The Most Overlooked Leadership Skill

As a school leader, I’m constantly talking to my leadership team about our school’s data, our instructional plans, and our professional development. While these conversations are critical to improving our students’ outcomes, there is often something important missing; leadership teams very rarely discuss the emotional intelligence of the people leading the work.

Over the past five years as a math supervisor, I have come to believe that success in leadership is less about technical skill and more about emotional awareness. Even schools with the strongest curriculum, most detailed pacing guides, and solid accountability systems won’t be successful if the leaders in the building lack the self-awareness and empathy needed to support their teachers. And when teachers don’t feel supported, they may not stay in the work.

A few years ago, I read Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence, and it helped put language to many of the things I was seeing in schools: teachers leaving because they felt unsupported, unseen, and emotionally exhausted by leadership that didn’t know how to support them while still holding high expectations.

In his writing, he breaks emotional intelligence into five dimensions: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. While all five are important, I want to focus on three that have had the greatest impact on my growth as a leader. 

The Importance of Self-Awareness

The first dimension, self-awareness, is the one that changed my leadership the most. During my first year as a supervisor, I was also becoming a new father. I was balancing sleepless nights, stress, and the pressure of learning a completely different role. There were days I walked into school frustrated, distracted, or reactive without even realizing it. What I eventually noticed was that my department responded to my mood whether I intended it or not.

For me, self-reflection was key to helping me be more intentional about my emotional state before entering meetings, classrooms, or coaching conversations. I became more regulated, more present, and more focused on listening instead of reacting. That shift spread throughout the department.

With all of that being said, self-awareness had to come first: I cannot coach a struggling teacher with empathy if I have not examined my own emotional state, and I cannot support a burned-out staff if I do not understand how my presence either calms or escalates the room.

As you begin to prioritize building your own self-awareness, it can be helpful to reflect on what emotions you are bringing to school with you in the morning and how those are impacting your staff. I found it helpful not only to reflect, but to introduce dedicated time in the morning to reset before engaging with my students and teachers.

This is ongoing work, and something that does not necessarily come easy to all, but it is worthwhile. Often, the most effective leaders I have seen are not the people who always have the perfect answer. They are the people who know themselves well enough to get out of their own way.

Empathy Does Not Lower Expectations

While I am fortunate enough to be a leader who developed empathy at a young age, I noticed that some of my peers viewed empathy as equivalent to lowering expectations. In reality, the strongest leaders are able to hold both high expectations and empathy at the same time.

Teachers want feedback, and most teachers genuinely want to improve. What they do not want is to feel humiliated, dismissed, or unsupported in the process. I have learned that before teachers can fully accept instructional coaching, they need to feel psychologically safe with the person giving it. 

That safety comes from leaders who can listen, understand stress points, and recognize that teachers are human beings before they are employees. Sometimes empathy simply means recognizing timing—there are moments when a teacher needs direct coaching and there are moments when they simply need someone to listen for five minutes before diving into instruction. Leaders who understand that difference build stronger relationships and stronger departments.

Social Skills Impact School Culture

One emotionally intelligent leader can completely shift the culture of a department. I have seen firsthand how small interactions that demonstrate strong social skills build culture over time. A leader may show that they recognize the challenges in the classroom and are proud of the work a teacher is doing by having a quick check-in after a difficult lesson, or sharing a message recognizing growth, or publicly celebrating a teacher during a professional development session for taking an instructional risk. 

Those moments may seem trivial, but they accumulate, building a culture over time that makes people feel valued. This becomes especially important in education today, where teacher burnout continues to rise. As a school leader, it is important to not only know how hard your teachers are working, but actively acknowledge it, offer support on challenging days, and celebrate successes with the entire team.

Strong leadership requires emotional awareness because schools are built on relationships. It is not to say that data, curriculum, and instruction do not matter, but these things alone cannot guarantee success in the long term, especially if teachers feel emotionally drained.

Schools that retain teachers and grow students are usually led by people who understand that leadership is not simply about managing systems. It is about managing relationships and knowing how to make others feel supported, seen, and safe enough to grow.