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In 1998, Daniel Goleman published the article in Harvard Business Review that would change the language of leadership for a generation. His diagnosis was clear: IQ and technical skills matter, but they are — in his own words — “the entry-level requirements for executive positions.” What truly separates extraordinary leaders from merely competent ones is emotional intelligence.
That argument transformed how organizations recruit, assess, and develop talent. Emotional intelligence became the gold standard of modern leadership.
The Floor Moved Up
For years, emotional intelligence was the ceiling of leadership. The leader who mastered it stood out. Today, it is the floor. Organizations no longer hire leaders without EI — they take it for granted.
The result is an uncomfortable paradox: there are more empathetic leaders than ever, and at the same time, the quality of executive leadership is declining. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2023 — the most comprehensive global leadership study ever conducted, drawing on responses from 13,695 leaders across more than 50 countries and 1,556 organizations — found that only 40% of leaders believe their company has high-quality leaders. That represents the steepest decline in a decade: 17 percentage points in just two years.
The same DDI report found that 68% of CEOs say their executive team is not effective at driving the organization’s strategy forward.
The Transition Nobody Prepares For
There is a specific moment when the gap becomes visible: the transition to the executive level. McKinsey & Company has documented that between 27% and 46% of executive transitions are considered failures within two years.
These are not leaders without talent. They are professionals who reached positions of high responsibility through solid track records, consistent results, and well-developed interpersonal skills. What they lacked were the specific competencies the executive level demands — ones that go beyond managing their own emotions and those of others.
The Executive Leadership Intensive is a two-day seminar designed precisely for leaders who are already at the executive level and want to strengthen the competencies the role actually demands. August 5–6 in New York City. Limited to 15 participants. More information: www.hispanicexecutive.com/executive-leadership-intensive
The Most Expensive Blind Spot
A finding from Korn Ferry illustrates the problem precisely: 79% of executives have at least one significant blind spot — a skill they rate as one of their strengths that those who work with them identify as a weakness.
This is not a problem of intent. It is a problem of structure. Without structured feedback, without simulations that recreate the real pressure of the executive level, without frameworks that allow leaders to see their own decisions from the outside, even the most capable leaders keep operating with incomplete maps.
Executive Development Doesn’t End at Promotion
One of the most costly assumptions in the corporate world is that promotion to the executive level marks the end of the development process. The reality is the opposite: it is when development becomes most urgent.
Hispanic Executive has spent nearly two decades documenting the stories of the most influential Latino leaders in corporate America. One pattern repeats consistently: the leaders who generate the most sustained impact are not the ones who arrived most prepared. They are the ones who never stopped preparing.
Emotional intelligence was the language of twentieth-century leadership. Twenty-first-century executive leadership demands more: strategic thinking at scale, high-impact decisions made with imperfect information, and real influence that does not depend on organizational hierarchy.
These are not skills that develop on their own with time in the role. They develop with structure, deliberate practice, and honest feedback from those who have already navigated that territory.
