The hidden costs of ignoring emotional intelligence in L&D: How people teams can lead the change

As an L&D or HR leader, you’re focused on aligning your workforce development initiatives with the organization’s strategic goals. And because you are tasked with ensuring talent is engaged, productive, and thriving, you are also on the front lines of managing employee conversations. This translates into a large emotional charge that you need to manage - not only for your employees, but also for yourself. You know that connecting emotionally with your workforce drives better outcomes, yet time and again, your efforts to integrate emotional intelligence (EQ) into the business conversation are met with resistance.

Business leaders tend to agree that human capabilities such as critical thinking and emotional intelligence are important in the workplace. Yet the reality of many People leaders is that, in practice, upskilling initiatives in these areas will be deprioritized for high workloads or budgetary constraints. And when you struggle to get C-Suite buy-in for your learning programs, it can feel like you are waging an uphill battle alone.

The truth is many L&D and HR leaders share this same struggle: knowing that strategically leveraging EQ as a business enabler can help bridge the gap between people strategy and business outcomes, ensuring that learning initiatives drive real impact. But how do you make integrating EQ on an organization-wide level resonate for time-poor executives who are focused on revenue, productivity, and performance?

This article explores the hidden costs of neglecting the strategic integration of EQ in an organization, and more importantly, equips you with actionable strategies to foster stronger, more meaningful connections with the C-suite, to start mitigating some of those costs.

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The hidden costs of EQ neglect in L&D

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, manage and influence our emotions and those of others. In the context of an organization, this can mean a team manager that knows how to adjust their leadership style to increase the healthy productivity of each member in their team. Or it can reflect in a People leader’s skills to spot wider-spread issues of employee disengagement and job dissatisfaction.

When EQ is neglected, it can start off like a manager pulling their team out of a feedback training program, to instead focus on finishing a high workload under a tight deadline. When this neglect happens systematically within a company, it can lead to wider communication gaps between frustrated employees and leadership—gaps that People teams must spend significant time and energy closing. As Nesma Abdou, L&D Specialist at Sakura Finetek Europe, explains:

“Too often, businesses develop strong growth strategies but fail to communicate them effectively due to a lack of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Communication is more than just words, it’s about understanding, managing, and influencing emotions. As an empathetic leader, this reflects in my own journey from a distant leader to a rescuer, and now to a balanced middle ground. The turning point came when I realized that understanding my own emotions made me more present for others, building the trust necessary for lasting change and impact at all levels.

This is the core of EQ: Self-awareness. As Learning professionals, we must embed this into our organizational culture. At Sakura, we’ve launched a leadership foundation program for new managers with emphasis on self-awareness, in collaboration with Lepaya. The program is underway, and we’re eager to see its impact.”

Here are the top 10 ways that L&D and the business can be impacted by systematically deprioritizing EQ:

• Low engagement in learning initiatives

Without first understanding your workforce’s needs and pain points, learning programs will lack resonance and impact.

• Missed strategic influence 

When viewed as a “support function,” L&D misses opportunities to shape the company’s future.

• Turnover among People teams

L&D and HR professionals tend to be exposed to EQ costs on multiple fronts, experiencing emotional burnout and attrition- especially when coupled with not having this struggle heard by business leadership.

• Budgetary pushback:

Misalignment between business goals, values, and learning initiatives translates into reduced funding and undervaluation of learning efforts.

• Fragmented learning experience

Without emotional cohesion and personal buy-in, learning journeys feel disjointed for employees.

• C-suite disconnect:

A lack of EQ alignment makes it harder to secure executive sponsorship.

• Ineffective change management:

Employees struggle to adapt to change, and fail to increase productivity in their new roles or new work context.

• Reduced ROI on learning:

Skills training without emotional engagement results in lower retention and application.

• Weakened company culture:

Learning initiatives fail to lead to the behavior changes desired to support company values.

• Innovation stagnation

Emotional disengagement curtails creativity and adaptability among the workforce, leading to stagnation across the business.

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Bridging the gap between EQ and business strategy

While there are many risks of ignoring EQ in an organization, there are also opportunities for People leaders to bridge the gap between EQ and business strategy. The key is starting with intentional actions rooted in business goals and company values, such as:

• Design learning programs with the results in mind

Reverse-engineering your learning programs’ impact allows you to design initiatives that both align with business goals, and address your employee’s needs, increasing relevance and learner engagement.

• Speak the business language through an EQ lens

To gain buy-in from business leadership more easily, connect your people's capability development to C-Suite interesting outcomes like skill application, productivity, and efficiency.

• Leverage data for storytelling

Go beyond quantitative results, and adopt qualitative success metrics that contribute towards business-agreed bottom-line initiatives, like employee sentiment and behavioral transformation. Share these transformation stories to highlight the human impact of L&D programs​​ on business objectives.

• Develop multi-threaded relationships

By cultivating connections with a wider network of C-suite allies, you have a better chance of securing alignment, by leveraging the influence your existing contacts have with your target decision makers.

• Host leadership EQ workshops to transform organizational culture:

Equip your leaders with the skills to recognize and act on the emotional dimensions of strategy​. Then celebrate their efforts for continuous learning by empowering them to share their stories of transformation, making them visible champions of learning initiatives.

In 2025, as a People leader you are challenged to mitigate mounting EQ costs for your organization’s employees, your own team, and the wider business. The good news is that you are also uniquely positioned to support your organization by incorporating EQ for increased employee engagement and business growth. And while the challenge may seem overwhelming, you don’t have to bridge that gap alone. Apply to join our next Impact Lab and start redefining what it means to lead people development in the modern workplace—one engaged employee at a time.

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