Emotional intelligence in business can be a game-changer, helping professionals better manage and understand their own emotions and those of others around them. Some research even suggests this trait can matter more than a high IQ when it comes to business success. If you can master emotional intelligence, you’ll be more attractive as a job candidate and may climb the career ladder faster. For business owners, this skill can lead to stronger relationships and better long-term outcomes.
We spoke with emotional intelligence experts to better understand what this skill looks like in practice, including how to measure and improve it and why it plays such a key role in workplace success.
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (EI) is an individual’s ability to perceive, understand and manage their own emotions and the emotions of others. This insight and awareness can help you connect and communicate with others more effectively, allowing you to build bridges, not walls.
Dr. Margie Warrell, a bestselling author, leadership advisor and human development expert, emphasized that all humans are innately emotional — some are just better at managing their emotions than others.
“What gets us in trouble is that, left unchecked, emotions can trump reason,” Warrell cautioned. “Unless we intervene to short-circuit that reactive response, our amygdala bypasses logic, rationalism and reason. Neural hijack ensues.”
People who display higher levels of emotional intelligence have more awareness of their emotions and are better able to prevent this neural hijack. Dr. Richard Boyatzis, Distinguished University Professor at Case Western Reserve University, author, and one of the pioneers of the competencies movement in human resources, explained that emotional intelligence encompasses a handful of competencies or skills.
“What I call competencies are underlying characteristics that can manifest themselves in a variety of specific behaviors and skills that research has shown actually predict effectiveness in some role or job,” Boyatzis said.
Boyatzis explained that emotional intelligence competencies include:
- Self-awareness: The degree to which you recognize and understand your own emotions and behaviors.
- Empathy: The ability to recognize, understand and respond to the emotions and behaviors of others.
- Adaptability: The willingness to change course when your approach isn’t working.
- Emotional self-control: The ability to regulate your reactions for the sake of another person or group.
- Achievement orientation: The internal motivation to get something done better.
- Social intelligence: The way you build relationships with other people.
What is emotional intelligence in the workplace?
Emotional intelligence in the workplace refers to the ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions — as well as those of others — in a professional setting. This skill helps you communicate more effectively with team members, customers and vendors, handle stress more effectively, and build stronger professional relationships. It’s important for every member of an organization but is particularly crucial for those in leadership roles.
“In corporate environments, emotional intelligence allows people to feel heard, understood and validated, and it opens the environment to trust,” said Dr. George Vergolias, a workplace psychologist, PsyD, CTM and chief clinical officer at R3 Continuum. “With trust established, employees are more likely to take risks creatively and more able to innovate, which helps the business.”
Vergolias explained that emotional intelligence in the workplace is critical for:
Emotional intelligence is a particularly vital skill for business owners, allowing them to respond to others' needs and regulate their own emotions amid stressful
entrepreneurial pain points like tight deadlines and financial pressures.
How does emotional intelligence in business predict success?
Emotional intelligence is closely tied to effective communication and can help professionals reach higher levels of achievement and success. “Research has shown that where job roles rely on effective communication to be successful, emotional intelligence is a key differentiator in performance,” said James Woodfall, a communication and behavior specialist and founder of Raise Your EI.
Boyatzis emphasized that emotionally intelligent communication benefits all roles within an organization, not just those specifically focused on communication. “After thousands of studies, we’ve seen that there is hardly a job or role in life that doesn’t benefit from a person demonstrating more emotional self-awareness,” Boyatzis said.
Here are five ways emotional intelligence can help predict success in business:
1. Self-management supports flexibility and resilience.
Putting emotional intelligence into practice means managing your emotional response so you can stay flexible and steady as challenges come up. Individuals with poor self-management skills tend to underperform in the workplace and often struggle with motivation and adapting to change.
Vergolias explained that emotional intelligence helps people identify emotional triggers and regulate their responses, especially in high-stakes or emotionally charged situations. “This emotional regulation supports more constructive conflict resolution, greater composure under pressure and quicker recovery from setbacks,” Vergolias said. “Individuals with higher EI consistently demonstrate more adaptive, solution-oriented behavior during organizational crises.”
2. Self-awareness and empathy strengthen workplace relationships.
Emotionally intelligent professionals tend to have strong self-awareness and empathy, traits that help them make better business decisions, communicate more clearly and build stronger working relationships.
- Self-awareness: Self-awareness is particularly important in people management. “Emotional intelligence means we are more self-aware, often more self-compassionate, which in itself allows us to better self-regulate and calm the alarm centers, allowing us to better think and approach issues,” said Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier, workplace psychologist and executive coach.
- Empathy: Empathy — the ability to connect with others on an emotional level while considering their thoughts and feelings — can strengthen a company’s culture by helping people feel understood. “Empathy enables leaders and employees to tune into others’ emotional states, which is critical for building trust, strengthening collaboration and leading diverse teams,” said Vergolias.
3. Motivation drives persistence and performance.
Motivation is another key component of emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent professionals are driven by internal values and goals, not just external rewards. This type of self-motivation helps people stay focused, overcome setbacks and continue to improve, all of which contribute to long-term success.
“Emotional intelligence helps us connect with our values and protect our motivation from an intrinsic perspective,” Pelletier explained. “It has also been shown to influence job performance through its impact on job satisfaction and organizational commitment, both of which are often tied to motivation.”
When that internal motivation isn’t there, it’s easier to lose momentum when things get difficult. In a business setting, that difference shows up quickly: Some people keep moving through setbacks, while others start to disengage.
It's essential to foster motivation in your team, as
highly motivated employees are more engaged and productive, which in turn helps create a great company culture.
4. Self-regulation improves focus and strategic thinking.
With so many distractions everywhere you turn, staying focused isn’t easy, but it’s essential. Whether you’re leading a business or working on a team, being able to concentrate and catch the details can make all the difference.
“Self-regulation and emotional awareness help filter out distractions and minimize cognitive hijacking, when stress overwhelms rational thinking,” said Vergolias. “High-EI individuals are less likely to ruminate or react impulsively, freeing up mental space for strategic thinking.”
For business owners especially, that ability to pause before reacting can make a real difference, whether you’re in a tense negotiation or navigating a difficult conversation with your team. It gives you a moment to think things through instead of responding on instinct, which often leads to better decisions.
5. Emotional insights build customer trust and loyalty.
Emotionally intelligent professionals look beyond the sale and understand the importance of growing customer relationships and nurturing vendor and stakeholder partnerships. This skill is critical to business success, particularly when personal connections lead to customer loyalty.
“Emotional intelligence helps us better connect with ourselves and everyone around us, specifically our customers, for whom we want to be present and attentive to,” said Pelletier. “EI helps us build connection and trust, read between the lines when it comes to their needs, ask better questions and respond with calm and perspective.”
Vergolias noted that emotionally intelligent professionals are more likely to earn repeat business by forming personal connections with customers. “Clients and customers remember how they feel more than what was said,” Vergolias said. “This emotional insight often makes the difference between a one-time sale and long-term loyalty.”
How do you measure emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is a combination of self-awareness, empathy and social skills. If EI is important to you when recruiting new employees or weighing internal promotions, consider the following ways to gauge a candidate’s emotional intelligence level.
- Formal EI assessments: Vergolias explained that EI can be measured through validated assessments and self-report questionnaires. “Self-report questionnaires, such as the EQ-i 2.0 by Multi-Health Systems, assess how individuals perceive their own emotional and social functioning,” Vergolias said. “Ability-based tests, like the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), evaluate a person’s actual ability to identify, understand and manage emotions.”
- 360-degree analysis: Direct observation is a valuable way to assess someone’s emotional intelligence. Dr. Ashwini Nadkarni, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, recommends using a 360-degree performance evaluation. “A 360 analysis in the workplace is one which gathers information about an individual’s performance, areas of strength and opportunities for improvement, not only from their manager, but also from the entirety of their team,” Nadkarni explained. “The goal is to provide a more holistic assessment to enable professional development.”
- Ask the right questions: Even without the time or resources to conduct extensive evaluations, you can still get a sense of someone’s emotional intelligence by asking the right interview questions. Notice whether candidates seem defensive or open, appear able to keep their ego in check, and show awareness of other people’s emotions. Below are a few common interview questions to assess someone’s emotional intelligence:
- What bothers you most about other people?
- Who do you look up to and why?
- What kind of people do you like to work with and why?
Positive thinking is closely tied to emotional intelligence. When you manage your emotions effectively, you're more likely to stay optimistic, even in tough situations, and that mindset can boost resilience, motivation and overall performance.
How do you boost emotional intelligence?
The good news is that emotional intelligence is something you can develop at any age or stage of your career — and the return on that investment shows up directly in how you lead, communicate and grow your business.
“If you look at emotional intelligence at the behavioral level, you can dramatically improve your behavior in a way that sticks,” said Boyatzis. “There are neural networks you can develop over time that will enable you to tune in unconsciously to your emotions, the emotions of others and relationships.”
Here are a few ways to strengthen your emotional intelligence:
- Engage your vision: Boyatzis explained that the key to making lasting changes is to focus on the type of person you want to become. “The research shows activating your big picture, meaning your dreams and your sense of purpose, activates the neural networks that make you open to possibilities, and our research has shown that those are the characteristics that enable us to sustain an effort,” Boyatzis said.
- Be intentional: Pelletier emphasized that improving emotional intelligence requires intention. That means understanding why it matters and approaching it with openness, not obligation. “As soon as the words ‘should’ or ‘ought to’ enter your mind, the change process stops. You close down,” Boyatzis cautioned.
- Practice self-awareness and observation: Warrell said tuning into and acknowledging your emotions is the first step to managing them. “Being able to ‘short-circuit’ your amygdala’s primitive ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response, and channeling the destructive impulses that some emotions give rise to in more constructive ways will make all the difference in how you deal with the challenges and challenging people that come your way,” Warrell explained.
- Build your emotional vocabulary: A key part of understanding your emotions is being able to name them. “Identifying your emotions helps you understand your needs, values and triggers,” explained Erica Schwartzberg, a psychotherapist and LMSW at Downtown Somatic Therapy. “When you can name how you feel, people can actually respond to you. Misunderstandings diminish, while vulnerability increases.”
- Consider whether you’re reacting or responding: Pay attention to whether you react impulsively or respond intentionally. When you slow down and choose how to respond, the outcome is usually better for everyone involved. “Pause to reflect before you react,” recommended Nadkarni. “Whenever you’re placed in a decision-making situation, ask yourself how people feel, how they might react and what’s at stake.”
- Don’t let adversity hold you back: When things get difficult — at work or outside it — consider what you can learn from the situation and how you want to move forward, rather than letting it stall your progress.
- Participate in training: Training programs can help strengthen emotional intelligence skills. “They involve learning the theory of emotions and how they motivate our behavior and thinking,” said Woodfall. “This gives a solid foundation, which leads to self-understanding and an understanding of others. The best programs involve coaching to support the behavior changes and feedback loops that lead to performance increases.”
- Find a mentor: Surround yourself with people who demonstrate strong emotional intelligence and make thoughtful decisions. Over time, those influences shape how you approach challenges and relationships.
Developing emotional intelligence in business isn’t a one-time exercise — it’s an ongoing practice that shapes how you show up for your team, your clients and yourself. While others are busy chasing the latest strategies and tools, the time you invest in understanding and managing emotions will quietly become one of your most durable competitive advantages.
Blair Nicole Nastasi and Sean Peek contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
