Day 5 – Solving Workplace Bullying with Emotional Intelligence

Wednesday, December 11, 2025

I spent today at a Dale Carnegie seminar on AI and Leadership. During the breaks, I took every opportunity to talk to people about workplace bullying. What I learned surprised me—and gave me hope.

One conversation stood out. One client had brought in Dale Carnegie to deliver leadership development training. But that wasn’t the real reason. The actual problem they were trying to solve was a bullying culture. Even in environments where senior leaders perpetuate or openly condone bullying, she explained, there are still people with a conscience who want to solve it. “Find those people,” she said. “They’re your allies.”

It was a lightbulb moment. I’d been thinking about this work as confronting organizations from the outside. But the real leverage might be finding the internal resisters—the conscientious people in senior positions who know bullying is happening and can’t change it alone. They need frameworks, language, permission, and support to act.

The Shift: IQ → EQ → AQ

Sitting in that seminar, watching discussions about AI’s role in leadership, I saw an opportunity I hadn’t fully articulated before. We’re living through a fundamental shift in what intelligence means in the workplace and I was compelled to write an article inspired by Daniel Goleman’s latest Newsletter:

IQ (Intelligence Quotient) dominated the 20th century—analytical thinking, problem-solving, technical expertise. Cognitive ability was the primary differentiator of success.

EQ (Emotional Intelligence) emerged as critical in the 21st century—self-awareness, empathy, relationship management, social skills. As work became more collaborative and knowledge-based, the ability to understand and manage emotions became essential.

Now we’re entering the era of AQ (AI Intelligence)—the skill of managing and leading teams of AI agents in the future world of work. AQ is about knowing how to deploy, collaborate with, and orchestrate artificial intelligence to augment human capability.

But here’s the crucial insight: as AI handles more transactional work, freeing humans to do more human activities, EQ becomes MORE important, not less.

AI can’t be bullied. AI doesn’t need psychological safety. AI doesn’t suffer from micro-aggressions or develop learned helplessness. But humans do. And in a future where humans increasingly manage humans while AI manages transactions, the quality of human-to-human interaction becomes the differentiator between thriving organizations and toxic ones.

This is where solving workplace bullying becomes strategically critical, not just morally necessary.

Does EQ Actually Reduce Bullying?

After the seminar, I dove into research to test this intuition. The evidence is compelling.

Studies show a negative correlation between emotional intelligence and bullying behavior—as EQ increases, bullying decreases. People with higher emotional intelligence are less likely to engage in bullying because they can recognize the pain it causes and are better equipped to resolve conflicts constructively.macrothink+2​

Emotional intelligence acts as a protective factor. Research demonstrates that EQ moderates the relationship between workplace bullying and employee well-being. When people have higher emotional intelligence, they’re better able to handle exposure to bullying without it destroying their flourishing. Organizations that develop emotional intelligence in employees reduce the negative effects of workplace bullying on performance and psychological health.pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih+2​

The mechanism is empathy. Empathy—understanding and sharing the feelings of others—is a cornerstone of emotional intelligence and a key bullying prevention factor. When people can put themselves in someone else’s shoes, they’re less likely to say or do things that cause harm. Empathetic individuals are also more likely to stand up for peers being mistreated and to resolve conflicts peacefully and create environments that encourage kindness and respect.​

Fostering emotional intelligence in leaders may lead to less bullying and more positive workplace environments. Higher levels of emotional awareness and effective emotional management correlate with diminished likelihood of engaging in bullying behavior.​

The Future-Proofing Argument

Here’s the strategic case I’m building for organizations:

In the AI-augmented workplace, human interaction is what remains uniquely human. Transactional work—data processing, scheduling, reporting, routine analysis—will increasingly be handled by AI agents. What humans will do is lead, collaborate, innovate, coach, and build culture.

If your humans can’t do those things well because they’re operating in a bullying culture, you don’t just have a moral problem. You have a competitive disadvantage in the future of work.

Organizations that invest in emotional intelligence now are preparing their workforce for a world where EQ is the differentiator. Companies that ignore bullying are allowing a disease to spread through the one thing AI can’t replace: healthy human to human relationships.

This isn’t about being nice. It’s about being strategically prepared for the IQ→EQ→AQ evolution.

Finding the Allies

The woman at the seminar gave me a roadmap. Even in organizations with toxic senior leadership, there are people who want to solve this. They might be:

• HR leaders exhausted by turnover and knowing the real reason people leave
• Mid-level managers who see the talent drain and cultural rot but lack power to change it
• Senior leaders with conscience who are quietly horrified but don’t know how to challenge the status quo
• Employees who’ve been bullied, witnessed it, or lost colleagues to it and are determined to create something better

These are the people I need to find. They’re not looking for a crusade against villains. They’re looking for frameworks, language, tools, and permission to address what everyone knows is happening but no one knows how to fix.

The Work Ahead

This realization clarifies my offering. I’m not just building resources for victims or consulting for companies that already want to change. I’m creating a movement for the internal resisters—the people inside toxic organizations who want to be part of the solution but feel isolated and powerless.

I’m building:

• A framework that connects EQ development to bullying prevention
• Language that positions this as strategic future-proofing, not just moral imperative
• Tools for identifying and supporting allies inside organizations
• A community where people can share experiences and strategies without shame

The Dale Carnegie seminar showed me something I needed to see: leadership development and bullying prevention are the same work. You can’t build emotionally intelligent leaders in a culture that tolerates bullying. And you can’t solve bullying without developing emotional intelligence.

Your Turn

If you’re one of the allies—someone inside an organization who sees the bullying culture and wants to change it but doesn’t know how—reach out. Comment below, send me a message, tell me what you’re facing.

If you’re in HR, learning and development, or leadership and you’ve tried to address bullying but hit resistance—I want to hear your story. What worked? What didn’t? What support do you need?

The future of work is human. Let’s make sure the humans can actually work together.

Resources that popped up:

1. https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jei/article/view/19225
2. https://atriumsoc.org/blog/emotional-intelligence-bully-prevention/
3. https://www.lidsen.com/journals/neurobiology/neurobiology-08-04-251
4. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4753400/
5. https://ojs.journalsdg.org/jlss/article/view/2159
6. https://sajip.co.za/index.php/sajip/article/view/1603
7. https://www.talentsmarteq.com/preventing-workplace-violence-7-eq-strategies-for-a-safer-environment/
8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23454994/
9. https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/hzf8w.html
10. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-preventing-bullying-with-emotional-intelligence/2014/02