The Transformational Leader

15The Heartbeat of Leadership: Cultivating Emotional Intelligence in a Digital Age

IQ and technical skills are important, but emotional intelligence is the Sine Qua Non of leadership.

—Daniel Goleman

SMARTPHONES. SEARCH ENGINES. Social media. Artificial intelligence. Not only have recent technological advances made it possible to access a world of information, remain connected like never before, and tap into a source of intelligence that far exceeds our own, but it's all in the palm of our hands.

To quote American novelist Anne Lamott, “It's a great time to be alive.”¹ But is it? With technology and the free flow of information hailed as the great equalizer, younger generations should have a distinct advantage in producing some of history's most transformative leaders. But this assumption ignores an unescapable truth: leaders are not machines that run on data sets and communicate in binary code; they're human beings. As such, the endless flow of news, social pressure, and screen time have real-world consequences.

The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 33.7% of young adults and 49.5% of adolescents struggle with mental health issues, compared to just 28.1% of adults.² A 2018 study from the American Psychological Association revealed depression, anxiety, and self-harm are increasing in Generation Z and that 45% of young people “say social media makes them feel judged.”³ Combine these alarming statistics with the National Library of Medicine's findings that excessive ...