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One of the big advancements product management has experienced is the ability to collect and analyse large amounts of user data. This has helped product managers better understand how users actually use their products, make data-informed decisions, and continuously improve their offerings.
AI has taken this to a new level, giving us even more powerful capabilities, including customer insight mining, sentiment analysis, and trend analysis. We can now use tools that extract actionable information from user data, infer how a user might be feeling about the product, and identify emerging patterns in customer behaviour.
But as powerful as it is, AI is not enough. It is virtually impossible to offer a successful product without another form of intelligence: Emotional Intelligence, or EI for short. It refers to our ability to recognise, understand, and manage our own feelings while also being attuned to the emotions of others.[1] Goleman’s framework, shown in Figure 1, is a popular approach to describing emotional intelligence more precisely.[2]
Let’s take a closer look at the four elements in Figure 1.[3]
| IQ vs EQ IQ, or intelligence quotient, is widely recognised as a measure of intellectual capability. IQ tests are designed to assess various aspects of mental functioning, including a person’s logical reasoning ability, memory capacity, and spatial awareness. Contrast this with EQ, or emotional quotient, which measures the ability to understand and manage emotions. It determines a different kind of intelligence, which can have a bigger impact on success at work than an individual’s intellectual capabilities. [5] Over the years, I’ve seen plenty of product managers who were smart and had excellent product knowledge but exhibited low EI. Consequently, they struggled to influence and align people and achieve product success. |
Developing emotional intelligence offers four specific benefits to product people: it helps us create better products and collaborate more effectively with stakeholders and team members; it strengthens our ability to guide others; and it improves our mental well-being. Let’s look at those benefits in more detail.
At the heart of product management aren’t frameworks, technologies, and business models. While these are undoubtedly important, product management is about people: creating real value for users, customers, and our organisations.
That’s virtually impossible to achieve without developing a deep understanding of the user and customer needs. Without the right insights, we risk throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks, pushing out prototype after prototype, or feature after feature, hoping that one of them will finally resonate with people. This approach not only burns time and money. It can leave users frustrated and damage the brand.
Increasing our emotional intelligence helps us empathise with users and customers more effectively, better understand their needs, and discover opportunities for innovation, thereby increasing the likelihood of building a truly successful product. Additionally, it reduces the risk of our emotions taking over and driving our decisions, which helps us make the right choices for our products.
| Faster Horses? “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” This quote, often wrongly attributed to Henry Ford, is sometimes used as an argument against talking to customers.[6] And there is some truth in it: When we ask people what they want or need, they are likely to come up with a solution that is similar to what they know. The right conclusion, however, is not to disengage from customer conversations but to change the question. Instead of asking people what they need, we should learn about the problems they try to solve, the benefits they want to gain, or the jobs they need to get done. As product managers, it’s our responsibility to innovate and envision the future—not the users’ or customers’. |
As product managers, we are seldom able to build products on our own. Instead, we rely on the help of others. These include designers, engineers, and stakeholders, such as a marketer, sales rep, and customer support team member. Strengthening our emotional intelligence enables us to relate to team members and stakeholders more effectively. It helps us better understand their motivations, goals, and needs, establish and maintain trustful relationships, foster positive team dynamics, and deal with disagreements and conflicts constructively.
Research shows that emotionally intelligent leaders create positive work climates and are more likely to achieve the desired business outcomes.[7] People with high EI are empathic, and empathy is the foundation for effective leadership. It creates psychological safety and builds trust. As I mentioned before, if people trust you, they are more likely to follow your lead. To put it differently, becoming more sensitive to other people’s feelings and needs will increase your ability to guide and align them effectively.[8]
Finally, developing emotional intelligence can improve mental well-being. As product people, we regularly engage in difficult conversations with stakeholders and team members and must navigate conflicting ideas and requests. This can be challenging and give rise to difficult emotions like anxiety, aversion, and frustration. A heightened emotional intelligence helps us be more self-aware and skilfully deal with difficult feelings rather than being swayed by them. This increases our mental well-being and makes us more stress-resilient.[9]
| Emotions and AI While AI has progressed rapidly over the past few years, it does not experience feelings, nor can it truly understand human emotions. Instead, it has to infer how a person might be feeling using, for example, sentiment analysis: Customer interactions, such as product reviews, support tickets, survey responses, and customer conversations, are analysed to detect the emotional tone (positive, negative, or neutral) and point to hidden issues. While I would encourage you to use sentiment analysis whenever applicable, it cannot replace direct interactions with users and customers. It doesn’t offer the same insights you get from watching people use your product and talking to them about their experience. What’s more, a thorough understanding of their needs enables you to review the results of a sentiment analysis, derive the right insights, and take the right actions—rather than having to trust the AI blindly. |
The good news is: we all can increase our emotional intelligence. Practices that help us manage our emotions and understand those of others stimulate neuroplastic changes within the brain. As our emotional intelligence grows, we create a positive feedback loop that reinforces these neural changes.[10] The downside is that it requires time and effort. It’s like strengthening our bodies: without engaging in the right physical exercises, we are unlikely to become stronger and fitter. To help you develop your emotional intelligence, I’ve put together nine practical measures. Let’s take a look at them.
A great way to become aware of the feelings that are present in us is to practise mindfulness meditation, for example, mindfulness of breathing. It involves paying attention to what is going on inside yourself, moment by moment. An important part of mindfulness is reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they experience, including our emotions.
Applied correctly, mindfulness meditation helps you become more aware of your feelings. Simply notice them without judgment, no matter if they are pleasant or unpleasant. Don’t ignore or suppress any emotions, and don’t cling to them.[11] Everybody feels sadness, anxiety, frustration, anger, and joy at times—it’s an essential aspect of being human, as I explain in more detail in the article Dealing with Difficult Emotions in Product Management.
Once you’ve become aware of your emotions, explore what causes them to arise. This will help you anticipate situations that are likely to trigger difficult feelings. For example, you might find that when you are tired, you can become critical of other people’s work. Knowing this, you can anticipate and control your reaction by avoiding harsh speech.
When we experience difficult emotions, we sometimes blame them on others. Say that you had a challenging conversation with Bob, the sales rep, which has left you feeling upset and frustrated. It’s easy, then, to think that experiencing these emotions is his fault. But to develop our emotional intelligence, we must take responsibility for our feelings. They arise in us, based on what triggers them.
Taking responsibility puts us in the driving seat: we decide how we deal with our emotions—rather than seeing ourselves as being dependent on the actions of other people. We may feel anger, but this does not mean that we have to react with aversion. Instead, we can choose to pause and respond with empathy, without sugarcoating or ignoring any issues.
Sometimes, we are caught up in negative thoughts and feelings about someone. When this happens, remind yourself that it is not going to improve anything. Instead, it negatively affects your mental well-being: Projecting your anger onto another person is like throwing burning coal at someone. You may or may not hit the individual, but you will burn your hands and hurt yourself. Even if anger, fear, or worries seem to have a tight grip on you, they will weaken and eventually go away when you stop feeding them. Therefore, acknowledge them and let them be; try not to engage and identify with them.
Practising self-management is hard when we are always super busy. It’s therefore important to give ourselves regular breaks. A great way to pause and reflect is to start writing a journal. This allows you to record how you feel and helps you see how your moods change from day to day and from week to week. If you find that difficult feelings dominate for an extended period, explore the underlying causes and ways to address them.
To learn how your behaviour impacts others, request constructive feedback from close peers or mentors. For example, you might ask them about how you respond to difficult situations, how empathic you are, and how well you handle conflict. It might not always be what you want to hear, but it may well be what you need to increase your emotional intelligence.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply,” wrote Steve Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It’s true: We often listen with a specific goal in mind, with the intention to share our perspective and convince the other person. As a consequence, we might not receive everything that is said, and we miss out on the chance to empathise with the other person. Therefore, be present, keep an open mind, and take a real interest in what the other person has to say, as I explain in more detail in the article Listening Practices for Product People.
Conflict is often seen as something bad that should not happen. But the truth is: it’s perfectly normal. It arises when people with different perspectives, needs, and goals engage—which, of course, is common in a product setting. Unfortunately, conflicts are often not dealt with constructively. They are either ignored or result in personal attacks. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Learning to navigate conflict skilfully allows you not only to use it as a source of creativity and innovation for your product. It can strengthen your relationship with stakeholders and team members. A powerful framework for constructively addressing conflict is Nonviolent Communication (NVC), as I explain in more detail in the article How to Leverage Conflict in Product Management.
As powerful as analytics and AI tools can be, nothing beats meeting real users and customers. Interviewing and observing them will help you empathise with them and better understand their needs, discover new ideas, and spot opportunities to improve your product. This makes it more likely to offer a successful product.[12]
You should therefore do everything you can to meet (selected) users and customers regularly, at least once every three months. If that’s difficult, consider asking sales to join them on their customer visits, for example, or consider scheduling an online meeting. While this may not be as effective as meeting a user or customer in person, it is better than not talking to them at all.
| Emotional Intelligence and Product Strategy Creating an effective product strategy that helps product managers decide what features to build involves determining who the product is for and why people would want to use it: Who are the users and customers? What problem does the product address, which benefit does it offer, or which job does it help people do? To answer these questions correctly and make the right strategic decisions, you must have a sound understanding of user and customer needs. In other words, you must be emotionally intelligent and be able to empathise with your target group. Relying on analytics tools and AI is not enough. They are no substitute for meeting real users and customers. And people are at the heart of product strategy and product management, not technology or tools. |
[1] Peter Salovey and John D. Meyer first introduced the term in their paper “Emotional Intelligence,” which was published in the academic journal Imagination, Cognition, and Personality in 1990. Daniel Goleman popularised the concept in 1995 in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.
Note that I use the terms emotion and feeling interchangeably in this article, which some researchers object to. (While I have done my best to base this article on academic research, it is obviously not an academic paper, and I am not a psychologist. There is an argument to be made, though, that product managers should receive some training in psychology, but that’s a different topic.)
[2] Figure 1 is based on Daniel Goleman’s article “EI Overview: The Four Domains and Twelve Competencies.” For a comparison of different models, see the paper “Models of Emotional Intelligence in Research and Education” by Nicolae Sfetcu.
[3] Each element, or domain, in Goleman’s framework has several competencies associated with it. For example, self-management requires emotional balance, adaptability, achievement orientation, and a positive outlook. For the complete list, see the article “EI Overview: The Four Domains and Twelve Competencies.”
[4] See my article Empathy in Product Management for a more detailed discussion of the topic.
[5] The idea that human intelligence is multi-dimensional and that different types of intelligence exist has been part of the intelligence field almost since its inception, as Salovey and John D. Meyer note in their paper “Emotional Intelligence.” IQ and EQ are therefore not contradictory. They complement each other. See also Howard Gardner’s 1983 book Frames of Mind, in which he argues that human intelligence is a collection of distinct, relatively independent capacities.
[6] See the following Quote Investigator article for a discussion of the source of the quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/
[7] See the following two studies:
[8] Note, though, that the empathy you show must be authentic. If you pretend to care or if you empathise only to get someone to do something, people will sooner or later realise what is going on, and they will likely lose trust in you. See my book How to Lead in Product Management for a more detailed discussion of empathy and leadership.
[9] Salovey and Mayer note a connection between emotional intelligence and mental well-being in their paper “Emotional Intelligence.” This is confirmed by recent research, see Shweta Arora. 2025. “Neuroplasticity and Emotional Intelligence: A Pathway to Cognitive Resilience.” In: International Journal of Original Recent Advanced Research, ISSN, Vol. 02, Issue 03.
[10] See Shweta Arora’s paper “Neuroplasticity and Emotional Intelligence,” referenced in Footnote 9. It shows that cultivating emotional intelligence promotes beneficial neuroplastic changes.
[11] It’s a common misunderstanding that mindfulness meditation should always be a relaxing, joyful experience. If you feel worried, angry, or restless, for instance, meditation is unlikely to be pleasant, at least initially. It’s important to acknowledge what is and not to filter out and suppress difficult feelings—something also referred to as spiritual bypassing. Otherwise, you meditate, but you fail to grow and develop your emotional intelligence.
[12] Developing empathy is the first step in Design Thinking, an innovation approach created by IDEO. “Empathy (…) moves us beyond thinking of people as laboratory rats or standard deviations,” as Tim Brown puts it in his book Change by Design.
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