A few weeks ago, my daughters’ K–12 school shared a resource in the weekly newsletter on emotional triggers and healthy response strategies. Upon reading this section, I was pleasantly surprised and impressed that this topic was being acknowledged and that tools were intentionally being disbursed to students as early as kindergartners through seniors in high school. The resource outlined common emotional triggers that students face, such as frustration, embarrassment, rejection, and disappointment, and how students can identify and respond to these feelings in a healthy manner. As a parent, I was proud. As an industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology practitioner, I was fascinated.
We spend a significant portion of our professional lives training adults to regulate their emotions precisely, respond rather than react, and interpret behavior through an empathetic lens. However, here it was, being taught proactively to children who have not even entered the workforce. It made me pause and reflect: What might our workplaces, and our leaders, look like if emotional intelligence were introduced long before someone stepped into a position of power? This question lies at the heart of leadership development science, which emphasizes that habits formed early often become the foundation of adult behavior.
The Connection Between Early Learning and Leadership Development
In industrial-organizational psychology, we often work in the “repair stage,” helping leaders unlearn patterns from years of unmanaged emotions, poor feedback experiences, or reactive workplace cultures. Emotional intelligence (EI), as defined by Daniel Goleman (1995), includes self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. These competencies shape how people handle stress, resolve conflict, and inspire others.
However, what if someone introduced those same skills in the formative years of development? What if future leaders entered organizations already equipped with emotional vocabulary and coping strategies? Instead of teaching self-regulation after a difficult 360-degree feedback report or executive coaching engagement, organizations could cultivate leaders who already know how to pause, reflect, and respond thoughtfully.
As I-O professionals, we recognize that leadership development is both an art and a science. It involves data, observation, structured experience, and learning to navigate the human side of work. The earlier that foundation is laid, the less reactive and more adaptive leaders can become.
From Classroom to Conference Room
In many ways, schools have begun to model what emotionally intelligent organizations strive to create: environments that prioritize understanding, empathy, and reflection before performance or output. The emerging focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) in K–12 education offers a model that mirrors what we try to implement in workplace culture initiatives.
Consider the parallels:
- Self-awareness: Students are encouraged to identify their feelings and name them. Leaders who can articulate their emotions without projecting them build psychological safety in organizations.
- Self-management: Students learn calming strategies when they feel triggered. Leaders who practice emotional regulation during conflict prevent escalation and model stability.
- Social awareness: Students practice empathy by recognizing others’ perspectives. Leaders with empathy read the room, adapt communication styles, and reduce misunderstandings.
- Relationship skills: Students learn how to cooperate and resolve disagreements. Leaders who apply this build trust and strengthen collaboration.
- Responsible decision making: Students are taught to weigh the consequences before acting. Leaders who mirror this habit make more ethical and balanced choices.
These skills are not just “nice to have.” They are performance multipliers, linked to engagement, retention, and overall team health. CASEL’s (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) framework for SEL emphasizes that these competencies are teachable, measurable, and transferable. The bridge between childhood and adulthood is not as long as it seems.
The Workplace Reality
When employees enter organizations, many are rewarded more for their results than reflections. Traditional workplace culture prizes productivity over presence, which can unintentionally discourage emotional expression. Leaders are often told to “leave feelings at the door,” only to discover later that unacknowledged emotions show up through burnout, defensiveness, or disengagement. These behaviors, often misinterpreted as “attitude” or “lack of professionalism,” are human responses to unmet needs. When leaders fail to recognize this, they manage symptoms instead of causes.
As I-O practitioners, we help organizations move from reaction to prevention. We coach leaders to pause before labeling behavior, to ask, “What is driving this?” instead of “What is wrong with this person?” When emotional intelligence becomes part of leadership DNA, not a side skill, teams experience less conflict, faster recovery from setbacks, and stronger interpersonal trust.
Developing Leaders Before Titles
The most forward-thinking organizations will recognize that leadership development does not start with a promotion but with emotional literacy. The next generation of employees, those learning EI in classrooms today, will enter the workforce expecting emotionally aware environments. They will look for workplaces that model what they were taught: acknowledgment, boundaries, and safety.
For current organizations, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is catching up to the emotional fluency these future employees will bring. The opportunity is to create cultures that do not just manage people but understand them.
Practical Applications for Leaders and Organizations
To prepare for an emotionally intelligent workforce, organizations and practitioners can begin now:
- Integrate EI into leadership development. Move beyond one-time training sessions and weave EI into coaching, performance reviews, and promotion criteria.
- Adopt SEL-inspired frameworks. Translate classroom practices, like emotion labeling or reflection questions, into leadership check-ins and debriefs.
- Train for recognition, not reaction. Help managers interpret defensive or withdrawn behaviors as signs of stress, not defiance.
- Model acknowledgment. Encourage leaders to verbalize empathy before solving a problem. “I can see this situation was frustrating” often diffuses tension faster than directives.
- Build EI into early career programs. Teach interns and entry-level employees the same emotional awareness that K–12 students are learning now.
- Treat EI as a measurable competency. Include it in leadership assessments, succession planning, and 360-degree feedback instruments.
Organizations can bridge the gap between classroom and culture by embedding emotional intelligence into systems rather than slogans.
Case Highlights: Emotional Intelligence in Action
- Google–“Search Inside Yourself”: EI-based mindfulness training improved collaboration, innovation, and retention.
- Johnson & Johnson–Emotional Resilience Program: SEL-modeled reflection training increased engagement by 20% and reduced stress-related absences.
- FedEx–“Manager of Choice”: EI training boosted 360-degree feedback scores by 8–11% and improved departmental retention.
- Marriott International–Empathetic Feedback Culture: Empathy-first communication correlated with 80% retention and higher customer satisfaction scores.
- LinkedIn–“Conscious Business” Curriculum: Early career participants reported 32% greater collaboration and stronger project outcomes.
- PepsiCo–EI as a Leadership Metric: Executives high in EI outperformed peers by up to 20% on annual performance goals.
Bottom-Line Impact
Across organizations, emotionally intelligent leadership has been linked to
- 20–25% higher employee engagement
- Up to 50% lower turnover
- 15–30% greater team productivity
- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty
(Sources: Gallup State of the Workplace, 2023; Korn Ferry Global EI Survey, 2022)
Emotional Intelligence in the AI Era
As workplaces become increasingly data-driven, the value of emotional intelligence is expanding, not shrinking. A recent article from the Project Management Newsletter (Project Management Institute, 2025) described EI as “the cornerstone of effective leadership in the AI era,” emphasizing that although technology can analyze and predict, it cannot empathize, inspire, or build trust. This reinforces the idea that developing emotional intelligence early, before positions of power, prepares future leaders to bring balance to a machine-augmented world.
A Generational Shift Worth Noticing
Leaders who once believed feelings had no place in business are now asked to create psychologically safe workplaces where emotions are data, not distractions. The generation currently learning to manage frustration, disappointment, and conflict in school will one day lead teams, and they will expect their organizations to do the same.
If I-O psychology has taught us anything, it is that culture does not change through policy alone. It changes when awareness becomes practice and when leaders model what they hope to inspire. What leadership habits could we intentionally nurture earlier, long before individuals step into positions of power? We are not born emotionally strategic; we are taught. The sooner we embrace that truth, the more sustainable and human our leadership practices will become.
References
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2023). What is SEL? https://casel.org/what-is-sel/
Gallup. (2023). State of the global workplace report. https://www.gallup.com/workplace
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam Books.
Korn Ferry. (2022). The global emotional intelligence study: The business case for empathy in leadership. Korn Ferry Institute.
Project Management Institute. (2025, October 19). Why emotional intelligence will be the most valuable leadership skill in the AI era. Project Management Newsletter. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-emotional-intelligence-most-valuable-e0hyf/
