How to Lead with Emotional Intelligence (When You’re Under Pressure)
- Dr Pretty Basra
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Leadership Isn’t About Control — It’s About Connection
When everything feels urgent, leadership can start to feel like firefighting. You’re juggling patients, staff, numbers, deadlines — and somehow expected to stay calm, composed, and inspiring.
But leadership isn’t about being unshakable. It’s about being self-aware.
That’s where emotional intelligence (EI) comes in — the hidden advantage that separates average managers from truly transformational leaders.
What Emotional Intelligence Really Means
Emotional intelligence isn’t just “being nice. ”It’s the science of understanding emotions — yours and others’ — and using that awareness to guide behaviour.
According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, EI is made up of five key domains:
Self-awareness – recognising your emotions and their impact.
Self-regulation – managing impulses and staying calm under pressure.
Motivation – staying driven by purpose, not panic.
Empathy – understanding others’ perspectives.
Social skills – communicating with influence and authenticity.
In high-pressure industries like optics, EI is your secret superpower. It keeps you centred in chaos and makes your leadership contagious — in the best way.
The Neuroscience of Pressure
When you’re under stress, your brain releases cortisol and adrenaline. This is useful in short bursts, but chronic activation leads to what neuroscientists call amygdala hijack — your emotional brain taking over your rational one.
That’s when we snap, make impulsive decisions, or misread others’ intentions. Sound familiar?
Here’s the good news: you can train your brain to respond differently. When you practice mental fitness, you strengthen the neural pathways in your prefrontal cortex — the part responsible for logic, empathy, and problem-solving.
This is why emotionally intelligent leaders seem unflappable.
They’re not immune to stress — they’re just better trained to regulate it.
Leading Through Emotional Intelligence
Let’s talk about how this actually looks in leadership:
Pause Before You React When something triggers you — a complaint, a missed target, a tense team meeting — pause. Take a breath. Ask, “What emotion am I feeling right now, and why?
”That micro-pause creates distance between reaction and response.
Lead With Curiosity, Not Criticism Instead of “Why did you do that?”, ask “What made that decision seem right at the time?”Curiosity builds trust and psychological safety — the foundation of high-performing teams.
Use Empathy as a Strategy Empathy isn’t weakness. It’s data. It tells you how your team is experiencing change, pressure, and success. When people feel understood, they perform better — it’s that simple.
Model Emotional Regulation Your team mirrors your mood. Calm is contagious, but so is chaos. The more grounded you are, the more resilient your culture becomes.
Emotional Intelligence in Optics - Seeing Beyond the Eyes
Optometry has always been about clarity — but true clarity starts with people, not prescriptions.
When you lead with emotional intelligence, you see your team as more than roles. You start to notice energy, body language, tone — the unspoken cues that influence performance.
A mentally fit optical leader knows that business growth doesn’t just come from new patients or better equipment - it comes from emotionally healthy teams.
When people feel safe, valued, and heard, they show up with creativity, ownership, and pride.
Pressure Reveals Character
Anyone can lead when things are easy. True leadership is revealed under pressure.
Emotional intelligence doesn’t remove the stress - it gives you the tools to manage it. It turns reactive leadership into responsive leadership. And it transforms teams from compliant to committed.
Because at the end of the day, people don’t follow titles - they follow energy, empathy, and example.
If you want to strengthen your team’s resilience and learn the neuroscience of high-performance leadership, subscribe to the “Beyond the Lens” newsletter for practical tools and mindset insights on emotional intelligence and mental fitness.
emotional intelligence, leadership, neuroscience, mindset, mental fitness, resilience, optics industry, stress management, high performance, female entrepreneur
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