When I first met The Brookstone Team (not their real name), they were a talented group of leaders in a fast-growing organization. They cared deeply about their mission and each other, but they were running hard and running hot.
Their meetings were efficient—but tense. Conflict simmered just below the surface. Several team members admitted privately that they dreaded leadership meetings. “We say we value relationships,” one of them told me, “but when pressure hits, everyone just protects themselves.”
What Brookstone needed wasn’t another team-building exercise or productivity tool. They needed a culture that fostered emotional intelligence.
What Emotional Intelligence Looks Like in Real Life
Emotional intelligence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a learned ability to recognize, regulate, understand and appropriately handle emotions— your own and others’.
At Brookstone, the cracks were showing because their culture rewarded speed and certainty but left little room for vulnerability or curiosity. People prided themselves on being “tough,” which often meant being emotionally shut down. Anxiety and frustration had nowhere to go except sideways—into sarcasm, silence, or subtle resistance.
So, we began with something deceptively simple: creating space to name what was actually happening in the room.
In one meeting, a conflict surfaced between two senior leaders, Mark and Denise. Mark had interrupted Denise several times while she was presenting. She finished her report, visibly frustrated, but said nothing.
When I asked what people noticed, the room fell silent. Finally, someone said, “It felt tense.” Another added, “I noticed Denise shut down.”
I turned to Denise. “What was happening for you?”
She paused. “I felt dismissed. It happens a lot, and I just check out.”
Mark looked down. “I wasn’t aware I was doing that. I get anxious when the conversation feels like it’s dragging, and I try to move it along.”
For a moment, the whole room exhaled. What had been invisible was now out in the open—not as blame, but as shared understanding. That moment of honesty became a turning point.
From Individual Skills to Cultural Habits
Over the next few months, Brookstone began practicing new ways of being together. We introduced a few foundational emotional intelligence skills:
1. Self-awareness: noticing one’s internal state before reacting.
2. Self-regulation: choosing a thoughtful response instead of a reflexive one.
3. Empathy: recognizing what others might be feeling beneath their words or silence.
4. Relationship management: using awareness and empathy to build trust rather than distance.
At first, the team treated these as personal disciplines. But as they practiced, they realized emotional intelligence isn’t just about individuals; it’s about the culture those individuals create together.
A culture that fosters emotional intelligence makes it safe to feel. It invites curiosity instead of defensiveness. It rewards honesty over image management.
Slowly, Brookstone began to change. They started meetings with a brief “check-in” question to surface how people were arriving emotionally. They added a short debrief at the end of difficult conversations to reflect on how they’d handled tension.
These weren’t dramatic shifts, but they were powerful signals that emotional awareness was becoming part of how they did their work.
When Pressure Tests the System
The real test came six months later. Brookstone faced a major project setback that threatened their timeline and reputation. Anxiety spiked.
In the past, this kind of pressure would have led to finger-pointing and silent blame. But this time, the team handled it differently.
The CEO began the meeting by acknowledging the collective stress: “We’re all anxious right now. Before we dive in, how’s everyone doing?”
One by one, people named what they were feeling—frustrated, embarrassed, disappointed. The honesty broke the tension. As they talked, they shifted from reacting to problem-solving. They asked better questions and listened more fully.
By the end of the meeting, they had a clear plan forward and, more importantly, a sense of unity. One leader said afterward, “We didn’t avoid the anxiety. We faced it together.”
That’s what emotional intelligence looks like at scale—not just one person being calm or empathetic, but a system that knows how to manage its emotions without losing connection or purpose.
The Ripple Effects of Emotional Maturity
Over time, Brookstone’s culture began to feel different:
· People spoke more openly in meetings.
· Feedback became normal, not threatening.
· Turnover slowed.
· New employees quickly adapted to the new emotional tone.
The culture itself was teaching people how to be emotionally intelligent.
That’s when I told them, “You’ve built something rare—a system where emotional growth is contagious.”
Emotional intelligence isn’t something you add to leadership training. It’s something you embed in how your organization relates, decides, and learns. It’s both deeply personal and profoundly systemic.
Culture Change from the Inside Out
In this week’s podcast episode, Creating a Culture That Fosters Emotional Intelligence, we explore this very idea: that emotional intelligence isn’t just an individual competency—it’s a cultural one.
Healthy cultures create space for self-awareness, empathy, and emotional honesty. Unhealthy cultures suppress or punish those same qualities. The difference lies in whether leaders have the courage to go first—to model calm presence, curiosity, and compassion, even under pressure.
At The Leader’s Journey, this is the work we love most—helping leaders grow their capacity for emotional maturity and build systems that make that growth sustainable.
If your team is ready to move beyond “communication skills” toward a deeper transformation in how you relate and lead, listen to the newest episode of our podcast:
Developing a Culture of Emotional Intelligence.
Because culture doesn’t change when people learn new techniques.
It changes when people learn to show up differently—with honesty, empathy, and courage.
