Mastering Emotional Intelligence for Project Success

Posted on Nov 15, 2025 in Psychology and Sociology

Day 1: Project Management Fundamentals

Typical Project Processes

Initialize
Plan & Schedule
Execute
Monitor
Close

PM vs. The Plate Spinner

Project Managers get work done through the efforts and coordinated contributions of many other people. Unlike inanimate plates, people have:

Feelings and emotions
Other commitments and priorities
Politics and varied personalities
Varied communication modes and skills
History and biases
Forgetfulness
Minds they might change
Hidden agendas
A need to feel respected
Lives outside of work
Blind spots and insecurities

Why Projects Fail

Projects often fail due to:

Unclear goals (charter)
Poor planning
Lack of stakeholder support
Poor team formation
Insufficient communication
Lack of resources
Unresolved conflicts
Poor accountability
Weak leadership
Change in priorities
Inappropriate culture
Weak monitoring

People << Processes << Communication & People skills

Requirements for Gaining Cooperation

Things required to get what is needed from others:

Shared vision
Communication
Motivation
Shared values
Engagement
Trust

Key PM Activities

A Project Manager’s activities include:

Managing teams, staff, and consultants
Managing conflicts and resolving cross-functional team issues
Coordinating efforts and dealing with surprises
Resolving competing priorities
Updating and adjusting expectations and project plans
Providing status reports (to the team and management)
Verifying continued buy-in

PM Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

Hard Skills:

Budgeting, measures, and metrics
Project planning and resource planning
Risk assessment and management
Timeline management and variance analysis
Monitoring and reporting
Other technical skills

Soft Skills:

Communication (especially listening)
Creative thinking and decision making
Empathy and emotional intelligence
Critical observation and thinking (insight)
Time management and organization skills
Conflict resolution and problem solving
Adaptability and interpersonal skills
Public speaking and diplomacy
Influencing

Day 2: Emotional Intelligence and Emotions

Defining Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

EQ is the ability of individuals to recognize their own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

EI involves: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions.

EQ vs. IQ and Personality

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) may be significantly more important than IQ.
EQ, IQ, and personality traits are not dependent on each other.
IQ is fairly locked in at birth or a young age.
Personality doesn’t normally change after the teen years.
EQ can be developed and improved throughout your life.

The Four Skills of EI

Self-awareness
Social awareness
Self-management
Relationship management (leading to team leadership)

Investing in Your EQ

Strategies to improve EQ include:

Naming and writing down real-time emotions.
Checking and revisiting subconscious labels you’ve applied today.
Touching base with your emotional, mental, physical, relationship, and occupational wellness.
Meditation and breathing techniques.
Active listening with empathy.
Looking for others’ emotional states.

Basic Emotions

Scared, Angry, Sad, Happy, Excited, Tender.

Body-Emotion Connection

The “Victory Pose” can increase testosterone and confidence while decreasing cortisol, making you less stress-reactive and less shut down. Your emotions can have a strong direct effect on your body (and vice versa).

When Stressed or Worn Down: Do This

Put on your favorite clothes.
Go for a walk or exercise.
Write down (not type) five things you are thankful for.
Think of a recent win.
Breathe correctly.
Talk with another person or tell someone “thank you.”
Help someone.
Have a drink of cool water.
Phone (do not text) a friend.

When Stressed or Worn Down: Avoid This

Doing nothing or complaining.
Allowing your emotions to degrade into a breakdown.
Eating unhealthy or excess foods.
Extra caffeine.
Withdrawing from others/team/project.
Video games, social media (Facebook, chat), or shopping.
Drinking or drugs.

Self-Awareness and Confidence

Self-awareness is foundational, involving understanding ourselves and our emotions, and accuracy in accessing those emotions. Self-confidence is the ability to be grounded, secure, and self-assured in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Why EI is Critical for Project Managers

Project Managers get things done through the work of others. EI is critical because it helps PMs:

Develop stakeholder relationships that support project success.
Create a positive work environment and high team morale.
Leverage emotional information to make better decisions.
Deal with difficult team members and manage conflict.
Anticipate and avoid emotional breakdowns.
Communicate much more effectively.
Cast a vision for shared project objectives that will attract, inspire, and motivate the project team.

The Catch: EI is Necessary, But Not Sufficient

Improving EI is foundational to becoming a more successful Project Manager, especially in a stress-filled role that depends heavily on healthy work relationships. However, it is not sufficient to make you a great PM. You also need:

Other skills (technical, organizational, communication, trade specific).
Other aptitudes and behaviors (e.g., decisiveness, discernment).

Note: Some people with extremely high EQ, great self-awareness, control, and empathy may face paralysis when it comes to making tough decisions or dealing with hard issues.

Day 3: Brain Function, Emotions, and Fairness

How Our Brain Processes Emotions

Emotions are numerous, complex electro-chemical reactions in our brain. The three areas of our brain evolved at different times and have very different functions:

Neocortex (New Brain): Rational thought, language, imagination, abstract thought, flexible, and has an almost infinite learning ability.
Limbic (Middle Brain): Emotional memories, processing emotions, value judgments, strongly influences behavior, most often subconsciously.
Old Brain (Reptilian Brain): Evolved first, primary life support (breathing, heartbeat), instinctual responses, and some compulsive behaviors.

Understanding Amygdala Hijacking

The Amygdala (part of the limbic brain) stores memories of emotional events and triggers strong, powerful emotional responses, including fear and anxiety (fight, freeze, or flight). It is designed to outpace and override rational thought for survival, not for working on or leading teams.

Because projects are full of conflict, stresses, and emotionally charged situations, the power of the Limbic brain may often get in the way of effective project leadership. Recognizing emotions and learning which ones are helpful and which are not is an important foundation of excellent leadership.

What is Amygdala Hijacking?

This occurs when your words and/or behavior are not what you would have done if you were in a different emotional state (often triggered by fear, nervousness, anxiety, indignation, unfairness, or a feeling of “wrongs that must be righted”).

Handling a Hijacking

If you are unsure, try these techniques:

Recognize and acknowledge your emotions as they occur. (Not all hijackings should be suppressed.)
Bite your tongue; do not hit “send email.”
Count to 10.
Use 4-7-8 breathing.
Seek understanding and/or shared context.
Sleep on it.

When You Feel Something is Unfair

If you think something is unfair to you, recognize that your limbic brain has likely taken the controls and is setting you up for failure and embarrassment:

Your rational brain is short-circuited (outpaced) by your limbic brain.
You will often strongly believe you are being uber-rational, when you are not.
You may feel an urge to find people to agree with you that it is unfair and/or that you are justified.
You will say, do, and email things that make perfect sense to you, but others will likely see you as over-reacting or immature.

Corrective Action: Give it time. Few issues require an immediate response. Gauge your emotions. If you cannot discuss it serenely and calmly, beware. Consider your part in the situation and what you could have done differently.

Emotional Wiring and Conditioning

We are not truly “wired” one way or another, but based on past experiences, our brains create almost infinite shortcuts:

Situation → Emotions → Peptides and hormones excreted (act like drugs) → Brain becomes “addicted,” “wired,” or “conditioned” to respond with similar emotions when “similar” situations occur.

Emotional reactions within our brain are the same whether the situation is real, remembered, imagined, or perceived. Emotion awareness helps us “re-wire” and form new loops, altering the cycle of conditioned subconscious responses.

Stressors, Triggers, and Negative Thoughts

Key Terms to Know

ANTs, blaming, catastrophizing, cognitive distortions, emotional reasoning, fallacy of change, filtering, labeling, overgeneralization, personalization, polarizing, pre-thinking, prospective hindsight, stressors, should statements, triggers.

Common Breakdowns (Big and Small)

Criticizing others, slamming doors, sarcasm.
Venting tirades (verbal/email), holding grudges, getting even.
Withdrawal, giving up, withholding information.
Playing the victim, chickening out, not speaking out, not volunteering, not reaching out.
Snapping back.

Stressors and Triggers

Stressors: Things that cause pressure, discomfort, and uncertainty now (e.g., exams, bills, work, relationships, public speaking, dental visits, air travel, deadlines, illness, workload).
Triggers: Things that bring forward emotions based on past experiences, initiated by any of the senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste) or causes (uncomfortable topics, other people’s words, unpleasant memories).

Pre-Thinking and Prospective Hindsight

Pre-Thinking: A common breakdown cause where we consciously or subconsciously imagine negative outcomes, causing fear and anxiety. We have emotions based on an imagined sequence of events (e.g., imagining saying something dumb and freezing up instead of contributing). We are driven (or held back) by emotions formed by what we imagine might occur (often an implausible worst case).
Prospective Hindsight: Consciously imagining a future state of looking back at something undesirable that hasn’t happened yet, and then using that imagined hindsight to take steps to reduce the risk of that undesirable situation.

Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)

ANTs are triggered by an event, place, person, or other stimuli. They tend to be crippling. Various species include self-doubt, derogatory naming (labeling), guilt, abuse, thinking you know what someone else is thinking, and predicting (imagining) the worst.

15 Common Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions are common mental filters that can lead to bad decisions, anxiety, or feeling bad about ourselves or others. They are typically exaggerations not well-founded on facts.

Filtering: Ignoring or weighing lightly the positives in a situation while dwelling on and magnifying the negatives (AKA mental filtering, selective abstraction).
Polarization: Viewing yourself and/or situations as all-or-nothing (AKA black and white thinking).
Overgeneralization: Taking an isolated negative comment or event and treating it like a consistent, never-ending negative pattern (using superlatives like always, never, nothing, everyone).
Discounting the Positive: Dismissing the value of positive comments, events, or aspects.
Jumping to Conclusions: Interpreting something as negative without sufficient supporting data (often due to attribution errors or persistent underlying concerns).
Catastrophizing: Jumping (or hopping) to the worst possible conclusion, regardless of how improbable it is (often a series of worsening thoughts, or snowballing).
Personalization: Feeling guilty or assigning blame to yourself when that is not the accurate or complete picture, or thinking a statement by a person about themselves is a statement against you.
Control Fallacies: Either feeling responsible for everything in your life (or the lives of those around you), or feeling you have no responsibility/control over many things (resulting in playing the victim).
Fairness Fallacies: Thinking the world should be fair, believing your view of fairness is correct, and not accepting that fairness is not an absolute.
Blame: The belief that others are more responsible for your emotions and feelings than you are. (Instead, you can still be in control of your emotions in most situations.)
“Should” Statements: Unrealistic, idealistic, iron-clad rules or expectations on yourself or others that do not allow for different specific circumstances. Leads to self-disappointment, guilt, frustration, anger, and being judgmental of others.
Emotional Reasoning: Taking emotions (feelings) and treating them like facts or accurate results of facts that are not substantiated (are imagined or perceived but may not be real).
Fallacy of Change: Expecting others to change who they are (change their ways) in order to suit your expectations, especially by applying repeated pressure.
Global Labeling: Taking a single or few attributes and treating them like a larger absolute (often negative and extreme, crossing over with jumping to conclusions and overgeneralization).
Always Being Right: Viewing your own beliefs and opinions as facts. Often willing to go to lengths to argue or prove your beliefs are right, and closed-minded to the beliefs and opinions of others if they do not align with yours.

Day 4: Recognizing Behavioral Red Flags

The Seven Damaging Behaviors

Inappropriate Humor
Teasing, ridiculing, or pointing out differences. This includes, but is not limited to, jokes related to race, anger, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, ethnicity, weight, or height. Sometimes used to avoid professionally addressing an uncomfortable topic.
Sarcasm
An indirect method of expressing anger, aggression, contempt, hatred, fear, or insecurity towards a person or situation. Nine out of ten times (or more), the situation could have been handled much better and more professionally.
Questions to consider regarding sarcasm: Is the anger directed at a person or at something else? Is it focused on a shared frustration? Is the sarcasm a method to avoid something that really should be dealt with more directly and professionally? Is the relationship and trust strong enough so that sarcasm is not harmful? What is the expected (or desired) response? What is your goal?
Dealing with overly sarcastic behavior: Try to understand why. Let them know your expectations (in private is usually best). If a public correction is needed, handle it in private. Simply ask them to explain what they meant (drill down).
Passive Aggressive Behavior
Calm, quiet, subtle troublemaking. Examples include agreeing in person then not doing as agreed, not showing up, not meeting obligations, “forgetting” to include or inform, or stubbornness. Can manifest in odd ways (e.g., intentional hygiene issues). The underlying emotion is often anger.
Playing the Victim
Complaining about things rather than affecting change. This involves a lack of honesty about the role we do or can play, rationalization for reduced responsibility, and an excuse for unsatisfactory situations. This is one of the most common and damaging behaviors. The individual ignores what they could have done to cause a different outcome, concedes to a position of powerlessness, and is in no position to prevent repeat situations.
Corrective Measures: Ask yourself: What’s my role in the situation? What can I do differently? How can I stay positive? How can I change my mood? What options would I propose to a friend in the same situation?
Hostility and/or Defensiveness
Irresponsible and damaging behavior, often intimidating or involving venting.
Reactivity
People, requests, or events bother you more than they should. Other people might view your response as “a bit” oversensitive.
Criticism
Hurtful and disrespectful of others. Often a response by someone feeling hurt, vulnerable, or insecure.

Self-Confidence Defined

Self-confidence is a strong sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities. A self-assured person has a “presence,” is comfortable and effective even when their view is unpopular, is decisive and a good decision maker, and is comfortable learning from failure. None of the seven red flags are prominent in a self-confident individual.

Day 5: Communication, Attribution, and Shyness

The Power of Language

The word “problem” infers negatives: danger, lack of control, victim, helplessness, needing rescue. Rephrase “problem” using the word “challenge” or “opportunity.”

Unhealthy Mindsets Towards Emotions

Common unhealthy mindsets stem from environments where feelings were not openly discussed, or where acknowledging or showing emotions was viewed as weakness, immaturity, or irrelevant.

Understanding Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory is the study of the mechanisms and processes involved with assigning an assumed reason for what we see or think we saw. We naturally assign a logical reason for events or behaviors; it’s part of how we make sense of what we observe.

A Typical Subconscious Mental Process

Observation or Event: You see something.
Interpretation: You put a name (label) to what you think you saw.
Attribution: You assign a logical reason for what you decided you saw.
Response: You think or do something based on the attribution.

Internal vs. External Attribution

Internal Attribution: We assign the cause of events or behaviors to be due to something within the person.
External Attribution: We assign the cause of events or behaviors to be due to something situational (outside of the person).

Attribution Bias and Errors

We often assign the cause of events or behaviors inaccurately, focusing on the person (agent) over the environment. For example:

When we see someone else slip on a step, we may assume they are clumsy or intoxicated (biasing towards internal attribution).
When we slip on a step, we attribute it to the step being slippery, uneven, or poorly lit (biasing towards external attribution).

Shyness and Social Awareness

Shyness is not part of personality; it is a tendency towards a light level of anxiety in certain social situations, and the resultant behaviors subconsciously caused by those feelings.

Extroverted and Very Shy: These people may be quiet throughout an entire party, sitting off to the side, but the party is inspiring and recharging them emotionally. Being alone too long is difficult and draining for them.
Introverted and Very Bold (Not Shy): These people may even be the life of the party, but they will likely leave drained emotionally and physically. They are refreshed and recharged through solitary quiet time.

This means shyness is not rigidly locked in for life; if desired, it can be reduced over time as you improve your EI and take actions to engage more.

Day 6: Empathy and Empathetic Listening

Defining Empathy

Empathy is the:

Ability to read the unspoken thoughts and feelings of others.
Ability to appreciate and understand the unspoken thoughts and feelings of others.
Capacity to value and respect people from diverse backgrounds or cultures and/or with different views, values, opinions, and motivations.

Note: Empathy does not infer agreement or sympathy.

Why Empathy Can Be Challenging

Empathy is often difficult due to several factors:

1. Self-Orientation

We impose our view on others and consider the way we think as “right.”
It’s hard for us to think how others think differently.
We default to basing our feedback or coaching on what worked for us: “When I was…, …”

2. Results-Driven Focus

Projects are by nature results-focused, and we have a drive to improve, upgrade, fix, or finish.
This focus is good for managing the project itself, but bad for managing communication, people, and relationships critical to the project.
The project focus can get in the way of managing the project stakeholders, and thus the project itself.

3. Awkward, Undeveloped Skills

Most of us are not good at listening skills.
We plan how we will talk to someone, but rarely plan how to listen.
We interrupt, treat listening as “waiting our turn,” or plan our response while “listening.”
We judge as we listen, or stop listening when we disagree.
We switch the focus to OUR “similar” experience.

4. Superiority Complex

We may associate our project leadership role as verification that we are smarter.
We assume that the one “in charge” has the important information to give out (reinforced by upbringing and educational experiences).
We feel the need to “fix” or “correct” others because they do not think and feel the way we do.
We naturally criticize and compartmentalize (bad/worse/different).

The AEIOU Model for Listening

Effective listening requires five key components:

Appreciative: When someone is talking, they are sharing what they think is important. If we appreciate that they are sharing, they are likely to share more (keep this in mind when someone is venting “irrationally”).
Empathetic: Your ability to empathize with their emotions is possibly the most important factor in listening well. Do not be judgmental as you listen.
Inquisitive: By remaining curious, we encourage the speaker to expose more of their thoughts and emotions. Instead of responding with your input, try responding with questions that encourage the speaker to go deeper.
Open-minded: Everyone you speak with knows things that you don’t. As leaders, we have a lot to gain by keeping an open mind, even if others have views or values that conflict with ours.
Understanding: You need to learn what is important to someone else (and why) if you want to truly communicate and work well together. When we seek to understand, we are driven to listen. Leaders should expect and accept that people may think, feel, and behave differently.

Empathetic Listening Techniques

Do Not Multitask: Listening well demands focus. Avoid looking at your phone, monitor, or papers. When we multitask, we receive less of the message and signal that we do not value their input.
Phubbing: The practice of ignoring one or more other people in order to pay attention to one’s phone or other mobile device.
Stay in That Moment: When other thoughts come to mind, forget them. Let them go! Don’t try to recall or develop them into what you might say in reply.
Seek Knowledge: Always assume you have something to learn. Your personal agenda, opinions, and goals have no business in the act of listening.
Empathize, Don’t Relate: Do not relate what you’re hearing to a so-called similar experience you’ve had. All you’ve done is change the topic to yourself. Instead, listen for what’s unique in their experience.
Summarize Only When Appropriate: Playing back, summarizing, or paraphrasing what you think you heard is a good, powerful habit, but it is not applicable to many or most situations.
Watch for Emotions: When we connect with the emotions of the speaker, we naturally empathize more, listen better, and are distracted less.

Imagine if you were in their place, how would you feel? Don’t make judgments. Usually, you are not required to “fix” the situation or correct them on the spot. Look for the good and the unique.

Co-Creation in Relationships

Both people play a role in the quality of the working relationship. No one party is solely responsible. This infers that both must work on the relationship and that neither is 100% a victim.

Dealing with Difficult People

Difficult people include critics, bullies, narcissists, dishonest individuals, “cavemen,” jerks, “needy” people, and cheaters.

Tips for dealing with difficult people on your team:

Seek to understand and foster empathy.
Do not flex on your standards for team values and culture.
Set and enforce limits.
Don’t give up on truth-telling techniques when needed, but don’t try to “fix” them.
Document more. Get help.
Beware the effect of negative labels you’ve assigned (no matter how valid).
Look for their strengths (and re-label them based on that).
Accept they may be more work and stress; relabel that as an opportunity.
Value diversity and be consistent.
If needed, push for a move (they leave or you leave).