Join us for a captivating dive into "The Great EI Debate" and its ongoing relevance to leadership. We explore the controversy surrounding Emotional Intelligence (EI), touching upon its construct validity, measurement, and predictive power for workplace outcomes.

Proponents argue that the field has matured, citing meta-analyses showing EI's predictive strength for employee performance, organisational citizenship behaviour, and leader effectiveness, even after accounting for cognitive ability and personality. However, critics contend that EI measures are often flawed, meta-analyses can be problematic, and true incremental validity remains unproven. We discuss calls for improved research methodology and a shift towards understanding EI as distinct emotional abilities.