From Managing Emotions to Managing Relationships: Reflections on Emotional Intelligence and People Management

Leadership is often associated with making decisions, solving problems, taking responsibility, and helping others move forward. But underneath all of this is something much more fundamental: how well we understand ourselves and how effectively we respond to others.

My recent sessions on Emotional Intelligence and People Management Skills made me pause and reflect on this—not as a set of abstract leadership qualities, but as something that shows up in everyday interactions, especially during moments of pressure, disagreement, or feedback.

Session 1: Understanding Ourselves

The first session began with something simple: identifying emotions.

We reflected on different leadership qualities and behaviours, checking what we felt we already possessed and, more importantly, what we still needed to develop.

I found this exercise particularly useful because leadership development is not always about learning something new. Sometimes, it is about becoming more conscious of behaviours we already demonstrate and recognising the gaps between what we know good leadership looks like and how consistently we actually practise it.

The Amygdala Hijack

One concept that stayed with me was Amygdala Hijack. Those moments when a situation triggers an emotional response before we have had the chance to process it rationally.

A difficult conversation, a critical comment, an unexpected change, or simply someone not doing what we expected can trigger a reaction that may be bigger than the situation itself.

The takeaway for me was not that we should avoid emotional reactions. Emotions are important information. The real skill is creating enough awareness between the trigger and our response to make a better choice.

Instead of: Trigger → Reaction

we can try to create: Trigger → Awareness → Pause → Choice → Response

That pause can sometimes be the difference between reacting impulsively and responding thoughtfully.

Session 2: Understanding Others

The second session shifted the focus towards our relationships with others.

The Johari Window made me reflect on how there are aspects of our behaviour that we may not see ourselves, but others can. We may think we are being direct, while someone else experiences us as abrupt. We may believe we are giving autonomy, while someone else experiences it as a lack of support.

This is where feedback becomes powerful.

Self-awareness cannot come entirely from introspection. Sometimes, we need other people to hold up the mirror.

We also explored the SBI framework—Situation, Behaviour, Impact—for giving more specific and constructive feedback.

Instead of saying, “You need to communicate better,” we can focus on what actually happened, what the person did, and what impact that behaviour had.

That small shift makes feedback less personal and more observable. It creates space for a conversation rather than a judgement.

What I Took Away

Looking at both sessions together, I see a natural progression:

Know yourself → Manage yourself → Understand others → Give and receive feedback → Build better relationships

What I liked most about these sessions was that they made leadership feel less like a list of qualities to acquire and more like a daily practice of awareness.

How I respond to someone depends partly on how well I understand my own emotions.

How I give feedback depends partly on whether I can separate the person from the behaviour.

And how I receive feedback depends on being comfortable with the possibility that how I see myself may not always be how others experience me.

Perhaps good people management begins much earlier than the moment we sit down to resolve a conflict or give feedback.

It begins with a simple pause:

“What is happening within me right now, and how might that affect the way I respond to the person in front of me?”

That question, I think, is a small but meaningful step towards becoming a more emotionally intelligent leader.