Are You Emotionally Intelligent, Mate?

The 7 'Boring' Habits That Define Great Leadership

Do you truly know how emotionally intelligent you are?

In my journey across the entrepreneurial landscape—from launching RedBalloon to assessing over 200 businesses on Shark Tank—I've seen the human factor make or break countless ventures. My belief in the criticality of emotional intelligence (EI) isn't based on theory; it's backed by experience. Over 10 million people have taken my emotional intelligence assessments, and hundreds of thousands have attended my trainings. That is a massive dataset to work from.

And what does that data tell me? It reveals a deeply surprising truth: Emotional intelligence is rarely about grand, dramatic gestures. It doesn't live in a motivational quote on a wall. It resides in the small, consistent, and often quite boring things you do and say every single day.

If you’re a founder, a leader, or a director, these little things are the quiet bedrock of your long-term success. They are the patterns that build trust, ensure stability, and ultimately define your legacy.

Why Emotional Intelligence is a Pattern, Not a Personality Trait

To understand why these daily, 'boring' habits matter so much, we have to shift our perspective on what EI actually is. It's not a fluffy skill—it’s a powerful operating system for navigating human complexity.

1. Emotional Intelligence is About Pattern Recognition, Not Just Awareness

It's simply not enough to feel deeply or to nod and say, "Yes, I'm aware of my feelings." True growth happens when you can step back and spot the recurring emotional themes in your life and work.

For example: Do you consistently feel defensive when receiving critical feedback from authority figures? Do you always procrastinate on tasks that involve confrontation?

Emotional pattern recognition is about connecting those dots over time. It’s identifying the recurring trigger, decoding what that feeling signals about your underlying needs, and deliberately choosing a new response. Growth doesn't happen when you identify the feeling; it happens when you break the negative pattern.

2. These Behaviours Signal Internal Stability, Not Just Kindness

The signs of high emotional intelligence—apologising, empathising, or forgiving—may look like outward-facing acts of generosity, but they actually stem from a deeply grounded inner world.

Think about it: You can only offer genuine grace, empathy, or patience to another person when you are not utterly ruled by your own emotional chaos. A defensive, reactive, or perpetually anxious leader is one whose inner world is fundamentally unstable. Their actions become involuntary reactions to their internal state, rather than intentional choices aligned with their values. Emotional stability is the platform from which effective leadership is launched.

3. Real Emotional Intelligence is 'Boring' in Real Time

If you want drama, watch reality television. If you want high performance and sustainable business growth, look for the quiet constancy of high EI.

The emotionally intelligent leader is often the person who pauses, listens more than they speak, and quietly shifts their behaviour over time. They don't win loud arguments or dominate meetings with ego. They build trust by being predictably rational and measured.

They are the ones who transform company culture not with motivational speeches, but by consistently setting clear expectations, owning mistakes, and ensuring fair process. Emotional intelligence often won't get applause, but it builds a rock-solid foundation for business success like nothing else.

Now, give the following list another read. Be honest with yourself: How many of these 7 things do you do CONSISTENTLY—not just when you remember, but when you are under pressure?

7 Signs That You Are Consistently Emotionally Intelligent

1. You Dissect Your Feelings

Emotional intelligence starts at home. You don't just react to the heat of an emotion; you immediately begin a personal inquiry.

• The Habit: You reflect on what you’re feeling and seek to understand why. You apply that same level of genuine curiosity to others' actions.
• The Business Impact: This habit allows you to separate the data from the drama. When a major client walks out, you process the anger and disappointment, but you quickly pivot to dissecting the cause: Was it pricing? A service failure? A failure in our value proposition? You avoid the fatal trap of simply blaming the client or the market. Furthermore, showing genuine curiosity about a team member's struggles builds deeper, more resilient connections than any mandated team-building exercise.

2. You Stay Authentic

Authenticity has become a buzzy word, but in practice, it’s about integrity in communication.

• The Habit: Being real does not mean oversharing your personal life or using aggressive language. It means speaking from your values, meaning what you say, and saying what you mean. You set clear expectations—no "fluff," no passive-aggressive ambiguity.
• The Business Impact: Authenticity builds trust, and trust saves time. When employees know they can rely on your word and that your actions will align with your stated values, they stop wasting energy trying to decode hidden agendas. This is crucial when pitching a business like RedBalloon—the promise of the experience had to be delivered with absolute integrity. Your brand is only as authentic as your daily communication with your team and your customers.

3. You Practice Empathy

Empathy is the most potent strategic tool in the entire EI toolkit. It is the ability to understand another person’s reality from their point of view.

• The Habit: Before judging a colleague's poor performance, or a customer's complaint, you actively try to understand their perspective, constraints, and motivations. You ask powerful questions like, “Help me understand what led to this decision?”
• The Business Impact: A truly empathetic leader understands their customer’s pain points better than the customer themselves. This insight fuels genuine disruption—it’s how RedBalloon spotted the opportunity to "flip the model" and de-risk marketing for small businesses. Within your team, empathy is the antidote to high staff turnover and burnout. It allows you to address the root cause of underperformance, leading to coaching and retention, rather than simply firing the "problem."

4. You Apologize When You Are Wrong

For insecure leaders, saying "I am sorry" feels like giving away power. For emotionally intelligent leaders, it is the opposite.

• The Habit: Saying "I am sorry" isn't about ego; it is about restoring connection and integrity. You own your mistakes clearly and without qualification, because ultimately, relationships matter more than being right.
• The Business Impact: An apology is a power move because it demonstrates high accountability. When you own a flaw in a process or a poor decision you made, you immediately restore the trust of your team and your stakeholders. As a director, I’ve seen that a leader’s defensiveness can quickly poison a company culture. By contrast, a swift, genuine apology diffuses tension and sets an example that encourages a "fail fast, learn faster" environment.

5. You Forgive and Let Go

Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to suffer. It drains your focus and cognitive capacity.

• The Habit: You choose to let things go, sometimes even before the other person apologizes or acknowledges their fault. This is not for them; it is for your own liberation and sustained focus.
• The Business Impact: In the cut-throat world of entrepreneurship, being slighted is inevitable. The emotionally intelligent leader understands that their energy is a finite resource. They refuse to dedicate precious headspace to emotional baggage or past grievances. Forgiving is a strategic act of self-preservation that ensures you maintain a growth mindset, allowing you to focus 100% of your energy on the next challenge, the next innovation, or the next market opportunity.

6. You Pause Before Responding

Reaction is impulse. Response is choice. The pause is the single most powerful micro-habit of emotional intelligence.

• The Habit: When the email lands, the market crashes, or the emotional trigger fires, you take a deliberate pause. That moment of space allows your rational mind to catch up with your emotional impulse. You reflect, ensuring your communication aligns with your strategy, not your immediate feeling.
• The Business Impact: This habit prevents catastrophic communication errors—the angry reply that destroys a partnership, the panicked decision that erodes capital, or the snap judgement that alienates a key employee. In high-stakes environments—like a boardroom debating a sudden risk or a founder negotiating a funding round—the leader who maintains this quiet discipline appears calm, credible, and reliably in control. The pause signals: I am processing data, not simply reacting to emotion.

7. You Learn from Your Mistakes

No one is perfect. Entrepreneurship is a constant series of calculated risks and inevitable failures. High EI turns those failures into the fuel for future success.

• The Habit: When emotions get the best of you, or a decision goes sideways, you reflect, identify the recurring patterns (back to point 1!), and implement a concrete plan to grow from the experience. This isn't self-recrimination; it is objective self-review.
• The Business Impact: This final habit is the engine of the growth mindset. It means the last time you made an emotional error is the last time that specific error will be tolerated. It builds a culture where vulnerability is rewarded with learning, not punishment. The businesses that scale successfully are those that embed this rigorous learning loop, ensuring that emotional slip-ups become intellectual capital for the next, bigger challenge.

Be Consistent, Not Perfect

Being emotionally intelligent is not about being a saint; it’s about being consistent in these small, deliberate behaviours. It's about turning these 7 Signs into non-negotiable daily habits.

Your team, your customers, and your bottom line are watching. They don't need you to be dramatic or perfect. They need you to be reliable, accountable, and grounded.

The Changemaker Mentality begins here, in the quiet, consistent choices you make every day.

If it is to be, it is up to me. What choice will you make today?

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