Why Emotional Intelligence Isn’t Soft

RAW Leadership Podcast Ep 51 - Why Emotional Intelligence isn’t Soft _ Steve Barker

...It's actually a Leadership Advantage

There is still a belief in some workplaces that emotional intelligence is somehow the “soft” side of leadership.

That empathy is soft.

That understanding people is soft.

That creating psychological safety is soft.

That caring about the people you lead somehow means lowering your standards or avoiding difficult conversations.

I couldn't disagree more.

Emotional intelligence isn't about making leadership softer. It's about making leadership more effective.

When leaders understand themselves, understand human behaviour and know how to adapt their approach, they create safer cultures, stronger relationships, better performance and teams that want to stay.

And that makes emotional intelligence a genuine leadership advantage.

"Leading With Love" - imagine saying that to a very masculine audience of 120 people?

A few years ago, I ran an international leadership conference in Wagga Wagga.

There were around 120 people in the room, many from regional Australia, and I stood in front of them and announced that we were going to talk about something I called:

Leading with love.

You can probably imagine some of the faces looking back at me.

But when I talk about leading with love, I'm not talking about being soft.

Think about the people you genuinely care about.

You support them.

You encourage them.

You want them to succeed.

But you also challenge them.

You establish boundaries.

You tell them when something isn't good enough.

You have difficult conversations when they're needed.

You hold them accountable because you care about what happens to them.

Why should good leadership be any different?

For me, this is where emotional intelligence and authentic leadership come together.

Great leaders care about people while still maintaining expectations, standards and accountability.

Those two things aren't opposites.

They belong together.

Emotional Intelligence Starts With Understanding People

One of the biggest areas I focus on through leadership coaching and leadership development is understanding patterns of human behaviour.

Why?

Because we are all different.

We communicate differently.

We process information differently.

We react differently under pressure.

We have different experiences, expectations, triggers and ways of seeing the world.

Yet one of the most common leadership mistakes is communicating with everyone in exactly the same way and then becoming frustrated when people don't respond in the way we expected.

Emotional intelligence gives leaders the ability to recognise what is happening.

First within themselves.

Then within the other person.

And then within the relationship between them.

That awareness gives us a choice.

We can continue communicating in the way that suits us.

Or we can adapt our approach so the other person has a better chance of hearing and understanding what we're actually trying to communicate.

That's not weakness.

That's effective leadership communication.

A Simple Example of Emotional Intelligence in Action

I was recently coaching someone who was mentoring a younger member of her team.

The younger employee was struggling when she made mistakes. She would become emotional and sometimes cry.

It would have been very easy for the mentor to become frustrated.

“Toughen up.”

“Stop taking everything personally.”

“It's only feedback.”

We've probably all heard versions of those statements in workplaces.

But this leader did something different.

She recognised that the way she was communicating wasn't working for this particular person.

So she adapted.

She explained that the employee wasn't being judged.

She wasn't being blamed.

She wasn't in trouble.

The purpose of the conversation was to help her understand what had happened, learn from it and become a stronger member of the team.

The response changed.

That's emotional intelligence in action.

It's also psychological safety in action.

Psychological safety doesn't need to be another corporate initiative, policy or poster on the wall.

It can begin with leaders understanding human behaviour and learning how to communicate with people in ways that allow them to feel safe enough to listen, learn, contribute and grow.

Psychological Safety Does Not Mean No Accountability

This is an important distinction.

Creating psychological safety does not mean removing accountability.

Emotionally intelligent leadership isn't about being nice all the time.

Leaders still need standards.

Teams still need boundaries.

Poor performance still needs addressing.

Inappropriate behaviour still needs challenging.

And sometimes leaders need to have very difficult conversations.

In fact, I would argue that emotional intelligence makes leaders better equipped to have difficult conversations.

Why?

Because instead of simply thinking:

“How do I tell them what they've done wrong?”

an emotionally intelligent leader starts thinking:

“How do I communicate this so this person understands what needs to change?”

The standard hasn't disappeared.

The accountability hasn't disappeared.

What's changed is the quality of the communication.

That's a significant difference.

Leadership Is Influence

My definition of leadership is very simple:

Leadership is the ability to influence another human being for the greater good.

That last part matters.

If I'm influencing someone purely to make my own life easier, that's not leadership.

That's manipulation.

Effective leadership is about understanding people well enough to help them perform, develop, grow and contribute.

And you can't do that particularly well if you don't understand human behaviour.

That's why emotional intelligence is such an important part of manager development, executive coaching and leadership development.

The better we become at understanding ourselves and understanding other people, the more effectively we can influence for the greater good.

Emotional Intelligence Shapes Workplace Culture

Leadership behaviour doesn't exist in isolation.

It creates ripples throughout an organisation.

When people feel safe, seen, heard and respected, relationships become stronger.

When relationships become stronger, trust grows.

When trust grows, people are more willing to communicate openly, contribute ideas, ask questions, admit mistakes and challenge appropriately.

That influences employee engagement, team performance and productivity.

It also influences whether people want to stay.

That's why there is such a strong connection between leadership, workplace culture and employee retention.

When I encounter a business struggling with high staff turnover, disengagement, poor communication, conflict or a toxic workplace culture, one of the first places I look is leadership.

Because:

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

Workplace culture isn't created by the words written on a wall.

It's created every day through people's choices and behaviours.

And leaders have an enormous influence over those behaviours.

Emotionally Intelligent Leaders Still Have Boundaries

There is another side to this.

Respect and empathy have to work both ways.

Creating a positive workplace culture doesn't mean tolerating unacceptable behaviour.

Leaders have a responsibility to establish and maintain boundaries.

If those boundaries are continually ignored, there must eventually be consequences.

That's not a failure of emotional intelligence.

That's part of it.

Emotionally intelligent leadership combines empathy with accountability, compassion with standards and understanding with responsibility.

That's how strong teams are built.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed

One of the things I hear regularly is:

“I'm just not good with people.”

I don't accept that as a permanent condition.

Emotional intelligence is a skill.

And skills can be developed.

That's one of the reasons I spend so much time teaching leaders simple, evidence-based frameworks around human behaviour, communication, self-awareness, conflict resolution, accountability and difficult conversations.

Once you begin recognising patterns of behaviour, something interesting happens.

You start seeing them everywhere.

You begin recognising your own reactions.

You start noticing how different people respond to pressure.

You become more aware of how your communication affects others.

And instead of simply reacting, you begin making conscious leadership choices.

That's where leadership coaching can have such a significant impact.

We're not trying to turn people into somebody they're not.

We're helping them better understand who they are, understand the people around them and develop the leadership skills to adapt when the situation requires it.

That's the Leadership Advantage

Leadership doesn't need to be complicated.

Strip away the jargon and many of the fundamentals come back to people.

Understand yourself.

Understand other people.

Understand human behaviour.

Recognise what's happening around you.

Adapt your approach.

Communicate effectively.

Create psychological safety.

Maintain accountability.

Build authentic relationships.

Influence people for the greater good.

That's the foundation of the work we do through RAW Leadership.

Because businesses don't simply need more managers.

They need emotionally intelligent, confident and authentic leaders who know how to get the best from their people.

Leaders who create stronger workplace cultures.

Leaders who improve employee engagement and team performance.

Leaders who can have difficult conversations.

Leaders who hold people accountable without destroying relationships.

Leaders who understand that employee retention is influenced enormously by the environment people experience every day.

And leaders who recognise that understanding human behaviour isn't a soft skill.

It's a leadership skill.

Emotional intelligence isn't about making leadership softer.

It's about making leadership more effective.

When leaders understand themselves, understand human behaviour and know how to adapt their approach, they create safer cultures, stronger relationships, better performance and teams that want to stay.

That's not soft leadership.

That's a leadership advantage.

Why not listen to the Podcast in full - it is avaiable on all Podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcast etc) or via this link

RAW Leadership Podcast

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Steve Barker is a Leadership Coach and founder of RAW Leadership, specialising in leadership development, emotional intelligence, human behaviour, workplace culture and developing confident, authentic leaders.

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