emotional intelligence

The most competent people I know are pretty good at basically anything they put their minds to, because they just design a process and run it. I think this is largely mental and emotional—the hardest part isn’t figuring out the steps, it’s enduring the psychological discomfort of doing them and then adapting.

Harris says we need to dispel the myth that emotional intelligence is a soft skill, she says EQ is a strength because it takes strength to master oneself, and to humble yourself enough to see another person’s perspective.

This may seem like a dumb question, but have you ever thought about how it is that people can feel their emotions? The answer is that they pay attention to their body. Experiencing an emotion is primarily noticeable based on bodily sensations. People don’t always consciously notice that this is what they’re doing because it’s become so automatic,... See more

Let’s say someone has both a high-functioning theory of mind and an overflowing well of compassion. What then? Well, this is what Hoffman calls “empathic over-arousal.” A person will feel so worn down by the intensity of other people’s emotions that it wears them down — it turns their distress into my actual distress. This might not seem like a bad... See more

When I train leaders in empathy, one of the first hurdles I need to get over is this stereotype that empathy is too soft and squishy for the work environment. It’s easy to debunk that. There are decades of evidence showing that empathy is a workplace superpower.

Employees who believe their organizations, and especially their managers, are empathic... See more