Why EQ Is the Last Skill AI Can't Touch - Danielle and Dan
[LIVE] - A conversation on leadership, emotional intelligence, and what it actually takes to show up at work.
Summary
Danielle sits down with Dan, co founder of Kestryl Edge, for a wide-ranging conversation on emotional intelligence in the workplace. They cover why EQ is not a soft skill, what leaders get wrong about training their teams, how values become a decision-making compass, and what advice they'd give to people at every stage of their career, from first-day employees to C-suite executives. Raw, practical, and zero PowerPoints.
Quotes from the episode
“We don’t want people’s ideas and dreams failing because they can’t work with people.” — Dan Korus
“Leadership is not a one-and-done training. They remember about 10% of what they learned — and while they’re in that training, they’re worried about the emails piling up.” — Danielle Shroyer
“People tell me you can’t teach emotional intelligence. I fundamentally disagree. It’s just like lifting weights — it’s time and reps. Our job is to show people what the gym looks like.” — Dan Korus
“We call them soft skills. They’re hard skills. They’re very trainable in the same way any hard skill is trained.” — Dan Korus
“Values aren’t always something that we are. They’re also something that we aspire to be. They’re our compass.” — Dan Korus
“When you make decisions that are consistently in line with your values, the trust with the people around you really starts to accelerate.” — Dan Korus
“The leader controls what’s said, whether they mean to or not.” — Danielle Shroyer
“Culture is created by leaders. If you don’t recognize that you have leadership issues — or you recognize it and don’t do anything about it — that’s a problem.” — Danielle Shroyer
“HR carries a lot. Promotions, new babies, cancer diagnoses, bereavement leave. And they can’t talk about any of it.” — Danielle Shroyer
“I rearranged the entire lab on my first day. Total power move. They hated it. My system made sense though — I’ll hold my guns on that.” — Dan Korus
A real pleasure being invited to your live, Danielle.
Cheers,
Dan
Dan is co-founder of Kestryl Edge, a leadership development consultancy helping operations-heavy companies reduce turnover and rework through emotional intelligence. Work with us →
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Originally published at dankorus.substack.com. The Updraft is the canonical home for this piece.