Emotional intelligence in leadership starts with noticing the habits, beliefs and behaviours that shape how you respond to people, pressure and change.
There is no shortage of leadership advice.
Read more. Work harder. Set better goals. Communicate clearly. Be resilient. Build a great culture.
Most leaders already know these things. The real difficulty is rarely knowing what to do. It is recognising what gets in the way of doing it consistently, particularly when the pressure is on.
That is the territory Andrew Stirrup and I explore in this episode of the Unlocking Human Potential podcast.
Andrew is a leadership consultant, behavioural specialist and founder of AJ Stirrup. His work helps leaders and organisations develop greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence and behavioural clarity. He also helps businesses turn their stated values into the everyday behaviours that shape culture and performance.
Our conversation ranges from sleep, attention and the impact of technology to DISC behavioural styles, feedback, self-belief, organisational values, change and team performance. Yet one central idea connects it all:
The quality of our leadership is shaped by the habits we practise, the stories we believe and the behaviours we tolerate.
If we want a different result from ourselves, our teams or our businesses, we need the courage to examine all three.
Leadership performance begins before the working day
We began with something deceptively simple: sleep.
Andrew shared how changes to his routine had affected the quality of his sleep and, in turn, how refreshed, creative and able to manage pressure he felt. It led us to challenge an unhelpful badge of honour that still exists in parts of business culture: the leader who survives on four hours’ sleep and wears exhaustion as evidence of commitment.
That is not high performance. It is often depleted performance dressed up as dedication.
The way a leader sleeps, recovers, thinks and manages their attention influences how they enter every conversation that follows. When our capacity is low, we are more likely to react, rush, avoid, overpower or withdraw. When we are better resourced, we have a greater chance of pausing and choosing how we want to respond.
Optimising yourself is not indulgent. It is part of your responsibility to the people you lead.
This is not about creating a flawless morning routine or becoming obsessed with wearable data. It is about asking a more grounded question:
What helps me turn up as the leader my people actually need?
Goals, action and persistence: simple does not mean easy
Andrew offered a straightforward framework for progress:
- Have a clear goal.
- Take productive action.
- Be persistent.
There is nothing flashy about it, and that is precisely why it matters.
Many founders and leaders do have goals, but some are inherited, vague or too safe to generate genuine energy. Others know what they want but repeatedly take actions that maintain the present rather than create the future. Then there are those who begin well but stop when progress becomes uncomfortable or slower than expected.
A meaningful goal gives direction. Productive action creates movement. Persistence allows that movement to compound.
The awkward truth is that we cannot say a goal matters while continually choosing habits that take us away from it.
Andrew’s challenge is practical. Write down what you are currently doing, then sort those actions into two columns:
- What is taking me towards my goal?
- What is taking me away from it?
Then apply a simple review:
- What do I need to stop?
- What do I need to start?
- What should I continue?
Clarity can feel uncomfortable because it removes some of our favourite hiding places. It also gives us somewhere useful to begin.
Why emotional intelligence in leadership creates behavioural choice
One of the strongest themes in our conversation is that emotional intelligence is developmental. It is not a fixed quality that you either possess or lack. Therefore, emotional intelligence in leadership can improve when people practise greater awareness and make more deliberate behavioural choices.
Andrew describes two cornerstones:
- Self-awareness: understanding your thoughts, feelings, triggers, beliefs and behavioural preferences.
- Awareness of others: recognising other people’s feelings and perspectives, showing empathy and valuing difference.
This matters because every strength has a shadow.
A decisive, results-focused leader may create welcome momentum. Under pressure, that same drive can become overpowering or dismissive. A warm and sociable leader may create energy and connection, but could avoid a difficult conversation for fear of rejection. A steady, supportive leader may protect harmony while leaving important tension unspoken. A precise, analytical leader may raise standards, yet struggle when feedback feels like criticism of their competence.
Behavioural tools such as DISC can give people a language for these preferences. Used well, they do not put people into boxes. They help us notice the box we may already be putting ourselves or somebody else into.
The point is not to say, “That is just how I am.”
The point is to ask:
How is the way I naturally behave affecting the person in front of me?
Emotionally intelligent leadership is the ability to notice your instinctive response and decide whether it will help. Sometimes you need to speak with more directness. Sometimes you need to listen longer. Sometimes the most powerful intervention is one well-judged question.
That is not weakness. It is range.
Feedback often touches the fear beneath the behaviour
Feedback is rarely received as neutral information. It lands on top of our beliefs about ourselves.
One person hears, “You are losing control.” Another hears, “They do not like me.” Someone else hears, “I have let people down,” or, “They do not trust me to get it right.”
This is why simply telling leaders to “be open to feedback” is not enough. We need to become curious about the meaning we attach to it.
Andrew encourages leaders to reflect as though they were an independent observer:
- What actually happened?
- What did I think and feel?
- How did that affect my behaviour?
- What might the other person have experienced?
- What would I choose to do differently next time?
Reflection is not an invitation to give your inner critic a microphone and a stadium sound system. Its purpose is learning, not punishment.
When self-reflection becomes self-attack, Andrew suggests changing the perspective with a deceptively useful question:
What is the opposite of that?
If you avoided the conversation, what would constructive engagement look like? If you assumed the worst, what else might be true? If a past experience is shaping your expectations, what did it teach you, and what do you want to create now?
The past can inform us without being allowed to run the meeting.
Be careful which beliefs you let in
Andrew tells a story from childhood that will resonate with many people.
After hearing his father reassure his brother that “Stirrups have never been any good at science,” Andrew accepted the statement as an easy explanation for his own performance. It was offered with kind intent, but it became what he calls a “get-out-of-jail-free card.” If being poor at science was simply part of the family identity, there was little reason to challenge it.
Leaders do this in organisations more often than they realise.
“That team always resists change.”
“She is not strategic.”
“He is brilliant with clients but cannot lead people.”
“We have tried that before.”
Repeated often enough, a passing opinion can become a shared belief. Shared beliefs shape expectations; expectations influence behaviour; behaviour helps create the outcome everyone predicted.
This is how individual self-talk can become groupthink, and how groupthink becomes group habit.
Leaders therefore need to pay attention not only to what they formally communicate, but also to the casual stories that circulate around the business. Language does not merely describe culture. It helps create it.
Your behaviours are the living expression of your values
Andrew offers one of the clearest descriptions of values I have heard:
“Your behaviours are a living expression of your values.”
Most organisations have values. Far fewer can explain what those values look like on an ordinary Tuesday when targets are under pressure, a customer complains or two colleagues disagree.
Values displayed on a wall are not culture. Values translated into observable, repeatable and accountable behaviour can become culture.
If “respect” is a value, how do people disagree respectfully? If “courage” matters, what are people expected to speak up about? If “care” matters, how is care demonstrated to customers and colleagues without avoiding accountability? If “trust” is important, what happens when somebody breaks it, including a senior leader?
The real test is not whether the words sound good. It is whether people recognise them in the way the organisation operates.
Andrew recommends involving employees in defining these behaviours. Begin with purpose: who are we and what do we stand for? Then look from the outside in. What should a customer, client or patient experience from us? What does that require from the way we treat one another internally?
When people help shape the behavioural meaning of the values, the result is more than a board-level statement. It becomes a shared language for decisions, recognition and accountability.
This requires vulnerability from leaders. If values genuinely apply across the organisation, any person should be able to challenge behaviour that is out of alignment, regardless of job title.
That may feel like giving up control. Done well, it is a far stronger form of leadership.
Why change feels difficult, even when we asked for it
Leaders often say they want change while continuing to protect the habits that created the current situation.
That is not necessarily hypocrisy. Familiar patterns feel safe, even when they are no longer useful. Meaningful change may require new conversations, honest disagreement, different standards, greater accountability and the acceptance of feedback. Intellectually, people may know change is needed. Emotionally and behaviourally, the familiar can still pull them back.
As we discuss in the episode, courage is not the absence of anxiety or uncertainty. It is the willingness to act in spite of them when the goal matters enough.
For leaders managing organisational change, this means acknowledging the discomfort rather than pretending it is not there. Help people understand what is changing, why it matters, what will be expected and how they will be supported. Keep bringing attention back to the future you are trying to create, not only the past you are trying to escape.
Change becomes more manageable when people can connect everyday actions to a meaningful collective goal.
Three questions for more human leadership
Towards the end of our conversation, Andrew distils much of the discussion into three invitations.
1. Are you listening to what is actually being said?
Or are you listening for what you expect to hear, projecting your existing opinion onto the conversation and preparing your response?
Genuine listening requires us to loosen our grip on being right long enough to discover what might be true.
2. What are you moving towards, and what are you moving away from?
Some behaviour is motivated by a desired future. Some is avoidance: of rejection, conflict, uncertainty, failure or discomfort.
Ask whether today’s choices are moving you towards what matters or merely helping you avoid what feels difficult.
3. Are you brave enough to be curious?
Curiosity is often treated as gentle or passive. In leadership, it can require real courage. It may expose an assumption, challenge a long-held belief or reveal that the answer is not what we hoped.
The leaders who ask one more honest question often discover what certainty had hidden from them.
The question every leader should ask in the moment
When something happens and you feel yourself reacting, Andrew suggests asking:
Is this response being driven by my habits or by my values?
That pause creates choice.
Habits are not automatically bad; many allow us to perform effectively without overthinking. But an old habit operating in a new situation can undermine the leader we intend to be.
Values reconnect us with who we want to be when the situation is difficult, not just when it is easy.
Andrew Stirrup’s final challenge: be honest with yourself
The episode ends with perhaps the simplest and hardest challenge of all:
Be honest with yourself.
Not cruel. Not cynical. Not performatively self-critical. Honest.
Are you living the values you expect from others? Are your daily actions aligned with the future you say you want? Are you listening openly, or waiting to confirm what you already believe? Are you avoiding a conversation that leadership requires you to have?
Honesty does not solve everything in one dramatic moment. It gives you an accurate place from which to begin.
And from there, take the next step.
You do not need the full route before you move. You need a meaningful direction, an action that takes you towards it and the persistence to continue when progress becomes uncomfortable.
That is where human potential stops being an attractive idea and starts becoming a practice.
Listen to the full conversation
In this episode of Unlocking Human Potential, Andrew Stirrup and I explore:
- how personal habits affect leadership performance;
- emotional intelligence, self-awareness and awareness of others;
- using DISC behavioural insights without labelling people;
- how feedback interacts with identity and self-belief;
- the difference between stated values and lived behaviours;
- why organisations resist change;
- how individual habits become team culture; and
- practical questions leaders can use immediately.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Q2UgTlvszsX3FqCU0hess?si=RPUdgvwcQMOtHFxEERFmkQ
You Tube: https://youtu.be/vasKZ12b4Es
Unlocking Human Potential, hosted by Andy Hosgood, brings together grounded conversations for founders, leaders and professionals who want to lead with clarity, perform with confidence and grow with purpose. Through Unlock with Coaching, Andy supports founders and business leaders to unlock their own potential, bring out the best in others and build healthier, higher-performing organisations. Emotional intelligence in leadership is central to that human-first approach.
[Learn more about Unlock with Coaching
FAQ section for website or Substack
What is emotional intelligence in leadership?
Emotional intelligence in leadership is the ability to understand and manage your own thoughts, emotions and behaviours while recognising and responding effectively to the perspectives and needs of others. It helps leaders communicate, receive feedback, manage pressure and adapt their approach to different people and situations.
How does self-awareness improve leadership?
Self-awareness helps leaders recognise their strengths, triggers, assumptions and habitual responses. That creates a pause between an event and a reaction, giving the leader more choice over how they communicate and behave.
How do organisational values shape workplace culture?
Values shape culture when they are translated into clear behaviours, decisions and standards. Words displayed on a wall have little effect unless leaders and teams understand what they look like in practice and hold one another accountable for living them.
Why do teams resist organisational change?
Teams often resist change because familiar habits and working patterns feel safer and easier, even when people know improvement is necessary. Clear purpose, honest communication, involvement, support and consistent leadership behaviour make change easier to understand and act upon.
What practical questions can leaders ask themselves?
Useful questions include: Is my response being driven by habit or by values? Am I listening to what is actually being said? What am I moving towards or avoiding? What is the opposite perspective? What action would take me closer to the goal?
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/unlocking-human-potential-with-andy-hosgood/id1870292360?i=1000747586847
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Q2UgTlvszsX3FqCU0hess?si=RPUdgvwcQMOtHFxEERFmkQ
You Tube: https://youtu.be/vasKZ12b4Es
