Why Tech Historically Undervalues Emotional Intelligence
(And Why It's Costing Us)
Remember that feeling when you're staring at a server rack, blinking lights taunting you, and you just know the answer isn't in another diagnostic command? Or when a network diagram (perfectly logical on paper) completely falls apart in a client meeting? I’ve been there, elbow-deep in the digital guts of IT consulting for two decades, and those moments? They taught me a critical lesson. We pore over specs, optimize configs, and troubleshoot for hours, but sometimes, the biggest, hairiest problems we face aren't technical at all. They're profoundly human.
I’m talking about emotional intelligence (that "soft skill" our industry often treats like a rogue process): acknowledged, maybe, but certainly not prioritized. We’ve built an incredible world on logic, data, and hard skills. But why did we, as an industry, ever start believing that the key to future success was only more tech, and less, well, less us? This isn't just a recent oversight; it's a deep-seated blind spot the size of a data center, and frankly, it's been costing us for a long time.
Let's unpack why EI historically gets the short end of the cable:
The Cult of the Tangible and Measurable
From the earliest days of computing, our world has been built on what we can quantify and control. If you couldn’t ping it, measure its latency, or stick it in a spreadsheet, it simply held less weight. We embraced KPIs early on: lines of code, uptime percentages, ticket resolution times. These became our trophies, the undeniable proof of our prowess. I'm old enough to remember when a new operating system came with some staggering statistic about how many lines of code were written by the team (Hi, Microsoft) to get the release out to the public. Emotional intelligence (with its squishier concepts like empathy during a crisis call or the quiet art of active listening when a client is truly frustrated) didn't fit neatly onto those early dashboards. So, it was largely shrugged off. "Soft" skills were seen in two ways: unquantifiable, and therefore, often perceived as less vital to the core mission, or worse, a magical skill that your “best engineers” had. In the second case, a desired trait was highlighted without any intention of maturing it. These foundational biases stuck.
The Myth of Pure Meritocracy and Technical Tiers
Our industry's career paths were often paved by technical brilliance. The belief that the most brilliant engineer who could untangle any wiring nightmare or architect the most elegant cloud solution would automatically make the best team lead became a default assumption. Early on, promotion ladders were built almost exclusively on technical prowess. The result? We promote folks who are absolute wizards with networks and systems but might struggle to communicate without sounding like a broken RFC document, or who unwittingly create a tense environment because they lack self-awareness. That genius talent (while essential) often overlooked the crucial human component of leadership.
The Allure of Logic and the Fear of "Feelings"
IT, by its very nature, attracts logical thinkers. Our early pioneers thrived on problem-solving that has a clear right or wrong answer, a binary outcome. Emotions? They feel... squishy. They’re messy. They introduce variables that can’t be debugged with a command-line tool. This preference for pure logic quickly became ingrained in the culture. There's always been this unspoken discomfort with difficult conversations, interpersonal conflict, or even acknowledging the sheer stress of an all-nighter spent troubleshooting. It’s easier to just focus on the hardware problem than to delve into why the team is at each other's throats. But human decisions (from product design to vendor selection) are often driven by emotion, not just cold logic.
The "Build Fast, Fix Later" (and Its Human Casualties)
The startup mantra of speed, disruption, and "move fast and break things" has certainly propelled innovation, especially since the dot-com boom. But sometimes, it breaks people, too. When the sprint is everything, the human element (thoughtful communication, team well-being, empathetic client management) got sidelined. We tell ourselves we’ll address "the people stuff" later, once the product ships or the project is delivered. The "later" almost always arrives, but usually in the form of burnout, high employee turnover, and fractured teams. This mentality (focused on a perceived need for rapid growth) instilled a dangerous precedent of deferring human concerns.
Echo Chambers and Lack of Diverse Perspectives
As the tech industry grew (particularly in its formative years), it often lacked diversity. If teams, and even entire company cultures, were primarily composed of similar personalities and backgrounds, certain emotional blind spots could become deeply ingrained and rarely challenged. This homogeneity meant fewer perspectives to interpret client feedback accurately, or to understand how a seemingly small issue might cause massive stress for a team member with a different background. A lack of diverse viewpoints simply meant fewer people to shine a light on the emotional nuances that are being missed, simply because "that's just how we do things here."
The Undeniable Costs
This isn't just a plea for everyone to hold hands and get along. Undervaluing emotional intelligence (a pattern deeply woven into our industry's fabric) is a strategic blunder. It has historically led to eroded client trust, missed opportunities, toxic work environments, high employee turnover, and ultimately, products and services that don't truly solve the human problems they set out to address.
Recognizing these historical blind spots (really seeing them for what they are) is the first, crucial step. It’s about building teams that are as resilient emotionally as the networks we design. It’s about forging client partnerships based on genuine understanding, not just SLAs. Next, I’ll review how we cultivate these partnerships and practices.