Dropping AI into the working world has been like dropping a pack of Mentos into a Diet Coke. Here are a couple of the latest highlights from my perspective as a writer:
1. “Deep Search” mode on Chat GPT can pull up 50 of the most relevant pieces of research and writing on a topic and organize them in a clean report you can read in 5-10 minutes. As a writer, Deep Research pulls reports that would have taken me a day of solo research to get and plug into a story or column.
2. You can create hyper-realistic, stylish images. This image of Trump and Zelensky meeting in the White House went viral because it’s done in the style of the famous Japanese animator Hiyao Miyazaki (creator of movies like Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro). Sadly, the images are so well done that Miyazaki is suing over the rights. This is a prime example of how AI moves so fast that it steamrolls right over important considerations, relying on the “it’s too late to fix it” mentality.
3. AI learns and improves so quickly that it’s already surpassing humans on a number of tasks. It’s better at reading comprehension, handwriting recognition, and it can even answer PhD-level science questions better than PhDs. Notably, two Nobel prizes in the sciences relied on AI advancements (physics and chemistry) in 2024.
Because AI relies on users to grow, you could argue we’re still in the phase of stuffing Mentos into the bottle. It’s starting to bubble, but the full effect is still building.
The point here isn’t (just) to scare you. It’s to point out how the “rapidly-changing, uncertain environment” that we always like to talk about is more real than ever before. In fact, the World Economic Forum estimates that 44% of workers’ core skills will change by 2027.
Asked what skills will become the most important over that time, organizations overwhelmingly name people skills. In addition to emotional intelligence, four of the ten most in-demand skills are:
- Ethics: As AI makes information so readily available, it brings up a slew of ethical questions. Just because AI can do something, does that mean it should? In what situations should you “trust” AI? Is it okay to profit off of a Miyazaki knock-off if you made it on Chat GPT?
- Creativity: Creative thinkers can go “beyond the algorithm” to do work that’s truly original.
- Leadership Skills, Specifically Driving Engagement: In times of uncertainty, it becomes more difficult to engage your team. This equates to turnover, worse work, lower productivity, lower job satisfaction, less job referrals, and so on.
- Resilience: Resilience skills can help you navigate change, stay healthy, and find opportunity in tough circumstances.
In addition to being on this list, emotional intelligence (EQ) directly feeds into each of these four skills. So let’s take a look at how EQ strategies can help you improve at each skill.
What Is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
I like to break emotional intelligence down into three different definitions:
- The Very Simple: EQ is being intelligent about your emotions.
- Mid Complexity: EQ is RUM, which stands for recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions toward desired outcomes for yourself and in your interactions with others.
- Full four-box definition: In order to RUM your emotions, you need four core skills:
Self-Awareness: Your ability to recognize and understand your emotions and tendencies. Self-awareness requires you to know what makes you tick, what motivates you, your strengths and weaknesses, and your values and mission.
Self-Management: Your ability to work with your emotions in order to have the best possible outcome. For example, you recognize that you’re overwhelmed (self-awareness), so you take a deep breath and write down everything that feels overwhelming. That second piece is self-management.
Social Awareness: Your ability to recognize and understand the emotions of others. This is about picking up on what other people are really saying and why. It gets into body language, facial expressions, reading the mood in the room. It also gets into empathy.
Relationship Management: Your ability to use the previous three skills to build and maintain strong relationships. This gets into conflict resolution, having effective critical conversations, giving feedback, and having good one-on-one meetings.
Mapping These Four Core Skills to The Demands of AI
For simplicity’s sake, here’s one EQ strategy from each of the four core skills. Each one is directly linked to one of the key AI Era Skills. Practice these strategies to simultaneously improve your EQ and future-proof yourself for the AI Era:
Ethics → Self-Awareness → Pinpoint Your Values
- Write down your top 3-5 values.
- Now, think about a big decision you recently made.
- How did (or didn’t) your values influence your decision?
Creativity → Self-Management → Use an Emotion Wheel to Find Flow
Use an emotion wheel to find your flow. Next time you’re struggling to get started, pull up the emotion wheel. Start in the middle and work your way out to find the most specific word that fits how you currently feel. Once you’ve chosen the word it becomes much easier to adjust your approach to match it. For example, if you’re overwhelmed or anxious, you can carve out a bite-size chunk. Or if you’re bored, you might try to find a way to complexify your task, like automating it, templatizing it, or doing it on a timer. By enhancing your focus, you’ll position yourself to enter a state of flow and boost your creativity.
Leadership that Drives Engagement → Social Awareness → Craft a Note of Recognition
Crafting a simple, meaningful note of recognition every Friday. Follow this simple template:
- Thank you [NAME],
- for [BEHAVIOR YOU WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE].
- You ___. [TIE BACK TO A VALUE OR GOAL].
- I hope you feel __ because ___.
Example: “Thank you Julie for working overtime to launch our program last week. You enabled our team to hit our goal of launching this program in Q1. I hope you feel proud of what you accomplished because you really carried our team through this tough time, and we’re incredibly grateful.”
Resilience → Relationship Management → Make a Plan to Ask for Help
Make a plan to ask for help. This can be in either an ongoing way or a one-off. Research even shows that we tend to like people who ask us for favors more, not less.
1. Write out one skill or project you want to improve at.
2. Write down 1-3 people who are skilled at it or could offer a unique perspective.
3. Make a plan to ask them for help.
Putting These Strategies to Practice
The beauty of the emotional intelligence model is how seamlessly it connects to a number of other critical skills. Practice the four strategies above and you’ll simultaneously improve your EQ and future-proof yourself for the AI Era.
Kevin Kruse is the Founder + CEO of LEADx, an emotional intelligence training company. Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is Emotional Intelligence: 52 Strategies to Build Strong Relationships, Increase Resilience, and Achieve Your Goals.