Feelings and emotions underpin everything that we do. They drive human behaviour – our choices, decisions, performance and actions.

We ignore them at our peril.

American academic and author Brené Brown nailed it in her bestselling book Dare to Lead when she wrote: “Leaders must either invest a reasonable amount of time attending to fears and feelings, or squander an unreasonable amount of time trying to manage ineffective and unproductive behaviour.”

Being able to deal with the feelings and emotions of your people requires a base level of emotional intelligence, a term you have no doubt heard (if not understood) in recent years.

So what is emotional intelligence and why is it worth developing as a leader?

Coined by Jack Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990, emotional intelligence is essentially your ability to perceive, use, understand and manage emotions in yourself and others.

As I wrote in Soft is the New Hard, a high EQ is becoming as highly valued as a high IQ in the workplace – for good reason.

A person with a high intellectual intelligence is of little use if they can’t control their anger and aggression, if they lack self-awareness and they can’t work well with or influence others.

Emotionally intelligent people have high self-awareness and adjust their communication to work with the emotions of other people, creating a connection with those around them.

They stay calm under pressure and empathise with other people, even if that other person’s response is different to their own.

That makes them valuable.

Developing your emotional intelligence is one of the most impactful ways to improve your communication, particularly under pressure.