Articles #emotional intelligence

This article exposes how traditional interviews often fail to identify the most capable candidates, especially those affected by illness, trauma, anxiety, or past workplace bullying. It explores how the brain’s threat response (fight-flight-freeze) impairs verbal performance—leading strong professionals to “fail” interviews despite having deep expertise. Through real-life examples, it reveals how lack of emotional intelligence, poor question design, and rigid recruitment practices undermine fairness and exclude highly competent people. It argues that if organisations truly want to hire great leaders—not just confident speakers—they must redesign interviews with empathy, flexibility, and psychological insight.

Emotionally intelligent leadership is not a soft skill — it is a critical business capability that drives customer loyalty, staff engagement, innovation, and strategic performance. This article explores how leaders who understand and manage emotions — both their own and their teams’ — create cultures where people care, collaborate, and continually improve. Drawing on research from Yale professor Marc Brackett, Herzberg’s Motivation–Hygiene Theory, and Steve Peters’ Chimp Paradox, we show what happens when EQ is ignored: conflict, disengagement, poor customer experience, and damaging turnover. Robust Leaders helps organisations cultivate emotional intelligence as a core leadership system for sustainable business success.