Framework library · Leadership, teams and culture
Emotional intelligence (EQ)
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise and manage your own emotions and to read and respond to other people's. In leadership it shows in behaviour others can see: how you react under pressure, whether you listen, how you handle conflict. Rating yourself against specific behaviours, then asking colleagues to rate you on the same ones, turns a vague idea into one or two things to practise.
Use it when
- You have moved from doing the work to managing people and want to see how you come across.
- Feedback from colleagues or a 360 review is about how you handle people rather than what you deliver, and you want to make it specific.
- You are writing a development plan and need to choose one or two behaviours to work on.
- A manager and a coach want a shared vocabulary for a development conversation.
Avoid it when
- You need to select, promote or compare people. Self-ratings are not reliable enough for that. Use evidence of performance and structured interviews, or a validated instrument run by someone qualified to use it.
- A specific behaviour has been raised as a complaint. Deal with it through the agreed process and the evidence, not a self-rating.
- The difficulty lies in the team's goals, roles or workload. Fix those with a Team Canvas or a RACI matrix before looking at one person's behaviour.
How to run it
Rate each statement on recent evidence
Think of the last two months at work. Rate how often each statement has been true of you, not how often you intend it to be.
Set where you need to be
For each component, the level your role now needs. A sales leader may need more social skill than a specialist does, and not every component has to be a 5.
Ask two or three colleagues to rate you
Give them the same statements. Where their view differs from yours by a point or more, note it: that gap is usually the most useful finding.
Pick one behaviour in the weakest component
The workbench shows the weakest component and the gap to where you need to be. Choose one behaviour within it to practise, not the whole component.
Practise in situations that recur
Weekly one-to-ones, pipeline reviews or escalations give enough attempts to see a change. Note briefly what you did each time.
Rate again in three months
Ask the same colleagues again. Behaviour changes slowly, and a change they notice is worth more than one you report.
Work through it
Answer the questions below, or load the worked example to see a finished one. The drawing updates as you type. Export the result as a PowerPoint deck, a Word document, an Excel workbook, a PDF or plain text.
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Mistakes to avoid
- Rating intentions rather than behaviour. Everyone means to listen; the question is whether you did in last week's meetings.
- Treating the result as a fixed trait or a score to compare. It is a reflection on recent behaviour, and behaviour can be practised.
- Trying to improve all five components at once. Pick one behaviour and practise it until colleagues notice.
- Rating someone else with these statements without telling them. It damages trust, and the ratings are guesses.
Where it comes from
Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, "Emotional intelligence", Imagination, Cognition and Personality 9(3), 1990, defined the term as a set of abilities. Daniel Goleman popularised it in Emotional Intelligence (1995) and applied it to leadership in "What Makes a Leader?", Harvard Business Review, 1998, which names the five components used here. The statements in the workbench are our own and are for reflection: they are not a validated psychometric instrument. Source.
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