Main image of article Developing Emotional Intelligence: Key to IT Career Growth

IT professionals are increasingly navigating not only complex systems but also heightened stress, change fatigue and team dynamics.

For IT workers operating in fast-moving, high-pressure environments, developing emotional intelligence — such as communication, self-awareness and collaboration — is an increasingly important career skill alongside technical expertise.

As IT shifts from maintaining hardware to managing complex, interconnected cloud ecosystems, the primary bottlenecks are no longer technical — they’re human.

Emotional intelligence allows professionals to navigate change fatigue and shifting priorities without losing focus. It helps teams stay adaptable, manage stress and collaborate effectively when the stakes are high.

Mike Arrowsmith, chief trust officer at NinjaOne, says successful IT teams deeply understand and have empathy for their organization’s challenges.

“Building trust and self-awareness across teams is what separates IT leaders who drive success from those who don’t,” he explains.

He says leaders who develop these qualities make better decisions under pressure and are better equipped to manage complexity across their teams with empathy.

“People-first leadership is critical in high-pressure IT environments,” Arrowsmith notes. “When leaders prioritize trust and well-being, teams are better positioned to perform consistently and sustainably.”

As Sean Falconer, head of AI at Confluent, puts it, emotional intelligence is the ability to stay calm when everything’s on fire, read the room, build trust and rally a team around a direction.

“During a major incident, I’d take the person who keeps everyone focused and communicating clearly over the person who just knows the most commands,” he says.

Summary

In many ways, emotional intelligence acts as the “shock absorber” for the modern tech stack.

“The era of the ‘siloed genius’ is over,” says Ike Bennion, vice president of product management and data platform at Visier.

He explains that in roles like DevOps or cybersecurity, the “always-on” nature of the work can quickly lead to burnout.

“Emotional intelligence helps create healthier team dynamics that reduce that pressure,” he explains.

In DevOps environments, it supports a blameless post-mortem culture, where teams feel safe acknowledging mistakes and learning from them, which ultimately leads to faster problem-solving.

In security teams, emotional intelligence allows practitioners to move beyond the reputation of being the “Department of No” and become collaborative partners across the organization.

“By recognizing the emotional cues of burnout in themselves and their peers, teams can rebalance workloads and address stress before it turns into disengagement or attrition,” Bennion says.

Falconer explains burnout almost never comes from the technical difficulty; it comes from feeling unsupported, unheard or trapped in a never-ending reactive cycle.

“Leaders with emotional intelligence pick up on the warning signs before someone quietly updates their LinkedIn and starts interviewing,” he says.

They build environments where people feel safe saying “this timeline is unrealistic” or “I need help” — Falconer says that’s what keeps good teams intact.

“AI is making individual technical output less of a differentiator, which means the people who make everyone around them better are the ones you can’t afford to lose,” he says. “No CI/CD pipeline fixes a culture problem.”

Bennion points out hiring managers increasingly look for signals of emotional intelligence during interviews, especially how candidates respond to stress, collaboration and growth.

One common indicator is the “I versus We” test — does the candidate take sole credit for a project, or do they acknowledge the team? Hiring managers are looking for a balance.

“They need to see someone who understands their individual impact while recognizing success and failure as a team effort,” he says.

Conflict resolution is another key signal: When asked about disagreements with stakeholders or challenges to a technical roadmap, strong candidates demonstrate empathy and negotiation rather than simply insisting they were right.

“They’re also looking for examples of genuine conflict, the candidate’s self-awareness of their role in that conflict and how it was ultimately resolved,” Bennion adds.

Managers also pay attention to coachability, such as how a candidate handles constructive feedback during code reviews or interview exercises.

Peter Heese, partner at 10Pearls, says one question he always asks when interviewing IT candidates is the skill they consider most essential for the role.

“It’s kind of a trick question because the answer I’m always looking for is communication,” he explains.

Heese says the days of technological prowess or development skills as singular deal-breakers for separating a candidate from the pack are long gone.

“Today’s advancements in AI mean that almost anyone can become better at the technical parts of their job,” he says. “IT professionals who are also excellent communicators, though, will always stand out.”

He adds that measuring someone’s communication skills is not how well they write a report or can speak in a meeting; listening and comprehension, to truly understand the context and meaning, matter just as much.

“It’s also a great indicator of emotional intelligence, which is the key to becoming a successful communicator because it allows you to adapt your message to your audience and respond to what people mean, not just what they say,” Heese says.

He notes the professional world has changed massively in the last few years, with AI now writing emails and generating code.

“It’s that human edge, which lies in connection and communication driven by emotional intelligence, that will be the biggest differentiator,” Heese explains.

Arrowsmith says IT workers can build emotional intelligence by actively seeking feedback, practicing active listening and reflecting on how they respond under pressure.

“Investing in mentorship and leadership training can help strengthen self-awareness, empathy and communication skills alongside technical growth,” he adds.

Falconer advises IT pros to start small.

“After your next meeting or incident, take two minutes and just ask yourself: How did I show up? Did I listen, or was I just waiting to talk? Did I make things clearer or more confusing?” he says.

From Falconer’s perspective, that habit of honest self-reflection is the foundation for everything else.

Then, he advises IT pros to start volunteering for the stuff most engineers actively avoid, like presenting to non-technical teams, running a postmortem or mentoring someone junior.

Those situations force you to listen more, adapt how you communicate and actually think about what the other person needs instead of just what you want to say.

“Emotional intelligence isn’t some soft, fuzzy personality trait you either have or you don’t,” Falconer says. “It’s a skill, and like any skill, you get better at it by doing the reps in uncomfortable situations.”