To be clear, Gemma is no doubt a highly desirable employee, but her extremely high EQ makes her more suited to roles where regulating her own emotions and being able to sense and adapt to the emotional needs of others are pivotal. Salespeople, real-estate agents, customer support reps, counselors, and psychologists all benefit from EQ like Gemma’s. In contrast, Gemma’s profile may not be advantageous, and may even be a handicap, in jobs focused on creativity, innovation, leading change, or taking risks. That is not to say that someone like Gemma couldn’t aspire to a senior leadership role. She could, but it would require a fair amount of self-coaching. For example, she would need to start seeking out negative feedback and take it seriously, stop being concerned about avoiding confrontation, and challenge the status quo (or recruit people who do and pay attention to them).

There is no question that EQ is a desirable and highly adaptive trait, and it is understandable that we generally prefer EQ to be high rather than low. However, obsessing over high EQ will create a workforce of emotionally stable, happy, and diplomatic people who potter along and follow rules enthusiastically instead of driving change and innovation. They will be great followers and good managers, but don’t expect them to be visionary leaders or change agents.