Work & Economy

Why employers want workers with high EQs

Illustration by Liz Zonarich/Harvard Staff

Liz Mineo

Harvard Staff Writer

August 29, 2025

6 min read

‘Future of Jobs’ report highlights value of emotional intelligence

A recent report on “The Future of Jobs” by the World Economic Forum found that while analytical thinking is still the most coveted skill among employers, several emotional intelligence skills (i.e., motivation, self-awareness, empathy, and active listening) rank among the top 10 in a list of 26 core competencies.

In this edited conversation with Ron Siegel, assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, he explains why emotional intelligence skills are crucial in the workplace, especially in the age of AI.

What’s emotional intelligence? Is it a different way of being smart?

It is a kind of being smart, but it’s not what we usually think of as being smart. In recent decades, psychologists who study intelligence have become aware that there are many different kinds of intelligence. You could think of somebody who has natural athletic ability as having a kind of body or coordination intelligence or somebody who has a natural math ability as having a good deal of mathematical intelligence, and so on.

When we look over human experience in the developed world, where many people have basic food, clothing, and shelter, there’s nonetheless a great deal of conflict and unhappiness. Most of this strife involves the challenges of working with our emotions as humans, and particularly the complexity of our reactions in relationships. Emotional intelligence is a particular skill of recognizing one’s own feelings, working with those feelings, and not just reacting in ways that are going to be problematic. It also involves recognizing the feelings that are arising in others, and then being able to work with others, to work out conflicts, or get along well with one another.

Why do employers consider emotional intelligence one of the top core skills needed to thrive in the workplace?

The importance of emotional competence comes from the observation in the business world, in academia, the military, and every human enterprise, that there are people who are highly competent in technical and analytical skills, but when they interact with others, projects stall. So many resources are wasted in emotional misunderstandings or in people’s difficulty with emotional regulation. We humans are grossly inefficient in trying to get things done because most of our energy is spent on trying to make sure we look good, or on making sure that people think of us in a certain way, or on getting triggered by one another. I suspect that business leaders have realized that it’s relatively easy to get technical expertise in almost anything, but to get people who can understand and get along with one another, that is a challenge. In many projects, there is a growing awareness that this skill is going to be the one that carries the day.

Can you talk about the evolution of the concept of emotional intelligence since publication of the 1995 book “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. ’74?

Humans have known about this for a long time. Western industrialized cultures have very much favored other forms of intelligence, like logical analytical ability, mathematical ability, and entrepreneurial skills over relational skills and the ability to connect with feelings and connect with one another. Over the years, psychologists have become more aware of a strong cultural bias toward certain kinds of intelligence and against other kinds of intelligence, and they have tried to rectify that by looking at emotional intelligence. And when Daniel Goleman wrote his landmark book, people started realizing that there are many people who may have high SAT and GRE scores but are not thriving in life or even succeeding in their work. And when we look at why that is, it turns out that they don’t know how to manage their own emotions or how to read other people’s emotions, and they don’t know how to get along effectively with other people, while other people with far lower GRE and SAT scores have skills to understand and read people and can get a team together and lead them to accomplish things and have great success. There’s a growing realization that emotional intelligence matters, even for external material, goal-oriented activities.

Are emotional intelligence skills relevant in the age of AI?

As people increasingly are interacting with chatbots rather than real human beings to get their work done, I suspect that authentic, connected human interactions are going to become more important. Humans are hardwired to be a social species — we long for connection to others. We hate the experience of being ostracized and pushed out of the group. That’s in our basic primate nature, and I suspect that as more of people’s lives are engaged in interactions with AI, even though it does a nice job of imitating human responses, that people will long for simple, natural responses. That’s my hope, anyway, that people will value genuine connection rather than preferring to spend time with chatbots because “My chatbot is so much more complimentary toward me than my spouse or is so much more willing to change its mind to accommodate my needs.” I’m hoping we don’t just go for the chatbots because they’re better at boosting our egos.

“As people increasingly are interacting with chatbots rather than real human beings to get their work done, I suspect that authentic, connected human interactions are going to become more important.”

What are the components of emotional intelligence? How can we become emotionally competent?

The first component is self-awareness, which means being conscious of our own thoughts, feelings, and what’s happening inside of us. It is the capacity to notice that every simple interaction stimulates myriad different emotions and associations to all the other moments in our life. The second big area is self-regulation, which is the ability to manage our emotions in a healthy way. It means that we’re able to feel the full range of our emotions and yet not be overwhelmed by them. The third big component is social awareness or empathy, and that’s noticing what’s going on in others. This means being free enough of self-preoccupation so that we can see that other people have needs, desires, fears, and hurts, and so we can respond to them in appropriate ways. And the fourth big component is social skills, which is the ability to work well in teams, to be able to solve conflicts and help the team to cooperate.

Emotional competence is key in our personal lives too. I’m a clinical psychologist by training and I know that most people are not struggling because they can’t figure out the answer to a technical question. They are struggling because they can’t figure out how to get along with their kids, their parents, their spouses, their siblings, their neighbors, or their friends. How do we stop hurting each other’s feelings and find a way to feel safely connected and love one another? That’s our big challenge.