Emotional Intelligence in Communication

Same Promotion. Two Different Worlds. Story 1: Arjun gets promoted. He calls his wife, parents, and mentor. They cheer. His boss pats his back—“Next stop, leadership!” He updates LinkedIn, receives 350 likes. Celebration dinner is booked. He’s already thinking of the next step. He feels seen. Story 2: Naina gets promoted. She pauses. Her first thought? “How will I manage the kids’ pickup now?” Second thought—“I’ll need help with the in-laws’ appointments.” She shares the news at home. Mixed reactions. "Won’t it get too hectic?” “Are you sure you want this?” She updates LinkedIn two weeks later. The post is carefully worded—not “I’m proud to share” but “Grateful for the opportunity.” She celebrates quietly—between wrapping up a meeting and preparing dinner. She feels proud… and a little guilty. Same designation. Same responsibilities. But the emotional cost? Unequal. Because for many women, each step up at work requires two steps of negotiation at home. Not just with others—but often, with themselves. Let’s rewrite this narrative. Let’s stop expecting women to manage success. Let’s start allowing them to own it.

I see them in almost every team I work with. They’re not the loudest voices, not the ones chasing the spotlight and yet without them, the whole system starts to wobble. Behavioral scientist Jon Levy calls them glue players - the ones who make a team connected. They’re the social fabric of collaboration: 🧠 high in emotional intelligence, 🤝 putting the team above themselves, ⚙️ quietly doing the small, essential tasks that hold performance together. - They don’t compete for attention. - They sense tension before it escalates. - They make space for voices that would otherwise go unheard. And … they’re often women. What we call “helpfulness,” “empathy,” or “emotional labor” in women is actually the leadership work that keeps teams functional. Yet it’s invisible in most performance reviews. 🏢 If your organization wants to keep their glue players, you need to: 1. Redefine performance to include relational impact. 2. Acknowledge invisible labor: inclusion work, mentorship, emotional holding. 3. Reward connectors, not just achievers. Because when glue players burn out or leave, teams quietly lose their trust, courage, and flow. In my work with leadership teams, I help organizations recognize and nurture exactly these dynamics, building cultures where psychological safety and performance reinforce each other. Because the work we call “soft” is often the hardest and the most valuable work of all. 🤔 P.S.: What would change in organizations if “relational impact” became a formal part of performance evaluation?

💥 “Jingjin, what are you wearing right now?” Twelve years ago my Division VP called while I was prepping for a QBR. “I need you to jump into a client meeting this afternoon,” He said, one of the world’s largest automotive OEMs, high stakes, 6 hours to prepare. Then the pause. “What are you wearing right now?” 🧭 I thought he meant dress code. He didn’t. He lowered his voice: “The president has a reputation for hitting on women. I want you to be prepared.” Translation: deliver the work and survive the room. 🧪 I had 6 hours and 2 checklists. First: deck, storyline, numbers. Second: don’t get blindsided. I pulled in a junior male as a wingman, shifted the meeting to a glass-walled room, and rehearsed simple, steady lines I could drop without flinching: “Let’s stick to the agenda.” “We’re here for the deal.” The meeting landed. No comments. But the aftertaste stayed... the quiet tax is the mental tab women keep open while doing the actual job. 🧊 That call taught me a rotten lesson baked into leadership: Women are asked to calculate risk before we contribute value. We speak while scanning exits. We present while monitoring tone. None of this shows up in KPIs, but it drains authority like a leaky valve. 🪫 Here’s the part we rarely say out loud: running two operating systems, delivery and defense, dilutes presence. You’re not “overreacting.” You’re making the invisible visible. And visibility is the first step to power. 🛠️ What I wish someone had told me then: 1. Bring your buffer. Don’t be afraid to request someone in the room with you, not to assist you technically, but to dilute the power imbalance. It’s not weakness. It’s strategy.    2. Pre-empt boundary crossing. If you’re warned someone is inappropriate, name it before it happens. “Just to clarify, I’ll be focused strictly on business today.” Let them know they won’t get away with casual harassment cloaked as banter. 3. Control the setting when you can. Suggest public venues, group meetings, or shorter time slots. Private dinners and “casual drinks” are not neutral spaces. Stop feeling guilty for adjusting logistics to protect your dignity. 4. Write it down. Date, time, words, witnesses. Not to be paranoid, because patterns persuade even when people don’t. ⚖️ If you’re still wondering whether equity has arrived, ask who must plan their safety before they speak, and who just gets to speak. 🌀 That’s why Uma and I built ㊙️ The Private Circle ㊙️ A 3-month, high-touch strategic space for 5 senior executive women. Not “women supporting women.” A crucible. $3,998, by design, for leaders with skin in the game who want to change how power moves through them. 🚀 November intake is full, but we may run a parallel intake. If this is your season to stop leaking power, read the details and DM me https://lnkd.in/g7SSRnvG 👊 The work and the room. Master both, and then redesign the room.

Why Women Get Punished for Negotiating the Way Men Do The backlash research, and the one reframe that changes the outcome. - - - You ask your boss directly for the resources you need. Your male peer does the exact same thing in the next meeting. He's seen as decisive. You're seen as... a lot. This isn't in your head. Researchers at Harvard and Carnegie Mellon had evaluators review identical negotiation scripts - the only variable changed was the gender of the person asking. Women who initiated negotiations for more compensation were penalized at more than three times the rate men were, rated as significantly less "nice" and more demanding for behavior that, coming from a man, barely registered (Bowles, Babcock & Lai, Harvard Kennedy School). Here's the part most leadership advice skips: the penalty isn't for asking. It's for who the ask appears to be for. The same researchers found that when women advocate assertively on someone else's behalf - for their team, a direct report, a project - the backlash disappears. Same tone. Same directness. Same request. Radically different reception. So if you've felt that flicker of hesitation before asking for the resources, the credit, or the clearer mandate - while watching a male colleague do it without a second thought - that hesitation is data, not a personality flaw. The fix isn't to shrink the ask. It's to shift the frame: Not "I need more budget." "The team can't hit the Q3 number without more budget." Not "I should be getting credit for this." "The team's work on this needs to be visible at the leadership level." Not "I need a clearer mandate." "The team needs clarity on scope to move fast - and that starts with me having it." Same assertiveness. Same outcome you're after. A completely different social read. This isn't about abandoning your ambitions or authenticity. It's about knowing the terrain well enough to walk it without paying a tax your peers don't pay. - - - I write about (and coach executives on) leadership dynamics like this regularly - follow along if you want more of it in your feed.

If you’re a leader, you’ll be judged not by how you handle the easy conversations - but by how you deal with the difficult ones. My very first act as a manager, aged 23, was to sit down with a man in his fifties and tell him his role was no longer needed. He was respected and experienced. A really decent person. But his skills no longer matched the business. The conversation should’ve happened much sooner - but none of my predecessors had the courage. Here’s what I’ve learned about difficult conversations since then: 1. Prepare more than you think you need to. Clarity, language, timing. It all matters, particularly the first few sentences. 2. Approach with humility. You don’t have all the answers, and you’re not the hero of this story. 3. See it through their eyes. Compassion starts with understanding what this moment means for them. 4. Stay steady. Don’t rush. Make space for the silence and the emotion. 5. Remember the importance of their dignity. However tough the news, they should leave with their self-respect intact. And if you’re on the receiving end of a difficult conversation? Try to separate the message from your identity. It’s happened to me before and it’ll happen again. It’s painful, but it’s not the sum of who you are. The hardest conversations are the ones you never forget. But handled with care, they’re also the ones that build your character as a leader. #CareerMoment LinkedIn News UK

Working with people you find difficult is no joke. It can impact your well-being, your performance, and definitely your ability to enjoy your job. For Harvard Business Review, I shared 7 strategies to help you work more effectively with challenging coworkers, whether you're dealing with an insecure boss, a passive-aggressive peer, or someone whose behavior simply gets under your skin (we all know people like that!). Here’s a quick overview: 1️⃣ Remember your perspective is just one of many. We all see situations through our own lens. Try asking yourself: Could I be wrong? 2️⃣ Be aware of your biases. From confirmation bias to affinity bias, our brains take shortcuts that often distort how we perceive others, especially those who are different from us. 3️⃣ Don’t make it “me against them.” Reframe the conflict as a shared problem to solve, not a personal battle to win. 4️⃣ Know your goal. What are you actually trying to achieve - peace, productivity, recognition? Let that intention guide how you show up. 5️⃣ Be careful with venting and gossip. Some venting can be helpful, if done the right way. But negatively intended gossip can harden your view, damage your credibility, and reinforce negativity. 6️⃣ Experiment to find what works. Try small behavior shifts and observe the impact. If one approach doesn’t work, try another. Think of it as an experiment, not a fix. 7️⃣ Stay curious. Certainty keeps us stuck. Curiosity opens the door to empathy, creativity, and sometimes even resolution. These aren’t quick fixes - nothing worthwhile is - but they can help you feel more grounded and less reactive, even when someone else’s behavior doesn’t change. Link to the full article is in the comments 👇 Image alt text: How to Navigate Conflict with a Coworker

There is an invisible tax we pay for being the 'only woman in the room'. I’ve spent years in finance and startup boardrooms but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m also the woman who has tried to calculate:  - If I should wear a blazer (too formal?) or skip it (not serious enough? - Whether my voice will be heard if I speak first or dismissed if I speak last. Research from Harvard Business Review found that women speak 25% less than men in meetings where they’re outnumbered, even when they’re experts in the room. But the study also tracked their prep time. Women in male-dominated settings spent 30% more time preparing for the same meetings. This isn’t about confidence. It’s about the cognitive load of constant calculation. When I’m the only woman in a room full of men, I’m running parallel processing: → Is my idea good enough? → Am I being too aggressive or not aggressive enough? → Did that interruption happen because my point wasn’t clear, or because…? → Should I laugh at that joke that made me uncomfortable? A 2023 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research tracked startup founders and found that women founders were asked an average of 67% more follow-up questions about their credentials and team composition than male founders with identical backgrounds. Same credentials but different scrutiny. The exhausting part isn’t being the only woman. It’s the invisible work of managing everyone else’s comfort with you being there. It’s code-switching, over-preparing, and second-guessing whether your legitimate frustration will be labeled as “emotional.” At EduFund, I made a deliberate choice: hire for diversity early, not later. Not because it’s the right thing to do (though it is), but because homogeneous teams have homogeneous blindspots and in a market as complex as India, blindspots are expensive. The tax isn’t just on the women in the room. It’s on: - the companies that never get their perspective - the solutions that never get built - the markets that never get served. What invisible work do you find yourself doing in professional spaces?

We can’t keep calling them “tough conversations” because if that’s how we see them, we’ll keep avoiding them. Few leaders enjoy conversations where something needs to be said, but saying it might cause discomfort. BUT every great leader has learned how to have them. 👉 Avoiding them leads to confusion and resentment. 👉 Handling them badly leads to conflict and defensiveness. 👉 Handling them well leads to trust, clarity, and respect. Tough conversations aren’t about being tough on people- they’re about being clear with people. When something isn’t working- a behaviour, a performance issue, a broken agreement- silence doesn’t protect relationships. It slowly damages them. People can feel when you’re frustrated but not saying it. They fill in the blanks themselves, often imagining the worst. Tough conversations are not about winning or losing. They’re about understanding and alignment. When your goal is to be right, the other person becomes defensive. When your goal is to learn and clarify, the other person becomes open. 💡Top Tips Approach each conversation with three intentions: 1️⃣ Clarity...What’s really going on here? 2️⃣ Care...How can I express this in a way that respects both of us? 3️⃣ Curiosity... What might I be missing? When clarity, care, and curiosity work together, conversations shift from confrontation to collaboration. Honest conversation, even when uncomfortable, is an act of respect. It says, “You matter enough for me to be honest with you.” That’s why great leaders don’t avoid conversations. They approach them with preparation, care, and clarity. Because a tough conversation, done well, can strengthen a relationship- not damage it. You can’t build accountability without honesty. You can’t build trust without transparency. When you speak the truth with genuine care, you’re not making life difficult, you’re being a leader.

People with high EQ earn up to $29K more per year. Why? Because emotional intelligence drives trust, leadership, and results. Technical skills might land you the job. Emotional intelligence gets you promoted. Most people think strong performance is enough. But here’s the truth: Promotions and raises don’t just go to the most skilled. They go to those who: ✅ Navigate conflict with calm ✅ Communicate clearly under pressure ✅ Make others feel seen and supported That’s emotional intelligence. And it’s one of the most overlooked leadership skills. What does EQ look like at work? 8 powerful ways to show it: 1/ Make space for emotions (even if you disagree). Validating emotions builds connection and trust. ➟ “I can see how that would be frustrating.” 2/ Set boundaries without apologizing. Clear limits show self-respect and strength. ➟ “I’m at capacity. Let’s find a better time to discuss.” 3/ Stay calm when others get defensive. Your steadiness helps de-escalate tension. ➟ “Let’s slow down and take one step at a time.” 4/ Admit when you’re wrong and adjust quickly. Owning mistakes builds trust and momentum. ➟ “That’s a good point. Let’s rethink this.” 5/ Pause to reset before emotions take over. A short pause prevents long-term damage. ➟ “I need a moment to clear my head. I’ll be back.” 6/ Express disagreement without creating conflict. Disagreeing respectfully keeps dialogue productive. ➟ “Here’s how I’m thinking about it…” 7/ Give feedback that helps people grow. Clarity with kindness inspires improvement. ➟ “Here’s what worked. One thing to try next…” 8/ Choose connection when it’s easier to shut down. Staying present shows maturity and care. ➟ “Let’s talk when you’re ready. I want to help.” These aren't “soft skills.” They’re the hardest (and most human) skills you’ll ever master. The results speak for themselves: Leaders with high EQ see: • 34% higher team engagement • 20% better productivity • 63% lower turnover But the real ROI? You become the kind of leader people don’t just follow. They fight to work with. Reshare ♻️ to help someone in your network. And give me a follow for more posts like this.

Over the past 20 years, I've had the opportunity to work with the world's best leaders. Here’s the truth I’ve seen across every industry, team, and culture: Emotionally intelligent leaders don’t fear criticism. Most people don’t struggle with criticism because of the words being said; they struggle because of the emotions those words trigger. They use it. They turn feedback into fuel. Here’s how you can handle criticism with emotional intelligence: 1) Don’t react Work on self-regulating. Pause for 2–3 seconds. Breathe. Let the emotional spike settle. Instant reactions destroy clarity. Regulated responses create it. 2) Separate the message from the emotion. Ask yourself: What part of this feedback is valuable? What’s not? Self-awareness turns defensiveness into insight. 3) Assume positive intent, even when it’s hard. Most people aren’t trying to attack you. They’re trying to be heard. This mindset shift can transform high-performing teams. 4) Get curious, not combative. Say: “Help me understand what you’re seeing.” Questions lower tensions; curiosity opens doors. 5) Take ownership of your part. Emotionally intelligent leaders reflect, adjust, and move forward. 6) Use criticism to grow your leadership presence. Every piece of feedback is data about: • How you’re showing up • How others experience you • How you can communicate more effectively Criticism is an opportunity reflect, grow and respond with confidence. If you want to lead with influence, trust, and emotional maturity, mastering this skill is non-negotiable. What’s one strategy that has helped you handle tough feedback more effectively? Follow me, Christopher D. Connors, for more insights on how to lead with emotional intelligence.