Emotional Intelligence 2.0

The epilogue closes the book by shifting from individual strategies to a broader, data-driven view of how emotional intelligence plays out across workplaces and cultures. Drawing on TalentSmart’s Emotional Intelligence Appraisal® results from 500,000 people worldwide, Bradberry and Greaves use real-world patterns to reinforce their central claim: EQ is both a learned skill and a fragile one that can rise or fall depending on external pressures.

From 2003 to 2007, the proportion of US workers with high emotional intelligence rose from 13.7% to 18.3%, while those with poor awareness of emotions like anxiety and anger dropped from 31% to 14%. The authors attribute this progress partly to a “social contagion” effect, where working with emotionally skilled people helps raise others’ abilities. Yet the 2008 recession reversed the trend, with high-EQ individuals falling to 16.7%. This decline illustrates how stress can erode the very skills needed to manage it.

The authors also break down differences across gender, hierarchy, generation, and culture. Women initially outperformed men in most EQ skills, but men narrowed the gap in self-management over time. Middle managers scored highest overall, while CEOs scored lowest, highlighting the risk of emotional disconnect at the top. EQ levels tended to rise with age, and a 2005 study of 3,000 Chinese executives revealed higher self-management and relationship management scores than their US counterparts.