Episode 152

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Published on:

22nd Apr 2025

How to Lead with Emotional Intelligence in Your Workplace | Dr Robin Hills

This episode is sponsored by Deel: Your Forever People Platform.

Managing a global team is complex. Deel makes it simpler with payroll, HR, IT, and compliance—all in one place. That’s why over 35,000 businesses trust Deel to hire, pay, and manage teams worldwide.

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In this episode of the HR L&D Podcast, host Nick Day is joined by Dr. Robin Hills, a globally renowned expert in emotional intelligence and the founder of EI4Change. With over 500,000 learners in 195+ countries, Dr. Hills breaks down why EQ still beats AI, how leaders can build true resilience, and the practical tools HR professionals need to embed emotional intelligence into workplace culture.


Whether you're leading global teams, hiring future talent, or navigating difficult conversations, this episode offers fresh insights into how emotions drive performance, and why kindness, awareness, and adaptability are the new leadership superpowers.


If this episode helped you reframe leadership and performance through the lens of emotional intelligence, don’t forget to like, comment, and share with your HR & L&D network!



Learn More about Dr. Robin’s Work


Find your ideal candidate with our job vacancy system: https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/919cf6b9ea

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Connect with Nick Day: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/

Thanks for listening folks – I look forward to bringing you the next episode of the HR L&D Podcast real soon!


(00:00) Why Emotional Challenges Are Universal

(01:22) Meet Dr. Robin Hills

(02:58) What Human Resources Really Means

(04:54) Emotional Intelligence vs Emotional Quotient

(09:39) The Role of Empathy in Leadership

(14:57) A Real Case Study: Transforming Low EQ Scores

(19:11) How Robin Approaches Research & Feedback

(22:59) Neurodiversity, Language, and Emotional Inclusion

(26:10) Why AI Will Never Fully Replicate EQ

(30:34) What Mindfulness Really Means in the Workplace

(33:56) Teaching EQ Across Cultures: Surprising Similarities

(36:38) Cultural Sensitivity and the Power of Words

(43:08) Intuition as a Leadership Sense

(45:11) Learn More from Dr. Robin Hills


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About the Podcast

The HR L&D Podcast
Leadership, recruitment, culture. Conversations with HR's best
HR gets handed the problems nobody else wants to own. The restructure, the grievance, the engagement survey that came back badly. And then gets asked why people are leaving.

I'm Nick Day. I run an HR recruitment agency, which means I spend most of my week on the phone to HR directors, HR leaders and people leaders talking about what the job is actually like rather than what's written on the job spec. This HR Podcast came out of those calls. I kept hearing things worth repeating, and nobody was repeating them.

Every week I sit down with HR leaders, chief people officers, L&D specialists and the occasional academic who has changed how I think about work and people engagement. We get into leadership, and what happens when someone brilliant at the technical side gets promoted into managing humans.

Employee engagement past the survey score. Diversity, equity and inclusion in a climate where saying those words out loud has become a decision in itself. Pay transparency, talent management, reducing bias in hiring, HR digital transformation and the HCM systems everyone is being sold. And of course we cannot forget HR AI tools and platforms that are flooding the landscape as AI in HR becomes a hot topic every people leader is keen to understand and leverage.

Wellbeing comes up constantly, and it usually turns into the same question. Who looks after the HR team.

I'm not an HR practitioner and I don't pretend to be. I'm the person who hires them, which puts me in a useful position. I get to ask the obvious question that everyone in the room already knows the answer to and nobody says.

No script and no polite version. Mostly it's the conversation you'd have with someone doing your job at a different company, if you ever got the chance to sit down with them.

If you work in HR, people management or L&D, or you're building a career in it, start by subscribing to The HR L&D Podcast. We have had guests including Stephen Covey, Alan Stein Jnr, Andrea Wareham and Dr. Thom Mayer among other HR Leaders who are shaping the future of work and leadership.

Need HR staff? I run JGA Recruitment, an HR and payroll recruitment agency. www.jgarecruitment.com or info@jgarecruitment.com

Want to be on the show? Nick@jgadigital.com

If payroll is closer to your world, I also host The Payroll Podcast, the most listened to payroll show in the world.

Topics include HR leadership, workplace culture, retention, people management, employee engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI strategy, AI for HR, AI recruitment tools, talent management, HR digital transformation, HCM, staff wellbeing, pay transparency, reducing bias, L&D and HR recruitment.

About your host

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Nick Day