Okuzeka
Management & Leadership vocabulary · Leadership Styles and Skills

Emotional intelligence

Meaning in management & leadership, with examples

nounCommon term

In management & leadership, emotional intelligence means: The ability to notice, understand and manage your own emotions, and to recognise and respond well to the emotions of other people.

In Turkish: duygusal zeka

How it is used

Often shortened to EI or EQ. The idea became popular in business after psychologist Daniel Goleman's 1995 book on the subject. It appears in leadership training, job ads and performance feedback as a key soft skill.

Example sentences

  1. Her emotional intelligence helps her calm angry customers down quickly.

  2. Technical skills got him promoted, but he needs more emotional intelligence to lead a team.

Common collocations

  • high emotional intelligence
  • show emotional intelligence
  • emotional intelligence training
  • develop emotional intelligence
  • leadershipThe ability to guide a group of people towards a shared goal, and the act of doing so, through example, influence and clear direction rather than authority alone.
  • conflict resolutionThe process of dealing with a disagreement between people or groups in a fair and calm way, so that they can find a solution and keep working together.
  • psychological safetyA shared belief within a team that people can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes or disagree without being punished or embarrassed.
  • coachingA way of helping someone improve their skills and performance mainly by asking questions and guiding them to find their own answers, rather than telling them what to do.

More terms: Leadership Styles and Skills

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