As technological advances occur at warp speed in the AI world, many employees can feel overwhelmed by that technology and what their role might be alongside it. But the more things progress on the technology realm, the more necessary it is that the human qualities that can’t be replicated by AI are front and center. In this episode of the Can You Hear Me? Podcast, co-hosts Eileen Rochford and Rob Johnson explore “Why EQ Trumps Technical Skills in the Age of AI.”
Empathy in the Workplace, Center for Creative Leadership White Paper: https://www.ccl.org/insights-research/research/?research=empathy-in-the-workplace-a-tool-for-effective-leadership
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters More Than Technical Skills In The AI Age, Forbes Article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/aytekintank/2026/06/30/what-are-power-skills-and-how-can-leaders-reinforce-them-in-2026/
How to Ask Better Questions: https://podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/how-to-ask-better-questions/id1567769910?i=1000660342169
The Art of Asking Smarter Questions, Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2024/05/the-art-of-asking-smarter-questions
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Eileen Rochford: Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me podcast. I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the Harbinger Group, a marketing and strategy firm.
Rob Johnson: And I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications. Today we are talking about a trend that's been building for a while, but hit a tipping point in a recent Forbes article titled "Why Emotional Intelligence Matters More Than Technical Skills in the AI Age." It's a great read and honestly, it really does hit at the core of what we talk about every week because, you know, it seems like we talk about AI every week now. Um, for years the narrative was learn to code, master the stack, get the hard technical credentials. But as AI systems digest data, draft code, and handle complex analytics in just seconds, the pendulum is swinging hard back toward the human side of the ledger and I know that we're very happy about that.
Eileen Rochford: Yes we are. That's right 'cause only humans can do so many things, right? So right now talking more about that feels just, it feels good to me. Let's champion the human. Um, so the article that you mentioned, Rob, it points out something really profound that I think we should start the conversation with. As artificial intelligence takes over routine and even the highly technical tasks, those kinds of tasks, the technical skills, they're just becoming commoditized. So the real differentiator now is emotional intelligence, also known as EQ to most people listening. Um, the article cites research showing that required technical skills in AI-exposed roles are changing at double speed, but tasks requiring empathy, judgment, and conflict resolution are growing two and a half times faster. So, are we surprised by this?
Rob Johnson: I think the only thing that's surprising is when you first say, "Oh, it's uh, the AI-exposed roles are changing at double speed." That's not a surprise. But understanding that the value that's being placed in the human skills is advancing even more quickly. I guess that did surprise me a little bit, even though we know they're important skills, even though we know that people that have them are going to have a place in whatever business they're in. I guess it's a little surprising. What do you think?
Eileen Rochford: I agree with you. Because the narrative, you know, for the last several years, um, has been one of gloom and doom. Everyone's gonna lose their jobs, humans will have no meaning, um, which I, that honestly, just the years that those conversations were taking place, it was really hard for me to get my head around believing that really, that's how we're gonna go down? So I'm happy to see, um, and I guess I, you know, not surprised but maybe relieved to see that the uniquely human skills that, you know, only we possess are being noticed as that's the competitive edge. When you have the ability to think critically, exercise good judgment, uh, bring context, ethical decision making, I mean we could go on and on, resolving conflicts, building trust. Those are things that machines can't do. They can't do any of those things. And what organization can run without those things, I ask you?
Rob Johnson: Yeah, no that's a great point because really what happens here is, AI delivers information and humans build alignment. And so all of those things we talked about early on about, "well this is, you know, the humans will not be needed," that was a little premature. The Forbes piece highlights the fact that AI can simulate polite conversation or it can run predictive sentiment models, but it lacks authentic empathy, moral judgment, and relational trust. So you just can't prompt your way into true human connection. You can't just throw it in your favorite AI machine and have it make that human connection. So a key takeaway is that technical competence opens the door. I think we would all agree with that. And I just know that so many younger people who feel like their technical competence is going to win the day, they're wrong because EQ accounts for nearly 58% of performance success across job types and up to 90% of elite leadership traits. So all of a sudden, what gets you in the door? Technical expertise and competence. But if you don't have the EQ, if you don't have the emotional intelligence, what are you doing?
Eileen Rochford: Right. You're not going to stay there. You might get in the door, but you're probably going to be kicked out the door at some point without them, I think is really what it comes down to. So while we've been racing, you know, to learn how to utilize AI to its fullest inside our organizations, if we've been neglecting the uniquely human things, in particular the emotional intelligence side, then this is a good wake up call, don't you think? It's time to pay attention again and realize we have to keep that emotional intelligence muscle strength building and probably even more so right now, bring it to the forefront, um, largely because AI also has brought a lot of stress into the workplace. People feel uh, this expectation of producing more in less time, and people have been reporting the difficulty of keeping up with all of these different assignments, and kind of that pace of work feel has been accelerating even more as a consequence. So bringing in the EQ, emotional intelligence components into how you lead your team would help quite a bit with that, don't you think?
Rob Johnson: Yeah, I do agree, and I just think that whether you're competing with AI or not, I think having that EQ at your disposal and being able to understand how to use it, I just think it makes a lot of sense.
Eileen Rochford: Mm. I want to point out one more thing when you mentioned that EQ accounts for up to 90% of elite leadership traits. Um, I remembered something from the Center for Creative Leadership. They have an entire white paper on empathy in the workplace and how to lead teams with empathy that's pretty widely cited, but it's recent. It's from last year. Um, we'll put this in the show notes. But the part of that report that I'm going to bring up right now um, that I find fascinating is that leadership is positively related to job performance. In their report, they studied like 4,000 people using 360-degree feedback reports and found that um, if you were reported to have the characteristics of emotional intelligence, you know, listening, trust building, conflict resolution, all those kinds of things, um, if the people who you manage indicate that you have those characteristics, you know, traits, and if the people who manage you, kind of maybe mid-level manager, um, see you exhibiting those characteristics and traits to the people whom you manage, in both directions your job performance ratings go up. So that's keeping you in the door a bit, right?
Rob Johnson: Yeah, 'cause yeah, when you get there you want to stay there.
Eileen Rochford: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Especially right now 'cause it is getting really, really hard to get a job right now, we hear.
Rob Johnson: Yeah.
Eileen Rochford: So that's a pretty interesting thing um, I thought from the Center for Creative Leadership. I think we've talked about them a few times before on the show, but they're a great resource for this kind of information. They also have lots of um, like workshops um, and tons of webinars for how to improve in all these skill areas. So, we'll put that in the show notes.
Rob Johnson: No, no, it's very important. And what's exciting here is, like we take this Forbes article and it's sort of our basis for doing this podcast, but then there are other bits and pieces of information that are outside it that also kind of drive home the salient points that we want to make.
Eileen Rochford: Totally. There was another thing that I read from them that I thought was crazy, uh, well not crazy, but let's just say it's related to this. It was just interesting how it coincided with the topic. Um, the Center for Creative Leadership also noted that there are five things that derail a career. That they've really boiled it down. So there are five things and I'll tell you what they all are, but I'm going to highlight two. So the first is if you can't adapt to change, and gosh, what's happening right now but change every single day, every single minute, right? So your career can be very easily derailed if you are unable to adapt, if you have difficulty adapting anyway to change. Um, the second one, and this is one that relates to us and what we talk about on Can You Hear Me, that is the difficulty building and leading a team, and we know very, very well that communication is almost the most important core component of team leadership. So, um, that relates to us here on Can You Hear Me, as I said. Uh, the third is the failure to deliver business results, that's kind of a duh. I mean who gets to keep their job if they can't deliver their business results, right? Um, the fourth is lacking a broad strategic orientation, and then the fifth is problems with interpersonal relationships at work.
Rob Johnson: Yeah.
Eileen Rochford: And that's what emotional intelligence is really about. Fostering and strengthening and building those interpersonal relationships.
Rob Johnson: I think you're completely right and all of this research just backs it up because I felt like for so long it was breathless. Like, oh my gosh, you know, we're on the way out and oh, it's gonna learn all these things really quickly and then you're really going to be out of work. And I think what we've learned is, it is revolutionary. We all agree AI's revolutionary, whether you like it or not.
Eileen Rochford: Yep.
Rob Johnson: But the human piece continues to show up again and again and again. And that's the key point I think.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah. I agree. 100%. Okay, so, um, more great information from the Forbes article, which of course we'll put in the show notes. Um, what does this actually look like on the ground? Well, um, Forbes outlined four main pillars for leaders navigating this transition. Number one: active listening and reading cues. So going beyond what people say to understand what are they feeling, especially during, you know, big changes, big, you know, rollouts of your AI capability, for example, is a good one. Yep. Um, the next is creating psychological safety, which we've talked about a million times on the show, but we can't reinforce it enough because your people, your teams, need to feel safe when expressing uncertainty or red flags. You know, being able to do so without fear is, um, it's just crucial to everything but particularly effective communication.
Rob Johnson: Mhm.
Eileen Rochford: Um, the next is radical vulnerability. This phrase always makes me laugh, I'm like let's define radical. Am I vulnerable enough? I'll never know. Um, but what they mean in the article is leaders admitting what it is that they don't know rather than hiding behind, you know, data, buzzwords, anything that shields them from exhibiting weakness, if you will. Um, and then the last one is parallel track training. So pairing every new AI deployment with that human skills coaching. So that we're not losing things like critical thinking along the way. Can you imagine if we lost critical thinking and we're just pumping out whatever the machines create? Um, well, we all know that that would be a terrible outcome. So making sure that as you're rolling these things out that you're also um, pairing the human skills coaching. Um, and the Center for Creative Leadership is a great resource for that as well. And by the way, they are not a sponsor. I just wanted to say that.
Rob Johnson: I was going to say. Three mentions in, thank you. Center for Creative Leadership. Thank you, thank you. They're grateful. They're grateful I'm sure. Um, I just think all of these things they're not obvious, but they're all commonsensical, meaning like you bring up all four of those... And you're like, well of course. Of course they need to be able to have psychological safety or have the radical vulnerability. Um, and you know we've had conversations about vulnerability too. And in my book I talk about it's cool to be vulnerable if it's authentic to you. I mean you still have to—so we've danced around that tree before. But um, it's pretty interesting and then of course the human skills coaching cannot be, and you cannot overstate how important that is, I think. So I'm just glad that you know for this particular episode to have that article sort of be a jumping off point for the things that we're talking about now, I think is really interesting because, as we say all the time, it feels like every two out of three or at least half of the episodes deal with something related to AI because it's so prevalent in our world and there's so much uncertainty and there's so many shifting values on it, right?
Eileen Rochford: Yep. For sure. Okay, of these four, if you had to pick what one that you think is the most important... again they were active listening and reading cues, creating psychological safety, radical vulnerability, and parallel track training. What do you think is the most important of those four? I'm curious.
Rob Johnson: I would say um, I'm all about active listening, as you know. Um, since that was part of the book, but I would say for this particular exercise that you're talking about, creating this psychological safety is a big one because so much of AI is causing people psychological harm potentially. That's a real thing. And so I would say of these four, it's not that it's the most important one, but as I look at the list, psychological safety is very important, making sure that they can express their uncertainty about it or they can raise red flags without fear of retribution. I think that would be very important in this exercise because of the obvious reasons. What about you? What do you think of these? Would you say "oh I should, I would lean in on this one probably the most"?
Eileen Rochford: It's funny, I think I was torn between—well I guess it's a tie for me between the two that you cited, the active listening and being able to read cues, you know from the people...
Rob Johnson: Right, I love that one. I love that one just in general, yeah.
Eileen Rochford: Me too. And then so it's a tie between that and just this crucial element of psychological safety because at any point if people see things are being, for example maybe the AI strategy that you have is returning something that's dangerous. Something that's factually inaccurate that people know is completely wrong. If you're not telling them to stop and think and creating an environment where they feel protected, that you've got their backs when they you know say, "Hey, this is bad, it's going down the wrong way, we gotta stop." Um, then you could be in so much trouble. So I think it's a tie for me between those two.
Rob Johnson: I mean those two really stand out to me. I mean without question. Because I mean if you think about active listening, I mean that's the one area where reading cues, active listening, where humans have a distinct advantage. Right?
Eileen Rochford: Yeah. And that's something that can be learned. You know that's the best part, even if you rank like pretty low or even you know mid-level when it comes to anything EQ related. Um, the active listening in particular is a huge help um, if you choose that as one to level up on your skills. You can quickly figure out, how do I ask better questions? Well there's a million resources for that and we'll put some in the show notes too. Um, but actively asking questions is probably your greatest skill and I know we've talked about that on several shows even recently. That that's increasingly becoming um, like just a superpower. And so learning how to ask better questions and questions that lead you to the active listening um, is going to be a big jump start to helping yourself out if you're ranking you know lower on the EQ.
Rob Johnson: I mentioned this a couple times and I'm not trying to turn the conversation onto my book, but the "to overcommunicate you must first listen", chapter 2, and asking better questions, um, I've mentioned on this program and elsewhere that that's the one area in my professional development that I felt like I was the most deficient. And because I wrote about it and because I interviewed somebody great like Rich Jernstedt, our dear friend from Chicago, about it, I feel like that's the one area where I'm really focused on and not only does it help me professionally but it helps human Rob, you know, hold off his AI competitors. I think those are important things to talk about. So I would just say from my standpoint that's been something that's really been on my mind and something that I've really focused on and I feel like is so crucial. And it's not, "I ask the questions I know the answers to", because you hear people say that sometimes right? "Oh I only ask questions that I already know the answer to." I'm like that's the dumbest idea ever, you know.
Eileen Rochford: Right. What are you going to learn?
Rob Johnson: So what are you doing active listening wise recently that you found has worked especially well? Anything come to mind?
Eileen Rochford: I just think, you know, I'm such a problem solver and so in so many meetings with clients and various other people I'm collaborating with, I'm always the one that has the answer that's filling up, you know, a lot of the chat time with content. And I'm not saying it still doesn't happen, but I'm really trying to draw other things out of other people and have them contribute, and listen to what their perspective is because we all have, you know, when we're working on a project or we're doing some client work, we all have different roles, right? So I think I'm just trying to go beyond the, "oh I'm going to go in and listen to what their needs are"—I mean that's the very basic premise, but it's just day in and day out, what can I glean from others? Listening to what they're saying that is going to help me do a better job on the thing that I'm part of for this project. That's how I guess how I would explain it. I don't know how you feel about it or if you take a different approach.
Rob Johnson: No, that's great. I totally agree with you on that front. Um, you just got me thinking about maybe we should do a show on the best questions to ask right now.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah. That might be kind of an interesting thing. Because there's just been a lot of... I've just read multiple articles recently and... have listened to other podcasts and they're kind of dancing around it. And I feel like people could benefit from a list of... here are, just try these ten. Like, um, I've been asking lately, so what is it about this, you know, this concept or this idea that you hate the most? Because that's the thing nobody wants to hear, right? What's the scary thing? Okay, what don't you like about it? Like literally what is the thing that makes you go, oh this is just not good. Get to the heart of it, right away, so that you can kind of knock it off the table and move on to the good stuff. But other good questions like that... by asking good questions I think that you become a better active listener as long as you're not dominating and interjecting at the wrong moments.
Rob Johnson: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. Um, I'm not going to get into it uh, in the interest of time, but I will tell you that there is an article in the Harvard Business Review which I cite all the time as a great professional development tool for me that I used in research for the book, "The Art of Asking Smarter Questions" from May-June of 2024 written by three different authors. And I think we did a show that involved that, I swear.
Eileen Rochford: We did, we did, we did. And so I would just say as a show note, um, you might add that to the list because now that we're going down this even though we'd say oh we'll do another episode on it, but as it relates to that I think it would be very valuable for people who are thinking about this.
Rob Johnson: Yeah. So we'll include that one too. Cool. Good reminder. So if someone is listening to this in their car or they're on a walk, wherever they are, what are the immediate takeaways? So, how do you pivot from your own career or leadership style that you have today? So here are three quick things that we want to share. Examine your metrics. That means are you promoting people solely on output and technical speed or are you promoting them on how they develop and influence others? Two, micro empathy. You need to practice it in every high stakes conversation. You should be spending 70% of your time listening, observing, and not reacting. So that just drives home the thing that we just talked about frankly. And the third thing that I think is really important as we think about action items, be the bridge. You must frame technology, this whole AI revolution, as an amplifier for human judgment. That's how you get ahead. Not a replacement for it. It's not coming to replace you when it comes to a human judgment standpoint. But if you're an order taker and all you're doing is saying "yes I'll do this, no I won't do that", then you're in peril. But the human judgment portion, getting paid for your ideas, the showing expertise, that's where you're going to thrive.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah. I liked "examine your metrics" in particular. So making sure are you putting enough emphasis on emotional intelligence as um, in your being present uh, particularly amongst your mid-level managers and above. Um, if rewarding that behavior is what will bring more of it into your culture, right? So be sure to pay more attention to that right about now as we've noted it's a critical time to be protecting those truly human behaviors and attributes in particular. So I really liked that one. Um, and then this uh, if you're worried about, "well how do I know? Everybody thinks they listen more than they do." Go to your meeting transcripts and summaries on almost every AI tool.
Rob Johnson: You've said this before. I love it. I started doing it after you did it. I love it.
Eileen Rochford: Did you? Did you? Oh yeah, state it again for our listeners. I have to say what it is or they might not know what we're talking about. So AI meeting transcripts and summaries often will show here you know here were the four participants in the meeting and what was discussed and all those good things, but they'll also show who talked the most. So, if you are regularly the person dominating the conversation, go you know be aware of that. And realize I should be asking more questions and sitting back and listening to what people are saying and letting them go with their ideas instead of just driving the truck right through the middle and saying, "we're going in this direction and y'all are coming with me." I mean unless you absolutely have to do that for some reason, which occasionally you do, totally totally.
Rob Johnson: But when you brought this up on a recent episode, I was like oh I'm gonna go 'cause you use Tactiq, I use Fathom, everybody's got their own little meeting note taker and that sort of thing. And it was very telling. And guess what? I've been doing most of the talking.
Eileen Rochford: And uh, but it's eye opening. But it's eye opening.
Rob Johnson: And that's not to say oh I went from 70% of the time down to 20. Um, that's probably not going to happen in the world I think that you and I live in Eileen.
Eileen Rochford: But you could go down a little bit. What about 20%? You know shooting for 20% more listening time.
Rob Johnson: Yeah. That's not gonna hurt anybody. That is not gonna hurt you. And that's a great metric that you can set for yourself like hey in this last meeting I, you know, I only asked a few questions. I did the most you know declarative statement style talking. So in my next meeting in the future, I'm going to try for asking you know four to five questions and X minutes of listening time. Those are the kinds of things you can shoot for. It's very, like I said before, these are very learnable and teachable skills. But you have to pay attention and that's a great metric to focus on, the how many questions did I actually ask and how many minutes did I actually spend listening?
Eileen Rochford: Touché, touché. Yeah. It's a good one. Okay. Well, I think we've given you some great takeaways and that's going to do it for this episode. Thank you all for listening today. I'm Eileen Rochford. If you would like to comment on our podcast or suggest a topic, please contact us at our Can You Hear Me podcast page on LinkedIn or check out our newsletter, um, all of which you can find on our LinkedIn page. Um, and of course we always link that in the show notes.
Rob Johnson: Yeah, and I'm Rob Johnson. If you like what you heard please consider giving Can You Hear Me a positive review wherever you get your podcasts such as Apple or Spotify. This really helps other listeners find Can You Hear Me. And please check out our website. Everything Can You Hear Me at canyouhearmepod.beam.ly. That's how you can learn everything you need to know. Thank you so much for listening and we will see you again next time.