Where EI came from - and what it promised
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Psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey publish an article describing a new construct: the ability to recognize, use, understand, and manage emotions. Academic, precise, careful.
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Daniel Goleman writes the book. And the world explodes.
It was ready for it. The nineties were the "Decade of the Brain" - neuroscience was entering the mainstream, everyone wanted to know how the mind works. At the same time - the rise of corporate culture, management by objectives, rationality as a virtue. IQ as the only measure of intelligence was starting to crack under the weight of reality: why do so many brilliant people make terrible bosses?
Goleman gave an answer: because they lack "something else." EQ. Emotional quotient. And suddenly it had a name, a scale, trainings, certifications, 360-degree assessments.
Was the question Goleman asked valid? Yes. Is the answer he proposed simple? I'm not sure.
Goleman's five components - and what's strange about them
Goleman breaks EI into five elements. Let's look at each one.
Self-awareness. You recognize your emotions as they appear. Sounds simple. But... is "recognition" the same as "understanding"? I can know I'm angry. But do I know what exactly I'm angry about? Can I distinguish anger born of helplessness from anger born of a sense of injustice? Self-awareness isn't a label. It's a full address.
Self-regulation. You manage emotions instead of being ruled by them. And here my first serious question appears: where is the line between regulation and suppression? If I feel anger but don't show it - am I "managing" it, or hiding it? Does the emotion go somewhere, or does it just stop being visible?
Motivation. You're guided by internal values and long-term goals, not impulses. Beautiful. But is motivation "emotional" or rational? Is this a component of EI, or just... maturity? And what about people whose internal motivation conflicts with what the organization wants from them?
Empathy. You understand the emotional state of others. But "understand" - how? Through your own experience? Through observation? Through intellectual analysis of behavior? Affective empathy (I feel what you feel) is something entirely different from cognitive empathy (I understand that you feel it) - a distinction rooted in neuroscience and research by, among others, Simon Baron-Cohen. Goleman treats them together. Is that right?
Social skills. You build relationships, manage conflict, inspire. And this is where I pause longest. Because "social skills" are something you can learn without any authentic emotional experience. It's a behavioral competence. A technique. You can practice it like speaking to camera.
But is that still "emotional"?
The paradox: EI as the art of performing?
The post that prompted these reflections contains one sentence I keep coming back to: "I wonder if 'high EI' is just a beautiful way of saying: I know how to play the room."
And that's not provocation for its own sake.
Does a person with "high EI" in Goleman's model actually feel more? Or do they just manage better what they show?
Imagine a manager who always makes the right faces in meetings. Nods with understanding. Asks open questions. Never explodes. Their 360s mark "very high empathy." And after the meeting - door closed, hard decision made, zero consideration of what was heard.
Is that EI? Behaviorally - yes. But something smells off.
Where is the line between authentically experiencing and authentically responding to others' emotions... and technically skilled performance of someone who experiences and responds?
And - more importantly - is that line visible to the people around them?
And this is the problem for organizations building 'EQ development' programs. If we're teaching behaviors - rather than developing capacity - are we building better leaders, or better performers?
Innate empathy vs. learned empathy
This is exactly where the split between two research streams appears.
Mayer and Salovey (and later Caruso) treated EI as an ability - like musical ear. You can develop it, but you have a starting point. Some people "read emotions" naturally. Others don't.
Goleman and his followers argue: you can learn it. EI is a competence. You can develop it like any other skill.
Both approaches have consequences.
If EI is an ability - then "empathy trainings" are in some sense fiction. You can teach someone empathic behaviors. You can't teach someone to feel.
If EI is a competence - then any person with the right training can "act empathically." Which means you could have an organization full of people who behave empathically and feel nothing behind it.
And what does that mean for a leader? Does it even matter if "the effect is the same"?
I'm not sure the effect is the same. I sense that people can tell authenticity from performance - they just can't always name it. They say: "there's something off about this manager, but I don't know what." And that "something" might be exactly this.
What does this mean for you?
If you're a leader: it's worth asking yourself not "am I behaving empathically" - but "does my behavior come from something real, or from training?" One doesn't exclude the other. But it's worth knowing what you're actually doing.
If you're an employee: "there's something off about this manager" might be exactly this - a moment where the behavior checks out, but nothing is sitting behind it. Your intuition in this area is worth more than you think.
If you're responsible for development programs: before buying another empathy training - ask yourself whether you're teaching people to feel, or just to act as if they do. The difference is smaller than you think in the short term. Larger than you think in the long term.
Ending - without answers
Let's go back to the beginning.
"Intelligence" and "emotional" - what do these two words do to each other?
Maybe "emotional intelligence" is the ability to listen to emotions - your own and others' - and respond to them in a way that builds something. Not managing them. Not taming them. Listening.
Or maybe it's something else entirely.
I'm not resolving this. Because I don't think anyone has truly resolved it - despite thirty years of research, thousands of trainings, and millions of repetitions of the word "EQ" on slides.
I'll leave you with one question...
When did someone at work last "behave empathically" toward you - and did you feel it was genuine? How could you tell?