When you look back on the culture that has been developed throughout the year at your current place of work, how do you feel it ranks in comparison to others in your industry? I am asking for two reasons: first, because I care, and second, because at Braintrust, we know a key ingredient to creating a healthy Coaching Climate™ is Emotional Intelligence.
The Coaching Climate Question
Culture is not a poster on the wall. It is what actually happens when no one is watching. And the single biggest variable in whether a team's culture produces growth or stagnates is the quality of the coaching inside it. Not the strategy. Not the headcount. The coaching.
Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to watch first-hand how Emotional Intelligence fundamentally changes the entire landscape of communication within companies, great and small. What has become clear is that it is no longer simply enough to understand what Emotional Intelligence is. Leaders must understand their own competencies, get a 360-degree view of those competencies, and execute a strategy to strengthen what is already working and deliberately build what is not.
The more deeply we understand Emotional Intelligence, and the stronger our conviction about why it matters, the more consistently our behaviors become habits that actually change how we connect with people. For me, the two areas that require constant, active focus are adaptability and conflict management. Both show up every week. The question is whether I am responding to them or reacting to them.
A Legacy of Research That Keeps Getting Stronger
It seems like yesterday (it was actually 1995) that Time Magazine published an article titled "What Is Your EQ?" The most interesting phrasing appeared in the subtitle, which read: "It's not your IQ. It's not even a number. But emotional intelligence may be the best predictor of success in life, redefining what it means to be smart."
That framing was bold for its time. Nearly three decades later, it has proven to be accurate. The research base supporting Emotional Intelligence has only deepened, and the implications for coaching and leadership development are more clear now than they have ever been.
What Primal Leadership Revealed
In 2001, the landmark leadership book Primal Leadership was published. Over two decades later, it remains required reading in many undergraduate and graduate leadership programs. A subsequent article in the Harvard Business Review stated that "high levels of emotional intelligence, our research showed, create climates in which information sharing, trust, healthy risk-taking, and learning flourish. Low levels of emotional intelligence create climates rife with fear and anxiety."
That sentence is worth reading twice. The climate of a team is not set by the strategy deck or the quarterly OKRs. It is set by the emotional tone of how leaders show up each day. The Coaching Climate™ is a product of the emotional competencies of the people doing the coaching.
Since then, decades of additional research have reinforced the importance of Emotional Intelligence, including the work of Dr. Richard Boyatzis, who has argued that we should speak less about emotional intelligence as a general trait and more specifically about emotional competencies and capabilities, things that can actually be observed, measured, and developed.
The Competencies That Predict Client Behavior Change
In October 2023, a study published in The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science brought the research into sharper focus. The title said it directly: "Competencies of Coaches That Predict Client Behavior Change."
The study tested behavioral emotional and social intelligence competencies of coaches (not self-assessed, but behaviorally observed) and tracked their correlation to client behavior change over two years. The finding is worth sitting with: competency models developed on expert opinion alone were about 50 percent accurate in predicting managerial effectiveness. When researchers tested actual behavioral competencies, the picture changed considerably.
The effective coach competencies identified in the study were achievement orientation, adaptability, emotional self-control, empathy, organizational assessment, and influence. Every one of these is a core competency within Emotional Intelligence. None of them is about technique. All of them are about how a coach shows up as a human being in the room.
Not All EQ Training Is Created Equally
This data matters enormously for practitioners, and it carries a warning that the field would do well to take seriously: emotional competencies can be learned, but not all Emotional Intelligence training is built to actually develop them.
There is a significant difference between building awareness of emotional intelligence concepts and developing the specific competencies that change behavior. Awareness is a starting point, not a destination. The research is pointing at something more rigorous: observable, measurable competency development that predicts outcomes.
If an organization invests in EQ training that stops at awareness without linking to behavioral change and measurable growth across specific competencies, it is likely leaving the majority of the value on the table. That is not a criticism of the people involved. It is a structural limitation of the approach.
Why Braintrust Chose ESCI
In 2023, we made a deliberate decision at Braintrust: if we were going to train Emotional Intelligence, we needed an approach that was both reliable and valid. The tools needed to meet a scientific bar, not just a market bar.
That is why we became certified in the ESCI, the Emotional Social Competency Inventory, created by the same thought leaders cited above: Dr. Richard Boyatzis and Dr. Daniel Goleman. As of our most recent data point, this tool has been studied across thousands of organizations and approximately 100,000 individuals globally.
The ESCI is not a self-assessment in the traditional sense. It is a 360-degree behavioral assessment, meaning it captures how the people around you actually experience your emotional competencies, not just how you perceive yourself. That distinction matters. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science study specifically noted the gap between self-assessed competencies and behaviorally assessed ones. The ESCI bridges that gap.
The Four Clusters of Emotional Competency
The ESCI organizes emotional competencies into four distinct clusters, each building on the previous one. Understanding how they connect is key to understanding why this framework produces behavioral change that holds.
Self-Awareness is the foundation. This cluster covers Emotional Self-Awareness: the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions as they are happening, not in hindsight. A leader who lacks self-awareness cannot adjust in the moment. They can only react.
Self-Management is what you do with that awareness. The competencies in this cluster are Achievement Orientation, Adaptability, Emotional Self-Control, and Positive Outlook. These are the skills that determine whether a leader's emotions become a resource or a liability under pressure.
Social Awareness extends that lens outward. The competencies here are Empathy and Organizational Awareness: the ability to accurately read the emotional state of individuals and the room, and to understand the dynamics that shape how your organization actually functions beneath the org chart.
Relationship Management is where it all becomes visible. This cluster includes Conflict Management, Coach & Mentor, Influence, Inspirational Leadership, and Teamwork. These are the competencies that determine whether a leader's presence builds trust or erodes it, and whether their coaching moves people forward or leaves them stuck.
What the research keeps confirming is that these competencies are not fixed. They respond to intentional development. The leaders and coaches who commit to growing them do not just feel more confident in the room. They produce measurably different outcomes for the people they develop.
Building the Coaching Climate™ That Lasts
It is remarkable that continued research and practical application in all areas of leadership continues to grow the case for emotionally intelligent coaching. The evidence base is no longer emerging; it is established. The question now is what we choose to do with it.
Leadership and coaching development that includes genuine emotional competency work requires investment, commitment, sustained focus, and a certified coach who knows how to drive growth. It is not a one-day workshop. It is not a survey with a score. It is the kind of work that changes how a leader shows up on a Tuesday morning when the pressure is on, when the conversation is hard, and when the person across the table needs someone who is actually present.
If you want to learn more about how to develop your individual emotional competencies or build the leadership-coaching skills across your team, we would welcome the conversation at braintrustgrowth.com. This kind of development may be the most meaningful investment you make for yourself or your team heading into the year ahead. Leadership matters. And it is fueled by master coaching.
