and Conflict Resolution with Emotional Intelligence  appeared first on The European Business Review.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can be considered to be one of the cornerstones of success, especially in HRM, where you deal with human capital, which is the only sustainable force in working towards lasting accomplishments. This article provides insights into, and examples of, successful management with emotional intelligence, and gives you 10 useful tips on how to raise your EQ skills.

In today’s challenging times of global pandemic, there is an urgent need for soft skills, which are a good complement to technical skills in ensuring the success of your business. 

In fact, researchers have been wondering why some people with a very high IQ are sometimes surpassed in business by those with a lower IQ. Theorists began to look for another “intelligence” quotient that could help people succeed and, in the 90s, it was claimed that a high EQ level was the required trait. 

According to a survey in an insurance company on EQ and IQ performance, people with a higher EQ outweighed the success of those with a high IQ, resulting in a higher salary, as employees with a higher EQ managed to build stronger customer and partner bonds compared with employees with a higher IQ. 

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, use and manage your own emotions, as well as the emotions of the others. Managing emotions is tightly linked with our higher cognitive processes and the harmonious flow and interaction of the emotional and rational parts of the brain, which guide us throughout our lives and dictate our behaviour in any given situation.³

In the past, emotions and intelligence were often viewed as being in opposition to one another. In the recent decades, however, researchers exploring the psychology of emotions have become increasingly interested in cognition and affect, and the interrelation of rationality and emotionality^3,4.

Indeed, human resources are not machines, but are endowed with certain emotions and feelings, and if managers want them to succeed and manifest high performance, they have to take into consideration their emotions and feelings, motivations and aspirations, as well.

In the context of the workplace, we have to note that the management of emotions is a part of your profession.² Moreover, here one should be equipped with strong EQ skills to endure stress, and this concerns not only the employees, but also the management.

According to our survey results at an Armenian bank, leaders equipped with high EQ skills are more likely to inspire others and to drive them towards success, which results in profitable outcomes for the whole corporation as an entity. Such leaders stand a better chance of tuning in to the emotions and feelings, needs and expectations of others and, knowing all this, leading them better towards a common goal.

In this respect, we can take the example of a Dubai-based company that allowed one of its employees to work from her home office in her home country, taking into account her current family issues which affected her attention and ability to stay focused. In this way, they managed to keep a good worker and, moreover, feeling grateful for not getting fired, the employee performed better, ensuring improved labour output and better business results. It follows that the emotionally intelligent and wise approach of the company management benefited both the employee and the company.

Another example to prove that taking into consideration the emotions of the employees can be of benefit to the whole company is our local small business in the automotive sphere. We faced challenges here during the pandemic, since both the head of the company and the employees were struggling with health issues. Our partners did not urge us to perform better during these times, which were difficult for all the parties involved, and, as a result, when the situation stabilised, the whole team performed better and faster compared with the previous year. This also suggests that tuning in with the partners’ needs, doubts, challenges and concerns, and taking into account the current health emergency can later on work in the best interests of both parties, since after getting back on their feet, they will do their best to compensate for the loss of time. 

Here, we can speak about the importance of servant leadership, which involves taking care of the emotions of the employees and guiding them with constant support towards becoming the best version of themselves and attaining their goals, as well as the main targets set by the whole company. A servant leader, unlike a commanding boss, provides support, instruction, feedback and guidance to the whole team in order to reach a common objective.

As we can see from the examples provided above, emotional intelligence can indeed be a game changer and can lead companies towards success, making sure that everyone involved feels secure and protected, so that they perform at their best as a “thank you” to the whole company.

These days, the notion and application of emotional intelligence in the workplace and in business generally is gaining more and more prominence, especially in times of pandemic.

Moreover, according to research conducted by the global hiring cabinet for recruitment, Robert Half, recruiters look for EQ skills in about 88 per cent of job applications.

There is no doubt that at the workplace and in global business, we have to deal with people who have different cultural and educational backgrounds with different internal motivations and intentions.

Hence, to succeed at work, we not only need theoretical and technical skills, but also soft EQ skills, which have the greatest potential to make us work together better, more smoothly, more happily, more healthily, more peacefully and more successfully.

Yet, it is noteworthy that sometimes people think of emotional intelligence as a superpower and an inborn quality, as the results of our survey show (Figure 1).

Do you think emotional intelligence can be learnt?

Nonetheless, we have to point out that, although seemingly hard to achieve, EQ skills are attainable and can be acquired in life1. 

Emotional intelligence is, in fact, our ability to learn various practical skills that are based on five components: self-awareness, self-motivation, self-control of emotions, empathy and social skills in human relationships.¹

Here are 10 tips that can be practised by anyone at the workplace globally, across cultures:

1. Pay attention to your own emotions, as well as the emotions of others surrounding you (both privately and in business).

In fact, throughout the whole day, we may feel very different emotions and feelings that we are very often not fully aware of. If you try to understand these very emotions in yourself, and in others who are also trying to identify them and their reasons and causes, you will be better equipped to deal with them appropriately. 

2. Manage your emotions.

The workplace is a source of many heated conversations and emotionally difficult situations to deal with. We are expected not to make a dramatic display of our anger all the time, although we can sometimes exhibit some portion of it if a co-worker does something wrong, so that they understand that they are at fault. This brings us to the understanding that we have to manage the expression of our emotions in the workplace according to some predefined professional display rules².

3. Try to put yourself in the other’s shoes.

The more we try to understand the perspectives of others, the easier it will be for us to understand any concerns, doubts and/or issues that they might have. This is a step forward towards empathy skills, which help us tune in harmoniously with the surrounding world, which is the highest degree of emotional intelligence.

4. Listen before you speak.

Listening is a very important skill – even more important than speaking, since when we listen, we are trying to understand what the other is trying to convey. So, we have one mouth to speak, but two ears to listen. Hence, we should be listening to the needs of our co-workers more than we speak and give instructions.

5. Count to four before reacting to anger.

When you are in a heated emotional situation, you might lose control over your emotions and exhibit them, sometimes in a very exaggerated manner, which you may regret later on. So, try to calm down before reacting angrily, so as to avoid any consequent harsh verbal conflicts.

6. Respond rather than react.

Reacting is when we unconsciously experience an emotional trigger caused by an external stimulus that directs us towards expressing a certain emotion or feeling on the outside. On the other hand, when we respond, we notice how we are feeling, and we consciously decide on how we should respond appropriately, harmoniously and cooperatively to those with whom we interact.

7. Ask when you do not know something.

You are not expected to be a Mr/Mrs Know-All. So, whenever you feel as if you need extra advice, ask for it. After all, a person who is ashamed of asking is ashamed of learning, which is indeed a never-ending process.

8. Apologise directly when you are at fault.

Nothing helps us build trust and rapport quicker than owning up to our mistakes and apologising, because this creates our authentic images with all our flaws and all, since we humans are not perfect creatures.

9. Create an emotionally secure and positive working environment.

A healthy working atmosphere is one of the cornerstones of the success of your company, where all the co-workers feel cherished and secure with all their doubts and concerns, being sure that they are being taken good care of by the company’s management.

10. Give more praise when your employees do a good job.

In fact, we all strive to get recognition, and when we receive praise, we feel of more value and even commit to improving our skills and performance. I had two different bosses: one who praised us for being a good leader, and one who didn’t and used to take the credit for the employees’ work. Of course, I preferred working with the first one. As John Maxwell said, “A good leader is a person who takes a little more of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit,” and as they also truly say, “A person who feels appreciated will always do more.”

Practise these actions at your workplace and you won’t have to wait long to see the results, since you will benefit greatly from raising your level of emotional intelligence.

As a matter of fact, after being provided with more insights into the concept of emotional intelligence and the techniques of raising it, people really do see its benefits and the advantages and assets of applying it in both their private and business lives.

Have you noticed changes in your life after deepening your EQ skills?

According to Daniel Goleman (1995)¹, EQ can be a learned skill and our studies have shown that a raised emotional intelligence (EQ/EI) has the potential to improve the organisational culture, creating a healthy working atmosphere and enhancing employee performance. This is something that you, as a good manager, and your company as a whole entity will surely benefit from in the form of improved employee performance and better business results, both in relationships and in financial terms.

Emotional intelligence really can be considered to be one of the cornerstones of success for any organisation, big or small, since the people who make up the whole company all have their different emotions and feelings, beliefs and desires, motivations and aspirations. These play a part in decision-making processes, as well as affecting their overall performance both in their private lives and in business. So, if we take this into consideration and try to act in an emotionally wise, agile and flexible manner, we are sure to succeed, especially in these trying times, where EQ really can be a good and true game changer. 

This article was originally published on 15 May 2022.

About the Author

Dr Anna Rostomyan is a professor, EQ coach, international author and PhD Mentor at the Swiss School of Business Research (SSBR). She defended her PhD in collaboration with the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and Yerevan State University (Armenia). She is the author of three books and 30 publications worldwide, with readers of around 100 nationalities. E-mail: annarostom@yahoo.com, anna.rostomyan@ssbr-edu.ch

References

1. Goleman, Daniel (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why it matters more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books.
2. Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
3. Rostomyan, Anna (2013). A Linguo-cognitive Analysis on Verbal and Non-verbal Expressions of Emotions (on the material of English). Dissertation. Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia.
4. Rostomyan, Anna (2020). Business Communication Management: The Key to Emotional Intelligence. Hamburg: Tredition.

The post Emotional Intelligence as a Game Changer in Global Business appeared first on The European Business Review.

iPhones, laptops, the internet, Siri, Alexa. Who does not know all the devices, applications, and methods to get things faster, remember our choices, play our favourite music, and make our lives easier? What everyone seems to forget is that none of them is actually a human who could remember our favourite music or our favourite store.

While we might have a conversation with Siri, we forget that Siri responds with predetermined responses that are reactions to specific words. We also do not consider the safety of our conversation. Alexa mistakenly dials contacts of phone books who can then record private conversations (Fowler, 2019), or assists in convicting murderers (Burke, 2019).We need to examine whether AI can expedite repetitive tasks only, or whether the fear of emotional AI should alarm us that our world will be overtaken by machines and AI.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence, or emotional quotient (EQ), is the ability to read and understand and skilfully integrate your thoughts and emotions.
Based on Daniel Goleman (Goleman, 1995), EQ is catalytic for other abilities and is defined by self-awareness, self-management, internal motivation, empathy, and social skills (Talks at Google, 2007). To get a job, you need intelligence quotient (IQ), but in order to keep a job and move into more senior positions, you need the four components of EQ.

Self-awareness recognises moods and emotions. It gives the ability to evaluate the necessary confidence, but remain realistic about shortcomings.

Self-management controls emotions by regulating them through the prefrontal cortex and “filters” (Brizedine, 2007).

Internal motivation is the inner vision of growing, the aim to reach higher and to learn.

Empathy requires the ability to not only evaluate the audience, but to understand others’ state of mind and to connect to their emotions (Big Think, 2012).

Artificial Intelligence

Jake Frankenfeld defines artificial intelligence (AI) as

“The simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.(Frankenfeld, 2020).”

AI is able to observe its environment and detect problems, but needs to be fed with data and trained to base future decisions on learned patterns (Talks at Google, 2007).
AI is everywhere. It might not look like a robot, but our everyday gadgets are based on machines that are not able to form an independent response based on consciousness. Differentiating between different voice tones and words, they rely on prepared sentences, as they do not possess the main functions of a human brain (Mueller, 2020).

I work in the legal tech business and started in document review, which is one of the specified stages of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM, n.d.).

Originally it involved paralegals and first-year law graduates. But soon lawyers with a high aptitude of technology developed new ways to make review easier. They used AI to eliminate the clearly irrelevant documents and focus on “Hot Docs”, those documents that did not require a “click” only, but made our legal minds think in a “legal way”. Legals shifted into a different direction: discussions with and connections to IT personnel, and subsequently translating IT terminology to our peers. Repetitive work was automated. Human interaction started where more detailed thinking was needed, meaning that AI applications became co-workers of human reviewers and not their replacement, being leveraged for their strength (Bhandari, 2016).
Legal tech was born.

Education and Upskilling

Through the application of technology, the legal world has gained the opportunity to expand its field (Austin, 2016). While job seekers are worried about job losses, instead focus should shift to the opportunities that AI is bringing. Similarly to the last industrial revolution, a new dimension is added to the job market, enabling employees to accept augmentation and make the human work effective and efficient (White, 2017).

Brynjolfsson et al. (2018) express that non-routine occupations will be computerised and make human workers redundant. However, this view fails to consider that specific aspects, such as team management, human interaction, EQ, and the general need of humans to interact and be part of a group are not replaceable. Routine tasks of eDiscovery, such as marking system files as irrelevant or redaction of specific words, can be replaced by computerisation (Krovacs, 2016). At this point humans become AI teachers and irreplaceable (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019).

Group Emotional Intelligence

Having group emotional intelligence (GEQ) increases the team’s effectiveness by building better relationships, increasing creativity and decision making, which will lead to higher productivity and higher performance, and deliver higher results.

In order to evaluate and develop GEQ, three levels, six dimensions, and subsequently nine norms have to be analysed (Druskat, 2001).

Individual

While a thorough SWOT analysis of each group member is essential before allocating positions, it is important to understand that each group member, particularly the group leader, needs the right level of EQ.

Discussions of identity and personal branding, in addition to acceptable internal and external rules regarding respect, become important (Druskat, 2001). Group members need to understand that EQ is not about suppressing emotions, but about learning how to recognise, process, and channel emotions to benefit the group as a whole.

Group

GEQ develops through group members’ commitment to continuous improvement and vision of growth. The team needs self-evaluation as a whole and a thorough SWOT analysis to evaluate the response to emotional threats (Druskat, 2001).

Open communication and affirmative wording are the last two aspects for a functional group with a GEQ. Group members have to feel a strong environment, by feeling the support, and see challenges as less threatening.

Cross-Boundary (External)

The last component focuses on the group’s emotional position within the entire organisation and how the group’s work fits into the big picture of the organisation’s growth. The group needs to build external relationships, to evoke cooperation and lead to efficacy (Druskat, 2001), while connections need to be intact between the group and the main decision makers in the organisation.

What does this all mean for document review? Document reviewers can automate repetitive tasks, but need to understand the importance of their work’s outcome within the EDRM scope. As the last step of the EDRM cycle, they have to understand how each individual’s work, and subsequently the group’s work, affects the law firm and the client, which AI cannot do.

Ethical Impacts

We might be able to communicate with Alexa and Siri, but do they actually have feelings and understand our emotions? Could Alexa soon be someone’s best girlfriend? The ethical impact of AI starts when machines and robots know us better than our family and friends (Mueller, 2020), when facial expressions, our shopping habits, our healthcare, and financial abilities are not only recorded, but examined in such a way that we could be reconstructed.

While document review might not need the emotional aspect of AI, other areas need the differentiation of facial expressions and the context for voice recognition. In document review, the brain makes the decision based on pre-dictated requisites (Gigerenzer, 2008). The reviewer reads the text, and the application of AI eliminates the document count and makes a preselection. Thus, the human does not rely on a decision that they cannot explain (Mueller, 2020).

In financial institutions, AI determines whether a customer is a good investor based on specific documents. This is problematic if the financial condition of a client is different from the machine-learned circumstances. These cases would need human interaction.

In healthcare, AI is applied to robotics that become carers of elderly people. AI also assists in overcoming solitude and loneliness by speaking to Alexa and Siri, but there needs to be an awareness that AI is not an actual person (Tufekci, 2019).

Thus, AI is not a problem, as long as the EQ component is not imitated to become a key tool for social control (Tufekci, 2019; Lee, 2014).

Conclusion

Davenport and Kirby (2016) state that humans need to focus on tasks that are unique and cannot be automated. Only repetitive tasks that do not require additional thinking or emotions could be done by AI (Diekhans, 2020).

As David Caruso mentioned, “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head – it is the unique intersection of both” (Caruso, 2004).

Implementing the course of action, we can be assured that clients will have questions and need the emotional aspect, which only a human can respond to, as robots do not have feelings.

About the Author

Dr. Nina Mohadjer, LLM has worked in various jurisdictions where her cross-border experience as well as her multilingual capabilities have helped her with managing reviews. She is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the 2030 UN Agenda as an Honorary Advisor and Thematic Expert for Sustainable Development Goal 5 (Gender Equality) and the co-founder of Women in eDiscovery Germany.

References

1. Austin, D. (2016). Evolution of eDiscovery Automation, AECD webinar, https://www.aceds.org/page/certification
2. Bhandari, S. (2016). “Does Pyrrho signal the rise of the robolawyer?”, Lawyer, 30(16), 16.
3. Big Think. (2012, April 23). “Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence” (Video). YouTube. https.://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7m9eNoB3NU
4. Brizendine, L. (2007). Female Brain, Transworld Publishers
5. Brynjolfsson, E., Meng L., & Westerman, G. (2018), “When Do Computers Reduce the Value of Worker Persistence?”, doi:10.2139/ssrn.3286084.
6. Burke, M. (2 November 2019), “Amazon’s Alexa may have witnessed alleged Florida murder, authorities say”, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/amazon-s-alexa-may-have-witnessed-alleged-florida-murder-authorities-n1075621
7. Caruso, D.R:, & Salovey, P. (2004). The Emotionally Intelligent Manager. Josser-Bass.
8. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2019). Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (And how to fix it), Harvard Review Press
9. Davenport, T. & Kirby, J. (2016). Only Humans Need Apply, Harper Collins
10. Diekhans, A. (31 May 2020) Robotor helfen in Krankenhausern. Retrieved: 18 November 2020, https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/roboter-ruanda-101.html
11. Druskat, V.U., & Wolff, S.B. (2001). “Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups”. Harvard Business Review, 79(3). 80-90
12. EDRM Model, n.d., https://www.edrm.net/resources/frameworks-and-standards/edrm-model/
13. Fowler, G. (6 May 2019). “Alexa has been eavesdropping you this whole time”, https.://www.washingtonpost.com
14. Frankenfield, J. (13 March 2020). “Artificial Intelligence”. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/artificial-intelligence-ai.asp
15. Gigerenzer, G. (2008). Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, Penguin Books
16. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. Bantam Books
17. Kovacs, M.S. (2016). “How Big Data Is Helping Win Cases and Increase Profitability”. Computer & Internet Lawyer. 33(5). 9-11.
18. Lee, M. (2014). “10 Questions for Machine Intelligence”, Futurist, 48(5), 64.
19. Mueller, V.C. (2020). “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/ethics-ai/.
20. Talks at Google. (12 November 2007). “Social Intelligence” (Video). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoo_dIOP8k
21. Tufekci, Z. (2019). “’Emotional AI’ Sounds Appealing”. Scientific American, 321(1), 86.
22. White, S.K. (2017). “Why AI will both increase efficiency and create jobs”. CIO (13284045).

The post Does Artificial Intelligence Have Emotional Intelligence? appeared first on The European Business Review.

The archetypes of the screaming team leader, the oversharing colleague, or the coworker who never looks people in the eye are so common that entire sections of the internet are reserved for memes and GIFs on the subject. Even Tik Tok has gotten in on the action with videos that show overreactions in the workplace – usually resulting in a computer being thrown on the floor or an over-the-top tirade.

Emotions are not your enemy, but they can definitely land you in hot water at work. Emotions fuel your decisions and reactions, and they have a powerful impact on how you and everyone else conducts themselves in the workplace.
Feelings can’t remain bottled up – they need a way out. If feelings are not expressed, they are repressed and held back. They churn and creep into your interactions, creating pressure that builds and grows until the point of an uncontrolled explosion of emotions.

Identifying your emotions and understanding their origins will help you deal with them professionally and respectfully. Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills not only help improve how you feel at work and about your work, but they also help improve how you perform at work.
Below are some of the more problematic manifestations of emotions in the workplace. If you find that you’re behaving in any of the following ways, I have provided tips to build your Emotional Intelligence and help you tame those unhelpful behaviors.

The Oversharer/The Undersharer

Oversharing and undersharing both cause issues in the workplace. The oversharer usually means well but is too expressive with their emotions. They share TMI (too much information) to build relationships, often prematurely, without a sufficient level of trust. This can make colleagues uncomfortable and make others feel awkward because it puts pressure on them to share personal details too early in the relationship.

What to do About it (Ei Tip):

• If you are an oversharer, set some boundaries. Boundaries are the limits you create for yourself, which help you determine what is appropriate to share versus inappropriate. Communicating with your boss that you had some personal problems is okay but getting into the nitty-gritty of your personal issues is not professional.
  
• If you are an undersharer, share your emotions and be specific. Instead of saying you are feeling bad, expand your vocabulary to include words like angry, annoyed, and furious. Words like “good” or “bad” are too general and are more about a state of being than an emotion. Your feelings can reveal what’s underneath the surface of your decisions or communications (your motives, concerns, stressors, and attitudes). So, remember, state your feelings with specific emotion words.

The Rocket Launcher/The Scared Rabbit

Are you a rocket launcher or a scared rabbit? Ironically, both the rocket launcher and the scared rabbit try to avoid conflict but from different ends of the spectrum. The rocket launcher represses their feelings. They keep past transgressions bottled up until something sets them off one day, and everything comes out. The powder keg explodes in a series of emails, confrontations or texts listing every perceived wrong since the last episode. The rocket launcher has low impulse control and can be unpredictable and even aggressive.

On the other hand, the scared rabbit can have too much impulse control. They are overly cautious, afraid to take chances and get stressed by surprises or changes in circumstances. To them, spontaneity is scary and dangerous. Scared Rabbits will often disappear into the background. They will agree with everything, even when they have divergent opinions, rather than creating conflict.

What to do About it (Ei Tip):

• If you are a rocket launcher, press the pause button. Creating space between the trigger and the response can create clarity and gives you the time to make a conscious choice. There is a reason people are encouraged to “sleep on it” or to wait 24 hours before responding to events. You may still feel the same in a day or even an hour; however, maybe you won’t. Allowing some time to reflect on your genuine emotions may shift your perspective and give you clarity.
• If you are a scared rabbit, call a buddy. That’s what friends are for. Having someone safe to talk to can give you an outside perspective on a situation and push you to take action. A good friend can also call you out when you are avoiding situations. Be brave and seek out the counsel of someone who has your best interest.

The Imposter/The Narcissist

Do you think you might suffer from “imposter syndrome?” Are you afraid to speak up? Do you have ideas, but the fear of failure holds you back? Imposters are driven by fear. They constantly worry that others will uncover their perceived lack of intelligence or capability. They put little value on their own opinions and don’t see a point in sharing them. They often are not very confident and have low esteem.

The flip side of this trait can also get you in trouble. People with too much self-regard and confidence can come across as narcissistic. They act rudely and are self-entitled, and never admit their mistakes. They are the jerks no one wants to work with. Their overconfidence is off-putting, and they often cannot see things from another person’s perspective.

What to do About it (Ei Tip):

• If you are an imposter, challenge your inner critic. Remind yourself there is a reason your boss picked you for this job. Remember, if someone believes you can get the work done, trust them until you trust yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, “fake it until you make it.” Behave like a confident person and start noticing the results.
• If you are a narcissist, practice active listening. Give others a chance to shine. The workplace is not a solo performance; you need others. Let them have their say. If you make a mistake, do the right thing, and own it. Even if you don’t feel great about messing up, find the knowledge contained in the mistake. This will allow you to keep learning and growing.

The Needy One/The Superhero

Are you “needy?” Do you require constant reassurance and emotional support? Needy people rely on others to make critical decisions even though they are perfectly capable of doing so themselves. They have low independence, often because helicopter parents stepped in too soon and too often. Because of this, they have had little practice standing on their own and having confidence in their choices.

What to do About it (Ei Tip):

• If you are the needy one, stop caring what other people think. If you have an idea to share, speak up. Your perspective and life experience make your point of view different than everyone else’s. We need people who see the world from their unique vantage point to help others see new possibilities.
• If you are the superhero, you don’t need to do everything yourself or have all the answers. Asking for help does not make you weak. Letting people see that you can’t do it all allows the rest of the team to show you what they can do, building a stronger community and deeper connections. When you ask for help, it invertedly gives others permission to do the same thing.

The Cold Shoulder/The Shoulder to Cry on

One of the essential skills in the emotional intelligence realm is empathy. Empathy is the ability to pick up on emotional cues and respond appropriately. If you have too little empathy, you may have difficulty understanding and relating to the feelings of others. Or you may come across as cold and uncompassionate. Showing care or concern for others lets them know they are valued. A cold and unempathetic shoulder creates a separation that can destroy team morale and cohesiveness.

What to do About it (Ei Tip):

• If you are the cold shoulder, make sure you come from a place of curiosity, not judgment. Have a voracious appetite to know about, and learn from, others. Ask questions to help understand what’s underneath the surface of other people’s actions. When asking questions, suspend your judgment to understand the other person’s experience.
• If you are the shoulder to cry on, don’t be a problem-solving hero, flying in to save the day. Stepping back and not solving everyone’s problems will allow others to stand on their own two feet and not always rely on you for answers or help. Boundaries are necessary for leadership.

The Balancing Act

Notice a theme? High emotional intelligence doesn’t always mean it is a real strength. Like anything, it’s all about balance. Too much or not enough of any Emotional Intelligence skill can create issues in the workplace.

The problem? It changes all the time. We all naturally swing back and forth depending on the situation and the people involved. The trick is understanding when you’ve swung too far or not far enough. It takes practice to identify the sweet spot and make the needed adjustments.

The first step is to start spending time focusing on feelings in the workplace and understanding the underlying forces that move you and others. Understanding and accepting your emotions is not the same as being emotional. Emotional Intelligence helps you recognize, comprehend, label, express, and manage your feelings, so your emotions don’t hinder your success. Learning to be smarter than your emotions and getting to the heart of the matter is the key.

Ask yourself, am I being my best self? That is the most straightforward approach to take – assessing your emotional intelligence and seeing where you can improve. Remember that it’s normal to be a work in progress and that always trying to improve is the ultimate path forward.

About the Author

Carolyn Stern, author of The Emotionally Strong Leader, is the President and CEO of EI Experience, an executive leadership development and emotional intelligence training firm. She is a certified Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Development Expert, professional speaker, and university professor whose emotional intelligence courses and modules have been adopted by top universities in North America. She has also provided comprehensive training programs to business leaders across the continent in highly regarded corporations encompassing industries such as technology, finance, manufacturing, advertising, education, healthcare, government, and foodservice. Stern lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can learn more at www:carolynstern.com/book

The post Am I Being My Best Self? Building Your Emotional Intelligence at Work – It’s a Balancing Act appeared first on The European Business Review.

Can Tech Harm Your Emotional Intelligence?

Modern technology has made life much more convenient and entertaining. Unfortunately, it has also made it easier for us to isolate ourselves and shy away from interactions that are critical for our emotional development. With everyday activities such as shopping and socializing moving online, there is a decreasing need to meet other people face-to-face. This impact is much more significant for people who work in tech, who spend the majority of their waking hours in front of a computer screen.

While those of us who grew up with technology have no problems socializing in the digital sphere, the absence of physical human contact does lend to a lack of nuance in our interactions. We may have hundreds of emojis but they are still no replacement for the subtle changes in body language and the slight inflections of tone that you can observe when communicating in person. As a result, many tech professionals can come across as awkward, dull, or even robotic in real life.

Benefits of High Emotional Intelligence

Tech professionals who lack emotional intelligence can find it hard to move up the organizational ladder and may find themselves growing stagnant in their careers. On the other hand, a brilliant tech professional with the emotional intelligence to match can realize their full potential and move confidently into a role as a leader or entrepreneur. Here are some of the benefits of fostering your emotional intelligence.

Communicate and Collaborate

Tech professionals do not exist in a vacuum. Even if they belong to a team that deals exclusively with tech, they need to be able to communicate with coworkers and team leaders about requirements, problems, solutions, and timelines. Furthermore, many tech professionals will need to interact with non-tech personnel such as project managers, designers, and clients. High emotional intelligence will enable you to communicate and collaborate fluently with different people regardless of their level of technological knowledge. This increases understanding, efficiency, productivity, and work satisfaction.

Understand the Client

Most clients are not technologically-inclined and are not able to clearly articulate what they need. Some clients, in fact, have no clue what they need at all. As a tech professional, you must be able to see the issues from your client’s point of view and accurately identify their pain points. Without emotional intelligence, this can be a frustrating and difficult task. It can take rounds of demoralizing feedback before achieving the common goal. Developing your emotional intelligence helps you to be more empathetic towards your client’s needs and better equipped to address the problems at hand.

Find True Fulfillment

Any geek will know the difference between completing a job perfectly and getting by with the bare minimum. When you are passionate about a project, you work hard and take care to produce the best quality that you can. It does not matter that nobody else will see the flawless lines of code that you wrote or read the watertight cybersecurity protocol that you authored. What matters is that you know. Emotional intelligence will allow you to impart this intrinsic motivation to your team members so that everyone can find purpose and fulfillment in their work and accomplishments.

How to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

Just like any skill, boosting your emotional muscle takes practice. Take the time to foster self-awareness and self-regulation. Self-awareness helps you to recognize your feelings and motivations and allows you to view your behavior and perception with a more objective lens. Reflect often on your thoughts and actions. Seek feedback from people who perform various roles in your organization and try to be open to reassessing the way you deal with things. When communicating with your team members or clients, practice active listening and intentional interaction.

Taking a cue from successful tech industry leaders can help as well. “The Smartest Person in the Room” author Christian Espinosa shares in his best-selling book how true intelligence, effective communication, and self-confidence can improve outcomes across entire tech teams. With extensive experience in the cybersecurity industry, Espinosa has valuable insight that can take your technical leadership to the next level. Leaders should invest in emotional intelligence training for themselves and their team members to reap the most benefits.

If you are unsure whether you need to improve your emotional intelligence, stop and assess your professional life. Has your career stagnated? Do you rarely feel appreciated or fulfilled? Is your team underachieving? Emotional intelligence training may be in order if you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions. Emotional intelligence is important because it amplifies the impact of your IQ. By investing in emotional intelligence, you set the stage for your success as a leader in the tech industry.

The post Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important in Tech? appeared first on The European Business Review.