Emotional intelligence is widely regarded as a crucial element of the modern manager’s toolkit, and as such it’s easy to assume that those with high emotional intelligence will be not only more effective in the workplace, but also more popular.

Alas, new research from EMLyon Business School suggests that might not actually be the case.  The authors suggest that there is an emotional intelligence sweetspot, beyond which managers start to struggle making difficult decisions, which weakens their effectiveness.

The researchers quizzed staff across the UK National Health Service (NHS) to gauge the emotional intelligence levels of managers, especially in areas such as empathy and awareness of other people’s emotions.  Over 300 managers were then assessed on the effort they put into their work, the satisfaction levels of their team, and their ability to implement change in the workplace.

Emotional effectiveness

The study highlights an apparent emotional intelligence sweetspot, as those rated in the top 15% for emotional intelligence were rated lower in terms of their managerial effectiveness than their peers who were in the top 65% for EQ.

The authors note that the NHS was undergoing significant change at the time of the study, and despite previous works showing that emotional intelligence was key to the successful implementation of change, the researchers instead found that the most emotionally intelligent managers were the least effective during this period.

“Increases in emotional intelligence beyond a moderately high level are detrimental rather than beneficial in terms of leader’s effectiveness,” they explain.  “Managers who were rated beyond a particular threshold are considered less effective, and their staff are less satisfied with them.”

Too much emotional intelligence was found to be linked to excessively high levels of empathy, which resulted in the managers hesitating when applying policies that they thought would be difficult for their team to implement.

The findings provide an interesting contrast to the prevailing view that emotional intelligence is a purely positive thing, and suggest instead that there is a sweetspot to be found.

“Beyond a particular level, emotional intelligence may not add anything to many aspects of manager’s performance, and in fact may become detrimental. Simply considering that the more emotional intelligence the manager has the better it is may be an erroneous way of thinking,” they conclude.