Emotional Intelligence Across Career Stages: A Study of Interpersonal Skills and Workplace Performance

Abstract

In modern corporate settings, emotional intelligence (EI) has become a crucial skill affecting interpersonal effectiveness and professional performance. Technical proficiency is still crucial, but employees' capacity to identify, control, and react positively to emotions has a big impact on how they interact with coworkers and perform. This study looks at how emotional intelligence develops and shows up at various levels of professional experience, as well as how it helps people improve their interpersonal abilities. The study uses a mixed-methods approach, gathering primary data from 76 employees via a structured questionnaire. Employees with less than five years of experience (52 respondents) and those with more than five years of experience (24 respondents) were the two groups into which the respondents were divided. Initial emotional reactions, situational emotional intelligence, present emotional intelligence, and self-perceived emotional intelligence were all evaluated in the survey. To facilitate comparison analysis, qualitative replies were methodically transformed into quantitative scores using a predetermined scoring structure. The results show that emotional intelligence does not grow with experience in a linear fashion. While seasoned workers show emotional stability along with less situational flexibility, individuals in the early phases of their careers show more emotional adaptability, stronger situational emotional intelligence, and greater self-perceived emotional confidence. The findings show that learning orientation, exposure to the workplace, job demands, and ongoing reflection—rather than experience alone—all have an impact on the dynamic development of emotional intelligence. In order to maintain interpersonal effectiveness and job success, the study underscores the necessity of experience-specific emotional intelligence development interventions and stresses that emotional intelligence needs constant reinforcement throughout all career stages.