983: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership: 5 Skills Most Leaders Skip | Leadership Strategies

Shameless Leadership

Sara Dean

Self-improvement, How To, Business, Management, Education

4.7 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2026

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Emotional intelligence is that thing that most people agree is important but few understand how to develop. It can feel tricky - and vulnerable. In this episode, I’m breaking down emotional intelligence skills in a highly practical way. Most leaders assume EQ means “stay calm” or “be nice,” but real emotional intelligence is far more active than that. It’s a set of tangible skills that help you build trust, create psychological safety, and navigate the inevitable tension that comes with people working together. I’m sharing five emotional intelligence skills that I see leaders skip all the time - not because they don’t care, but because no one ever taught them how to actually practice these skills in real moments. Listen in as I walk you through the difference between noticing emotions and naming them, suppressing reactions versus regulating them, and why reading the emotional undercurrent of a room matters just as much as managing the agenda. I share examples from my own leadership experiences, including moments when I’ve felt nervous before stepping on stage for a keynote and how I manage that in real time. I also talk about two of the more challenging leadership skills: holding space without immediately trying to fix someone’s problem, and repairing ruptures when things don’t go the way you intended. People make mistakes. Conversations get messy. What builds real psychological safety isn’t avoiding those moments; it’s how you show up afterward. These five skills are simple and transformative. When leaders practice them consistently, teams feel safer, communication improves, and belonging becomes something people actually experience instead of something written in a company value statement. Emotional intelligence isn’t about perfection. It’s about recognizing and honoring what’s happening inside you and around you, and then choosing how to respond in a way that protects trust and connection. Links Mentioned: Hire Sara to speak: saradean.com/speaking Coach with Sara: https://saradean.com/executive-coaching-services Connect with Sara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saradeanspeaks Watch Shameless Leadership episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saradeanspeaks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
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0:28.7	welcome to shameless leadership i'm your host sarah dean this show is for women, transgender people, non-binary folks, as well as allies, who are committed to advancing their leadership while also advancing the leadership of those around them. In each episode, we will offer practical tips, leadership strategies, and inspiring stories to help you become a more confident, compassionate,
0:55.1	and inclusive leader. The truth is, you were born to lead. What might happen for you if you
1:00.6	were to wholeheartedly embrace that part of yourself? So let's start now, together.
1:05.9	Hello, shameless leaders. Today we are talking about emotional intelligence in leadership and five skills
1:12.5	that most leaders skip overlook, maybe don't have awareness around, or maybe are just underdeveloped
1:20.0	in their emotional intelligence kind of arsenal. When we think about emotional intelligence,
1:25.3	we want to always be thinking first and foremost about how we recognize emotion, how we can name emotion, how we self-regulate around emotion, and then how do we also hold empathy for those who are navigating their emotions around us. And those are kind of the cornerstones or the main touch
1:45.2	points of emotional intelligence is that recognition, self-awareness around it, then looking at
1:51.5	how we self-regulate our emotions, especially in tough moments, and then being able to hold space
1:56.9	for others as they're doing the same with a good degree of empathy. But there's other more
2:02.1	nuanced skills that sometimes we just don't have awareness around. And especially if we are in either
2:08.2	heightened moments or uncomfortable or unusual environments, there's things that can just kind of slip past
2:13.4	us. And a lot of times those are things where we think after the fact, how could I have done that
2:17.2	different? How could I have done that better? Or maybe there's situations where other people
2:21.5	are experiencing a situation very differently from us and we don't know how to address it. So let's
2:27.1	dig into some of those leadership skills around emotional intelligence that might be getting missed
2:32.5	or might not be on your radar. So the first
	...

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