Manager and team member reviewing an emotional intelligence assessment report together

Leadership & Resilience

EQ Is Rising in Demand and Falling in Reality. Here’s the Data

Resilience Institute · Weekly Resilience Brief · 6 minute read

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 places motivation and self-awareness, empathy and active listening, and resilience among the fastest-growing core skills through 2030.
A 2025 study tracking 28,000 adults across 166 countries found global EQ scores fell by 5.79% between 2019 and 2024, with the sharpest declines in motivation and optimism.
A 2025 meta-analysis of 34 studies and 8,515 participants found a strong link between emotional intelligence and resilience (r = .523), and separate research shows EQ competencies can be measurably improved through training.
Singapore’s SkillsFuture agenda has already flagged social and emotional competencies as part of its Care economy skills pillar, giving employers a national policy hook, and funding support, for measuring and building this capability.

Scroll LinkedIn for five minutes and you will find three different posts calling emotional intelligence the leadership skill of the future. It is easy to assume this is recycled hype, the same Daniel Goleman talking points dressed up for a new year. It is not. The data behind the claim has actually changed, and not in the direction most people expect.

The skill is becoming more valuable at the same time it appears to be declining. That combination is the real story, and it is a much stronger reason to measure emotional intelligence properly than any billboard slogan ever was.

Table of Contents

The Skill Getting More Important, and Somehow Getting Weaker

The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on a survey of more than 1,000 large employers representing over 14 million workers, found that 39% of core job skills are expected to change by 2030. Within that shift, motivation and self-awareness, empathy and active listening, and resilience, flexibility, and agility all rank among the fastest-rising core skills, alongside creative thinking. As AI takes over more analytical and administrative work, employers are explicit that the human-centred skills sitting underneath emotional intelligence are what they need more of, not less.

At the same time, a 2025 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, using the validated Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment across a stratified sample of 28,000 adults in 166 countries, found that global EQ scores fell by 5.79% between 2019 and 2024. The researchers call this an “emotional recession.” The steepest declines were in intrinsic motivation, optimism, and a sense of pursuing meaningful goals, exactly the competencies tied most closely to workplace resilience and retention. Demand for the skill is rising while the underlying capability appears to be eroding. That gap does not close itself.

What the Research Actually Shows About EQ and Performance

The link between emotional intelligence and resilience is not a marketing claim. A 2025 multilevel meta-analysis covering 34 studies and 8,515 participants, published in a peer-reviewed journal, found a strong positive correlation between emotional intelligence and resilience (r = .523), with the relationship stronger among practising professionals than among students. A separate 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis found that structured emotional intelligence training produced measurable, sustained improvements in emotional regulation and resilience, which matters because it means this is a trainable capability, not a fixed trait people either have or do not.

That combination, a strong evidenced link to resilience and evidence that training moves the needle, is the actual case for measuring emotional intelligence at work. It has nothing to do with which tech CEO name-drops Goleman in an interview.

5.79%

the average decline in global EQ scores from 2019 to 2024, tracked across 28,000 adults in 166 countries

How to Actually Measure It

Once you accept that EQ needs measuring, not just discussing, the options fall into a few categories.

360 competency assessments compare a self-rating against feedback from peers, direct reports, and managers. Goleman’s own Emotional and Social Competence Index (ESCI) works this way, scoring self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. It requires a certified practitioner to administer and interpret, and it is designed purely for individual development rather than organisational benchmarking.

Validated psychometric instruments, such as the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Assessment used in the 2025 emotional recession study, measure EQ as a set of learnable competencies with published reliability and validity data, and they can be aggregated to show trends across a whole organisation or region, not just one person’s development plan.

Situational judgment tests, such as the MacCann and Roberts Situational Test of Emotional Understanding and Situational Test of Emotion Management, present realistic scenarios and ask respondents to identify the most effective emotional response. These treat EQ as a cognitive ability rather than a personality trait, which some organisations prefer for hiring and screening decisions.

The Resilience Assessment folds emotional intelligence into a wider resilience framework rather than measuring it in isolation. Its “Engage Emotion” category and related factors sit alongside indicators for withdrawal and vulnerability, so a leader can see how a person’s emotional skills connect to their actual risk of burnout and their overall performance capacity, not just their self-reported EQ score in a vacuum.

Singapore’s Skills Agenda Already Points This Direction

SkillsFuture Singapore’s Skills Demand for the Future Economy work has identified the Care economy, alongside Green and Digital, as one of the three growth pillars for national workforce planning, with wellbeing and social-emotional capability explicitly named within it. That gives Singapore employers something most global commentary on this topic misses: a live national policy framework, and associated funding support, for building exactly the competencies this article is about, rather than treating emotional intelligence training as a discretionary line item competing against everything else in the L&D budget.

Decide whether you are measuring for development or for benchmarking. A 360 tool like the ESCI is built for individual coaching. A psychometric instrument with organisational norms is built for tracking a whole team or company over time. Using the wrong one for your goal wastes the exercise.

Ask for the reliability and validity evidence before you buy. Given how many tools now claim to measure EQ, insist on seeing the psychometric documentation, not just a features list or a client logo wall.

Pair the assessment with training, not just a report. Measurement without a development pathway produces a static score. The 2024 meta-analysis found training is what actually shifts emotional regulation and resilience over time.

Re-test on a set schedule. Given the documented global decline in EQ scores, a one-off assessment tells you where a team stood on a single day. A repeat measurement tells you whether the trend in your organisation is moving with the global decline or against it.

Before your next leadership development conversation, ask:

When did we last measure emotional intelligence with a validated instrument, rather than assume we know where our leaders stand?
If global EQ scores are falling, do we actually know whether ours are holding steady?
Does our current EQ or resilience data connect to a training plan, or does it sit in a report nobody revisits?

Emotional intelligence did not become important because a book sold well in 1995. It is important now because the research shows it drives resilience, the World Economic Forum ranks it among the skills employers need most through 2030, and the same research shows it is quietly getting weaker. Organisations that measure it will know which side of that gap they are on. The ones that do not will find out the hard way.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Find answers to some of the most common questions about this topic.

Is emotional intelligence something people are simply born with, or can it be developed?

Both play a role, but the more useful answer for a workplace is that EQ competencies are trainable. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis found structured emotional intelligence training produced sustained improvements in emotional regulation and resilience, which is the evidence base for building a development programme rather than treating EQ as fixed.

What is the difference between the ESCI and a tool like the Resilience Assessment for measuring EQ?

The ESCI is a 360-degree instrument built specifically for individual development and requires a certified practitioner to administer. The Resilience Assessment measures emotional intelligence as one part of a broader resilience framework, alongside burnout risk and performance factors, which gives leaders a fuller picture of how a person's emotional skills connect to their actual capacity and risk, not just an isolated EQ score.

How often should we re-measure emotional intelligence or resilience in our organisation?

Most organisations see meaningful change within three to six months of a targeted development programme. Given the documented global decline in EQ scores since 2019, a fixed re-assessment schedule, rather than a one-time measurement, is the only way to know whether your organisation is moving against that trend or with it.