What does it mean to Lead with Emotional Intelligence: How Self-Awareness Transforms Leadership & Business Performance | EP 21

One thing we see leaders struggle with lately is this quiet disconnect between who they want to be and how they actually show up under pressure. They care about their clients. They care about their business partner. They care about their teams. They’re capable. They’re driven. And yet, stress hits and suddenly they’re snapping, shutting down, or taking everything back on themselves. This isn’t about being a bad leader. It’s about self-awareness, and it matters now because it directly affects trust, time, clarity, and team health.

In this episode, we dig into why competent, caring leaders still react in ways that surprise them. You’ll hear reflections on fear, intensity, and patterns that show up sideways when emotions go unexamined. We break down how emotional awareness, not just personality tests or journaling prompts, can prevent the drift into micromanagement, burnout, and miscommunication. This conversation bridges personal growth with business leadership, illustrating how understanding your emotional triggers can strengthen trust, team culture, and decision-making.

What to listen for in this episode

How unexamined emotions show up in leadership — reactions like micromanaging, avoidance, and intensity often stem from fear or unrecognized patterns rather than actual business problems.

Practical self-awareness cues to notice — learn how to identify moments when you’re reacting instead of responding and how that awareness impacts team dynamics and personal life.

Why emotional intelligence is a practice, not a switch — lasting growth takes time and reflection, and you’ll hear honest stories about how this looks in real leadership — from professional settings to family life.

As leaders, we don’t just manage tasks, we model emotional intelligence. So here’s a question to sit with this week: What repeated reaction in your business is actually pointing to an unmet emotional need within you and what might it teach you if you listened?

Tune in to transform not just how you work, but how you lead yourself and others.

Transcript

You're listening to Entrepreneurial Encounter, the podcast where soft skills meet real talk for creative business owners who are building with purpose. I'm Dana, a Pinterest marketing strategist and agency owner helping wedding pros and creative entrepreneurs get seen without burning out. And I'm Sarah, a business and team strategist who helps small teams and podcasters communicate clearly, lead with empathy and grow sustainably. Together, we're unpacking the messy, side of entrepreneurship.

from boundaries to burnout, leadership to listening, so you can build a business that actually fits your life.

Let me ask you something. Have you ever had a moment where you reacted in a way that surprised you? Like something's going on, nothing really major, but you still snap, you shut down, got controlling, or just felt way more intense than the situation actually called for. And then later as you're reflecting and thinking, that's not who I am. I'm good at my job. I know I'm better than that.

So why did that come out of our mouth or like manifest in our body? This is something that we hear all the time from business owners and leaders. I'm capable, I'm competent, I care about my team and yet the reactions don't always line up with the leader they want to be. And I'm gonna throw my hand up and say, I do the same thing. Like I keep like breathing, I'm grounding, I'm regulating my nervous system or at least I'm doing the best that I can. But that tension,

is still there and that's not necessarily a failure of skill. That's a lack of self-awareness showing up under pressure. So before we get into it, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes. And as always, all of our content is in the show notes. Here's the thing. Most of us were never really taught how to understand our emotional patterns as leaders. Self-awareness, a lot of the times,

gets packaged into let's do a journal prompt or like a personality test. And while these could be helpful, that's not what we're talking about here. Self-awareness and leadership is about noticing what happens in you when things feel out of control, unclear, or feel like maybe are at high stakes. It's really about recognizing your triggers before

You run that meeting with your team, the email that you send out, the conversation that you're about to have. And when that awareness is not there, emotions don't disappear. They show up sideways and negative ways and a way that you don't want to show up as a leader. Which is always the worst. We'll hear things like, I don't trust my team to do it the right way. Or it's just faster if I do it myself. And in theory.


Yes, it might be faster if you do it yourself. However, that doesn't free up your time to do other things to get you to where you want to be in your business or in life. So when we slow it down, what's really underneath all of that is fear. It's fear of losing control. It's fear of being disappointed. It's fear of things falling apart. It can even be fear of being in the spotlight. So we just keep procrastinating that success track.

because it's a fear of whatever is on the other side. And that fear is gonna turn often into micromanaging or avoidance or intensity that gets labeled as just being passionate. Intensity feels productive. It feels like leadership, but intensity without self-awareness often creates that burnout that we are so keenly aware of and see often in ourselves or in those around us.

And that is not the results that we want or really need in our lives. You know, I've been in situations in my life where I've felt fear because I didn't want to be disappointed. I didn't want things to fall apart. You know, starting a business, I had no idea what I was doing. I was like, I'm going to do this with fear. And then as it started to grow, I didn't know how to handle that. And I was almost afraid.

that things were gonna fall apart. When I felt that fear, I wanted to give up. Because I'm like, what if this actually falls apart? Well, now I'm in the spotlight and everybody sees me, but what if, you know, all these what if questions? But if I kept that fear, and I kept thinking that I would not be where I'm at today. And I think this is where we can get lost in our own thoughts. And then it starts to show up in ways that we don't want it to show up.

So what does self-awareness actually look like in leadership? It looks like noticing the patterns. When do you feel most reactive? Let's look at the deadlines to feedback when things aren't moving fast enough. Of course I want my business to grow, but it's not going fast enough. Or I am getting this feedback that I don't like, but what if it's actually good feedback, but I need to step back and look at everything as a whole? But you have to be honest.


when those moments are brought up to you? Again, is it the fear? Is it the pressure? Is it the need to prove something? I think it's pausing long enough to choose your response instead of defaulting to reaction. We've talked previously in other episodes about conflict resolution and resilience and how to handle things under pressure.

So that doesn't mean we stop having emotions. It means we're not going to let unexamined emotions lead our business. We're going to try to stay grounded and think, have some emotions, because we need to know if it aligns, does it feel good? Does it feel scary? But we're going to take some of the emotion out of it so that we can move forward and lead the business in the direction that we want to go. Because it just being uncomfortable, fear of something being uncomfortable. Well, that's just because it's new and exciting or new and fearful.

But that doesn't mean it's wrong. so taking pausing long enough to choose a response as opposed to just an instant reaction of like, Ooh, I don't like that. I'm going to let it go. Instead of I'm going to hold on and let this play through and move forward and see what happens. Because when we don't know our triggers, our team fills them, even if we never named them. Or in my case, I'm going to pull my family into this. If I don't know my triggers, like what is

setting me off in a more reactive state. My kids feel it, even if we don't know how to name it. I'm going to snap at them when I'm overwhelmed about something happening at work because I haven't paused long enough to figure out what is it about my business right now that is causing me overwhelm and anxiety and how can I address it instead of just plowing through doing menial client work or admin tasks. Like, yes, they're important, but if it's something if it's continuously causing me an issue and then I'm snapping at my kids,

that defeats the whole purpose of this business in the first place. And so we got to reevaluate those things so that it's a foundation of emotional intelligence and not just a roller coaster that no one wants to be on anymore.


Oh yeah, I've seen it happen many of times, like with clients, with people that I used to work with when I was working in corporate, people getting upset, snappy for really no apparent, well, I would say probably whatever reason they had, but it had nothing to do with us, nothing to do with the team. But when you as a team member see somebody snap, you're like, Oh, what did I do? And reality, you didn't do anything. They're just having a bad day. Like if I wake up.

in a bad mood and Dana and I have a meeting and I'm snappy at her. She's be like, what did I do? I didn't do anything. I feel like I didn't get enough sleep. like you're taking your emotions out on somebody else when they have nothing to do with it. So we have to kind of like backtrack like, okay, well, I didn't get enough sleep last night. So maybe I should start getting more sleep so that I don't have to be snappy to the people that I'm working with. I think it's that's in a foundation.

And it can shift a lot of things with understanding and everything else, because just like with that, staying grounded under pressure. Why are you cranky? You know, like it allows us to build trust with each other. We're managing conflict. Like I'm not going to take it personally. If you're having a bad day, I'm going to try and help you stay grounded under pressure. But we can't delegate that self-awareness. You first have to understand why you are upset, why you aren't off.

You can't outsource that. can ask questions, but you can't say, I don't know, you figure out why I'm cranky. You figure out why I'm snapping at you. No system or software is going to replace that. So when we understand what's driving us, this is like deeper than our why or what's causing us to freeze. We stop leading from fear and we start leading from clarity. And that's going to shift everything from communication, our

Ecosystem culture are how safe people feel around us, all of it. So here's something that I would love for our listeners for you to reflect on this week. What situations in your business consistently bring out reactions that you do not like. You will have to sit and marinate with this as uncomfortable as that is. And then on the flip side, let's dive into what emotion is underneath that reaction.


before you judge it or try to fix it, become aware of what is causing that. So pulling in gentle parenting, every behavior is an unmet need. So especially if it's a negative, every negative behavior is an unmet need that in regarding children, they don't know what that is. They don't know how to discern. Are they hungry? Are they tired? Is it because they're hot? Because you're playing outside? Is it you're too cold? Is it you're thirsty?

XYZ, fill in the blank. And we as adults, many of us have to figure that out ourselves too. I will say a lot of our generation, millennials, are not used to doing that. When we were cranky and whatnot, I know I was told to go outside. Go away. We're not dealing with it. We're just removing ourselves and getting distracted with something outside or going into our room. And eventually it just stops. didn't.

We weren't taught how to be aware. And I think that's why it is such a big movement right now in these reflection prompts is because we're finally learning how to do that. So then we can then teach our children how to do that. And that cycle is hopefully going to end, but awareness has to happen first before change, because you can't change anything if you aren't aware of what the problem is.

You know, I think over the recent years, I don't know if it started with me starting my own business, but because as a business owner, you have to do a lot of things on your own. You're figuring things out. And for a very long time, I always thought like, I'm just in a bad mood because I'm in a bad mood or I'm having an off day or whatever the case may be. And over the last few years, I started to become more self-aware. Like, okay, I'm feeling this way.

because of this. And for me, that definitely helps talking it out. Like even if the other person I'm talking to, they don't say anything back, I literally need to vent it out. I need to word vomit everything that is on my brain because that helps me get things out. And then I start to realize and answer my own questions. Like, why do I feel this way? What are my emotions right now? And when you start to become self-aware, it becomes full circle.


Because now as you are building your business and building your wonderful life, because it never stops, you can always improve on things, it comes full circle. It's all mixed in together, your personal and your professional development. Because as a leader, you're growing your business, you have people in your network, whatever it is, it's all connected. Because the way that you show up personally is going to impact your business and your business is going to impact your personal life.

So being self-aware and knowing like where these emotions are coming from is so important. Yes, it does take time. It does take time because I've, it took a long time for me to figure this out. But again, like having conversations and just having somebody that you trust to go to events to as well. think that's the important part too is time. I've been listening to other podcasts and motivational speakers and

With awareness and anything else, for that matter, it's time. Like it can take 10 years. This is not something that, you're going to listen as much as I would love it to be. You're going to ask yourself these questions and reflect on this from this episode. And then you are going to have like perfect awareness tomorrow for the rest of your life. And that's just not the case. It takes time.

And it can take a lot of time depending on how much you need to heal and learn and grow and become self-aware with. I've been working on this since honestly for the last seven years when I got divorced, my first divorce, my first divorce, I married twice. I'm not getting divorced right now or ever hopefully. But my first, after my first divorce, like that was seven years ago. And I have been like gentle parenting myself.

because I was angry and I didn't know why I couldn't even identify it. So I had a dental parent myself because I was snapping at my kids and I would not have pivoted my business if I didn't first start doing the work that led me to being aware. I, I can do this. How can I make this side hustle become a business? Right? Like that all started with awareness so that I could then change things in my life. But the reality is that seven years in the making and I still feel like I have a long way to go. I've come a long way.


but I'm not done yet. And the same is gonna be for you that's tuning in and whoever you share this episode with. Like, I hope that resonates and remove some of the stress of you don't have to figure this out and be perfect tomorrow. Emotional intelligence, like this is a lifelong pursuit. Yes is. So if this episode resonated with you,

and I'm sure it did in some way or another. Know this, you're not a broken leader. You're not. Like Dana said, it's a long life pursuit and you're growing and growth starts with awareness. Whether you're growing your visibility through Pinterest, marketing or streamlining your podcast operations and team management, we help build systems for you, not against you. And all of our information is in our show notes.

Until next time. You can now follow us on LinkedIn at entrepreneur encounter.


Thanks for spending time with us today. If something in this episode gave you a fresh perspective, share it with a friend or send us a DM. We love hearing how these conversations land with you. And if you're curious about how Soft Skills can support your next season of growth, we each have more resources to share. You can find Dana on Instagram at danas.desk.nc for Pinch's Strategy and Intentional Marketing. And Sarah.

at UR Rembert for team development, business leadership, and podcast support. Until next time, keep leading with purpose and growing with intention.