Using Emotional Intelligence to Improve Communication

Summary

Emotional intelligence helps leaders communicate with greater awareness, empathy, and intention. By understanding their own emotions and recognizing how others respond, leaders can navigate stressful situations, build trust, and strengthen relationships. Three practices are especially important: managing stress, demonstrating empathy, and practicing vulnerability.

A leader can deliver a message with the best intentions and still leave employees feeling dismissed, confused, or unheard. A rushed response to a concern, a defensive reaction to feedback, or a failure to recognize someone's frustration can quickly undermine communication and trust.

That's where emotional intelligence makes a difference. Leaders who understand their own emotions and recognize how others are feeling can adjust their communication to the situation, respond more thoughtfully, and build stronger relationships. These skills matter most when leaders are under pressure, navigating change, or having difficult conversations. And with the right leadership courses and opportunities to practice, leaders can strengthen these skills over time.

Yet interpersonal skills don't always receive the attention they deserve. DDI's Global Leadership Forecast 2027 found that leaders prioritize innovation, managing change, and setting strategy as development needs, while foundational skills like empathy, trust, and communication rank near the bottom. But those human skills are essential to putting strategy into action and leading through change.

What Is Emotionally Intelligent Communication?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand your own emotions and others' emotions so you can respond intentionally and manage your impact. EQ helps leaders achieve their desired impact through communication by creating an awareness of emotional dynamics and helping them use that information to adapt to the situation and express themselves effectively.

No matter your communication goal, EQ is critical. Whether you’re creating alignment around a strategic direction or settling a dispute between team members, leaders need to inspire action, influence opinions, validate emotions, and open hearts and minds.

Without emotional awareness, even well-intentioned communication can send the wrong message. For example, a leader who dismisses concerns to keep a project moving may unintentionally signal that employees' perspectives don't matter. Emotionally intelligent communication helps leaders recognize those dynamics and respond in ways that build understanding rather than create distance.

How Does Emotional Intelligence in Communication Impact Teams?

Teams are greater than the sum of their parts. They can achieve more together than they could individually. But that collective potential depends on how people communicate, collaborate, and respond to one another. Trust is what helps teams work through disagreements, share concerns, and move forward together. And leaders play a critical role in building it.

Consider a leader communicating their vision for change. There will always be team members who disagree with the approach. But what these employees do depends on a leader’s ability to build trust with emotional intelligence.

What might employees do in a low-trust organization? They might resist, protect their own interests, or become disengaged. Leading this change successfully will feel like climbing a mountain. Change will happen slowly, or, more likely, it won’t happen at all.

But what if your organization is trust-rich? Employees may still disagree with your approach, perhaps justifiably. But if they trust that the leader understands their concerns and will consider their interests, team members are more likely to be committed and energized.

Leaders who trust senior leadership are 5.9X more likely to say leadership decisions translate into action.

Even when they disagree with a decision, employees are better positioned to ask questions, contribute ideas, and work toward a shared goal when they trust their leader's intentions.

Unfortunately, that trust isn't a given. DDI's research shows that across leaders, just 34% trust their immediate manager to do what is right, and 31% trust senior leaders. The consequences extend beyond workplace relationships: Leaders who trust senior leadership are 5.9X more likely to say leadership decisions translate into action.

These findings reinforce why emotionally intelligent communication matters. EQ plays a key role in developing values such as inclusivity, mutual respect, collaboration, and teamwork, and in helping companies achieve their mission and purpose.

When leaders listen with empathy, acknowledge concerns, and communicate with transparency, they help create the conditions for trust. That trust makes it easier for teams to navigate uncertainty, work through challenges, and turn decisions into action.

How Can Leaders Use Emotional Intelligence to Improve Communication?

While emotional intelligence and communication are critical skills for everyone to work on, they’re especially important for leaders. A leader’s communication can have positive or negative effects that ripple far and wide. They face high expectations and pressures that affect themselves and their teams. And they often need to communicate in different ways with different team members, requiring emotional awareness and flexibility.

Building these skills takes practice, particularly when emotions run high or conversations become difficult. Three approaches can help leaders communicate with greater emotional intelligence:

1. Develop Your Ability to Operate Under Stress

How can you combat the negative effects of stress? Research shows that emotionally intelligent people tend to manage stress better. High EQ can help you handle stressful situations by enabling you to speak up for yourself, communicate your needs, stay focused on goals, and collaborate effectively with others. Beyond that, high EQ helps people adapt to change, maintain a positive outlook, and stay calm in the face of challenges.

The need for these skills is growing. DDI's data shows that 73% of leaders feel strong pressure to be perfect, even as new challenges arise. And nearly one in five leaders (19%) frequently feel “used up” at the end of the workday. That pressure can make it harder to respond thoughtfully when conversations become challenging.

If you struggle to manage stress, it can inhibit your ability to demonstrate emotional intelligence. Under stress, you are likely to focus on direct actions that reduce perceived threats. These stress-driven actions can send the wrong message to others and create long-term problems that cause even more stress.

Recognizing how stress affects communication is an important first step. Leaders can strengthen their ability to respond thoughtfully by practicing two habits:

• Know your physiological, behavioral, and emotional reaction to stress. How do your communication and decision-making change because of stress? Start to learn the patterns.
• Practice one or two go-to stress-management techniques you can use when you’re under stress to access a calm, reflective state.

For example, a leader who recognizes that stress makes them impatient or overly directive can pause before responding to a team member's concern. That moment of awareness creates an opportunity to ask questions, listen, and address the issue without escalating tension.

Managing stress doesn't mean eliminating difficult emotions. It means recognizing them early enough to choose a response that supports productive communication.

2. Demonstrate Empathy

When people talk about empathy, they might be referring to a few different qualities that are important for emotionally intelligent communication:

• Valuing others’ feelings.
• Reading and understanding others’ emotions.
• Making others feel validated and understood.

Empathy is needed to build trust in any relationship. In the workplace, empathy means making an effort to understand another person's perspective and showing that their concerns matter, even when there's disagreement.

Many leaders find it difficult to make time and effort to consider others’ emotions, especially when they’re under pressure themselves. With deadlines, decisions, and competing priorities demanding their attention, leaders can easily overlook how their communication affects others.

Another potential challenge is that many people can’t accurately identify emotions from body language and verbal cues alone. Rather than assuming they know how someone feels, emotionally intelligent leaders ask questions and listen to the response. A simple question such as “How are you feeling about this change?” or “What's most concerning to you?” can uncover perspectives a leader might otherwise miss. It also demonstrates a genuine desire to understand the other person and build trust.

In the workplace, empathy means making an effort to understand another person's perspective and showing that their concerns matter, even when there's disagreement.

A 2026 study published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes reinforced the value of acknowledging emotions in the workplace. Researchers found that when employees acknowledge their leaders' emotions, leaders are more likely to reciprocate by recognizing employees' feelings. This mutual acknowledgment can strengthen team relationships and improve performance. The findings highlight how acknowledging emotions can encourage others to do the same.

Acknowledging emotions can sometimes feel uncomfortable in a professional setting, but it helps employees feel heard and understood. Leaders don't need to agree with every concern or have an immediate solution. Often, being willing to listen and acknowledge what someone is experiencing makes communication more productive.

3. Practice Vulnerability

It can be scary to show an imperfect part of yourself. And the more senior you are, the more pressure you may feel to present a flawless exterior. Many leaders maintain a mask of competence for fear that vulnerability will cause others to lose trust in them.

That pressure is particularly relevant today. With 73% of leaders feeling strong pressure for perfection, acknowledging uncertainty or admitting a mistake can feel risky. Yet these moments also give leaders a chance to show honesty and accountability.

That's also why vulnerability builds trust. You share something about yourself that you wouldn't show to just anyone, and you set a positive example. When people see that showing emotion is OK, a culture of openness can start to form.

DDI's research also points to a strong relationship between vulnerability and trust: Leaders who openly acknowledge their shortcomings and demonstrate authenticity can help create an environment where employees feel more comfortable speaking up and learning from mistakes. In fact, employees are 5.3X more likely to trust leaders who display vulnerability.

For example, a leader taking on a new responsibility might acknowledge that they don't have all the answers and invite input from team members with relevant experience. Rather than undermining credibility, that openness can demonstrate respect for others' expertise and encourage more honest communication.

Vulnerability doesn't mean sharing every emotion or uncertainty. It means being willing to acknowledge mistakes, ask for help, and communicate honestly when doing so supports the team. Combined with empathy and self-awareness, it helps leaders create stronger relationships built on trust.

How to Develop Emotional Intelligence and Communication Skills

Leaders can develop emotional intelligence through greater self-awareness, reflection, and practice. But recognizing how emotions influence communication isn't always easy, especially when leaders are under pressure or unaware of how their behavior affects others.

Validated leadership assessments, including behavioral and simulation-based tools, can provide a snapshot of key areas to improve or leverage in communication and relationship building.

But an assessment's real impact comes when a person uses the results to identify patterns in their behavior and how they affect interactions with others. It's those “lightbulb moments” when data becomes insight: "Oh, that's why I made that decision" or "that's why my presentation didn't land with that audience."

The benefit comes when those insights lead to commitment to action and improvement. That’s why assessments should be paired with coaching or training. People need support to contextualize results and seize the moment of inspiration to grow.

For organizations looking to strengthen emotionally intelligent communication, the goal is to connect insight with action. Assessments can help leaders understand their strengths and development needs, while coaching, training, and practice opportunities help them apply that awareness in everyday conversations. Together, these experiences can turn greater self-awareness into more effective communication and stronger relationships.