"She Is Too Emotional to Lead." What the Research Actually Says.

By Céline Foelmli | ICF PCC Coach · EQ-i 2.0 Certified | Compass Coaching Singapore

It is one of the most persistent myths in the leadership arena.

She is too emotional. She takes things too personally. She would struggle under pressure.

Those words have real consequences, for the promotion that goes elsewhere, for the room she was never invited into, for the leadership role that was quietly decided she was not built for. And I suspect if you have worked in a corporate environment, you have heard those words too, or perhaps felt their weight directed at you.

Here is the truth: being emotional is not the same as lacking emotional intelligence. In fact, the research tells a story that is almost the exact opposite of this deeply ingrained stereotype.

The Stereotype, and Why It Persists

The belief that women are "too emotional" for leadership is not new. It has shaped hiring decisions, performance reviews, and promotion committees for decades.

Research published in peer-reviewed journals confirms that women are consistently stereotyped as too emotional and overly sensitive, and therefore assumed to be prone to irrational, emotion-driven decisions. This perception continues to undermine women's chances of being considered for leadership roles, regardless of their actual performance or track record.

The bias shows up in concrete ways. According to data cited by the Harvard Business Review, women receive significantly more negative personality criticism in performance reviews than men, with language like "abrasive," "too sensitive," or "emotional" appearing far more often in women's evaluations than in men's, even when the behaviours being described are identical.

The same passion. The same directness. The same expression of concern. Evaluated differently, depending on who is in the room.

What the Research Actually Shows

Let us look at what the data tells us, not anecdotes, not assumptions, but studies conducted across tens of thousands of professionals worldwide.

Women outperform men in 11 out of 12 EQ competencies

The Korn Ferry Hay Group conducted one of the most comprehensive studies on emotional intelligence and gender to date, drawing on data from 55,000 professionals across 90 countries. Their finding was striking: women outperformed men in 11 of the 12 emotional intelligence competencies measured.

The areas where women scored higher included:

• Inspirational leadership

• Coaching and mentoring others

• Organisational awareness

• Adaptability

• Empathy and interpersonal relationships

The only competency with no meaningful gender difference? Emotional self-control.

Under pressure, women lead more steadily

One of the most compelling recent studies was published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychologyand reported by the Harvard Business Review. Researchers examined 137 leader-report pairs in Europe during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a genuine high-pressure, high-uncertainty environment.

The results challenged the stereotype directly. Women leaders reported higher levels of anxiety during this period, and yet they were significantly less likely than men to allow those emotions to negatively influence their leadership behaviour. Male leaders, by contrast, were more likely to show hostile or abusive supervision when they were under stress.

Women also demonstrated consistent family-supportive leadership behaviours, regardless of their emotional state.

In other words: when it mattered most, women were the steadier leaders.

What the EQ-i 2.0 and EQ-i 360 reveal, a consistent pattern across the research

The EQ-i 2.0, developed by MHS Assessments, is one of the most widely used and rigorously validated emotional intelligence frameworks in leadership and organisational development worldwide. It measures EQ across five areas, self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal skills, decision-making, and stress management, giving leaders a comprehensive and actionable picture of how they experience and express their emotions, and how those patterns influence their effectiveness.

Research conducted using the EQ-i model has consistently found that women score higher than men across key interpersonal and self-awareness competencies, including empathy, emotional self-awareness, and interpersonal relationships. This is not a single study or a cultural anomaly, it is a pattern replicated across professional contexts, industries, and countries.

The EQ-i 360 adds a critical second dimension: it gathers structured feedback from colleagues, direct reports, and managers, revealing not just how leaders perceive their own emotional intelligence, but how that intelligence, or its absence, is actually experienced by the people around them. In leadership, this gap between self-perception and others' experience is often where the most important development work lives. And in my work with clients, it is frequently where the most meaningful shifts begin.

EQ predicts leadership effectiveness, more than IQ alone

Here is what makes all of this significant beyond the gender question: emotional intelligence has been shown to be one of the strongest predictors of leadership effectiveness, more than technical expertise, more than academic qualifications, and in many contexts, more than cognitive intelligence alone.

Leaders with higher EQ build stronger trust, communicate more clearly under pressure, make more considered decisions, and create team cultures where people actually want to perform. They are also significantly better at coaching, motivating, and retaining talent.

When you understand this, the research on women and EQ stops being simply a gender story. It becomes a leadership story.

The Real Red Flag in Leadership Is Not Too Much Emotion, It Is Too Little

Before we talk about what emotional intelligence looks like when it is strong, it is worth naming what leadership looks like when it is absent.

In my work, and in the research, the profiles that cause the most lasting damage in organisations are rarely the ones labelled "too emotional." They are the ones at the opposite end of the spectrum, leaders who are disconnected from their own emotions, indifferent to the emotions of others, and unable or unwilling to recognise the human impact of their decisions.

Low empathy in a leader is not a neutral trait. It has consequences.

Employees stop speaking up, because they have learned that their concerns will not be heard or taken seriously. Talented people leave, not because of the work, but because of how they are made to feel doing it. Teams operate in a climate of anxiety or indifference, where performance is demanded but people feel unseen, undervalued, and expendable.

This is not a rare scenario. It is one of the most common patterns I encounter when working with organisations navigating retention challenges, communication breakdowns, or cultures described as "high performance but exhausting."

The irony is that leaders with low emotional intelligence often do not recognise this in themselves. Their self-perception can be high, confident, decisive, results-oriented, while the experience of those around them tells a very different story. This is precisely where the EQ-i 360 becomes invaluable: it surfaces the gap between how a leader sees themselves and how they are actually experienced by their team, their peers, and those above them. That gap, when it is wide, is a significant leadership risk.

A lack of empathy and emotional awareness in a leader is not strength. It is a vulnerability, for the team, for the culture and ultimately for the organisation's performance.

The Crucial Distinction: Feeling Emotions vs. Managing Them

Emotional intelligence is not the absence of emotion. It is the capacity to recognise, understand, and navigate emotions, your own and those of others, in a way that informs rather than hijacks your decisions and behaviour.

This is a distinction that the "too emotional" stereotype completely collapses.

Crying in a meeting is not a lack of EQ. Shouting in a meeting, passive-aggressive behaviour, or making a reactive decision under pressure, these are far closer to what low emotional intelligence actually looks like in practice. And research suggests that the latter patterns are, on balance, more common in men than women when stress peaks.

The irony is significant: the behaviours most often labelled as "too emotional" in women, empathy, emotional attunement, relational sensitivity , are precisely the competencies that EQ research identifies as markers of leadership strength.

So Why Does the Stereotype Survive?

If the research is this clear, why does the "too emotional" label continue to follow women into boardrooms and performance reviews?

Several factors are at play:

The first is that emotional competence, when displayed by women, is often invisible or taken for granted. It is noticed when it is absent, rarely when it is present. The team that functions smoothly, the conflict that gets de-escalated before it becomes a crisis, the employee who feels genuinely supported, these outcomes rarely get attributed to strong emotional leadership.

The second is the double bind. Women who display warmth and empathy can be perceived as lacking authority. Women who display authority and directness can be perceived as cold or aggressive. The standards applied are inconsistent, and the goalposts move.

The third is cultural conditioning. From childhood, many women have been socialised to attune to others, manage relational dynamics, and prioritise harmony. These patterns produce real EQ strengths, but they can also make the exercise of those strengths look effortless, and therefore undervalued.

What This Means for Leaders and Organisations

If you are a leader, of any gender, reading this, here is what I would invite you to consider.

The next time you hear the words "too emotional" applied to someone in a professional context, ask what is actually being described. Is it genuinely impaired judgement? Or is it empathy, sensitivity, or a willingness to name something that others are avoiding?

And if you are a woman who has been on the receiving end of this label: the research is on your side. What you bring to leadership, the capacity to read a room, to build trust, to navigate complexity with people at the centre, is not a liability. It is a competitive advantage. One that is measurable, developable, and increasingly recognised as essential in the kind of leadership that actually works.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Measured, and Grown

One of the most important things I share with my clients is this: unlike personality, emotional intelligence is not fixed.

It can be assessed, understood, and developed. The EQ-i 2.0 assessment, developed by MHS Assessments, is one of the world's most robust frameworks for doing exactly that. It gives leaders a clear picture of where their EQ strengths lie, where the gaps are, and what development would have the greatest impact on their effectiveness.

This is the work I do with executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals through Compass Coaching , not telling people what is wrong with them, but helping them understand who they already are, and who they are becoming.

Ready to Explore Your Own EQ?

On Monday 8 June, 12:15–1:15 PM (online via Zoom), I am hosting a lunchtime workshop on Emotional Intelligence in Leadership, an interactive session grounded in the EQ-i 2.0 model and designed for executives, entrepreneurs, managers and professionals navigating high-pressure environments.

We will explore what EQ really means in a leadership context, how emotions shape communication and decision-making, and how self-awareness and emotional regulation become genuine leadership strengths.

Seats are limited to keep it interactive. If you read this article after the event, do not hesitate to reach out for more information.

Register here →

Or if you would like to explore personalised EQ coaching, I offer a complimentary consultation to discuss your goals and whether coaching is the right support for you.

Book your complimentary consultation →

Sources

• Korn Ferry Hay Group (2016). Gender and Emotional Intelligence: 55,000 professionals across 90 countries.Reported in Psychology Today / Forbes.

• Hideg, I., Hentschel, T., & Shen, W. (2024). Research: How anxiety shapes men's and women's leadership differently. Harvard Business Review.

• MHS Assessments. EQ-i 2.0 and EQ-i 360 Model of Emotional Intelligence. Multi-Health Systems Inc.

• Dalton, T. & Yu, K. (2013). Flower Power: Women score higher on emotional intelligence. UNLV Research.

• Nisarlaw.com (2025). How gender discrimination limits women leaders. (citing HBR performance review research.)

• The Conversation (2025). Women are steadier leaders in times of crisis, but they are still being overlooked.