Why Firing My Smartest Employee Was the Smartest Thing I Ever Did

I’ve seen thousands of impressive resumes over the years, and one important lesson I’ve learned is that smarts and brainpower without emotional intelligence are worse than unproductive. Give me the sharpest investment analyst or portfolio manager in town, but if they can’t hold a calm conversation when a client is panicked or concerned or can’t read the room, they’re more of a liability than an asset.

My wake-up call was letting go of our brilliant portfolio analyst, whose zero-empathy style turned status update calls into cage matches of who is smarter. Showing that intellectual talent the way out the door definitely was difficult, but the damage they would’ve kept causing would’ve been worse. That realization pushed emotional intelligence — or emotional quotient — to the top of my hiring checklist. If you’re building a company and still betting on raw intellect alone, you’re quietly inviting trouble inside the culture of your organization.

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The reflexes that keep a deal from dying

Running a small business is more like a street market at rush hour. Things move fast, and emotional intelligence matters a lot. When a deadline jumps from next week to tomorrow, you need teammates who keep their heads high, read the room and steady the ship. High-EQ people do exactly that.

They notice a teammate’s shoulders tense and ask what’s up before the blow-up. They catch a client’s hesitation in the first five seconds and course-correct. They think before they fire off the snarky Slack or Teams reply. Those reflexes keep collaboration flowing. Minus them, tension multiplies faster than any spreadsheet can track — and the smartest ideas drown in the noise.

The ROI of prioritizing EQ

Stress is part of the founder’s job description, so the real question is who you want beside you when things go sideways. I’ve watched high-EQ employees turn a Friday meltdown into a Monday morning win simply by listening first, framing the options and keeping everyone’s dignity intact. It’s important to note that talent is only part of the equation.

Regardless of how “genius” they may be, a teammate with a low EQ can flip the script on a project’s success. They become a bottleneck for progress and drain the team with unnecessary conflict. Lost clients, burnt-out teams, endless mediation calls: that hidden overhead will sink margins faster than any market downturn. Once you tally those silent costs, betting on EQ looks less like a soft option and more like bulletproof risk management for your business.

Related: 5 Reasons Why Emotional Intelligence Is the Future of Work

Hire for EQ, train for skill

Don’t get me wrong, I still want smart people on the payroll. I’m still running a company. But here’s the hard lesson you should learn from my experience: hard skills sit on the lowest shelf because they’re easy to reach. Let’s say a motivated new hire can easily binge-watch tutorials at twice the speed, shadow a colleague for a sprint and hit baseline proficiency even before the quarter closes.

On the contrary, EQ lives on a higher shelf. It’s forged over the years from handling feedback that stings, defusing tension at the exact moment it peaks and communicating bad news without lighting a fuse. Those instincts come from experience and an honest self-audit, not from a two-day certification. For example, I can easily walk someone through our CRM logic, but I can never walk them through the emotional mechanics of pausing before they speak when a client’s tone turns frosty. That muscle either shows up toned or it doesn’t.

So when a candidate walks in already steady under pressure, I’ll gladly sponsor any technical training they need. Any entrepreneur can spend the money on a coding boot camp, a finance master class or a niche compliance seminar just because that’s a fixed, predictable cost. But if you try reversing the equation where you pour months into coaching someone who bristles at basic feedback, you’ll discover the bill never stops growing, and neither does the headache.

Related: 6 Steps to Building a Strong Company Culture

How to screen for EQ from the job post to the first 90 days

Making EQ the north star starts before a single resume lands in your inbox. Write job posts that clearly outline collaboration efforts, adaptability and client care right next to the technical asks. Be extremely clear so you attract (and detract) the right people.

When interview time rolls around, refrain from asking questions as if they’re trivia quizzes. Ask about the last time a project blew up in their face and how they kept the team together. Listen for ownership, empathy and a game plan — not finger-pointing. Run multiple rounds so the mask slips (not that we’re setting them up for failure, just that fatigue is a great truth serum).

Call references and skip the polite small talk. Ask how the candidate handled tension and whether their previous employer would rehire them when the chips were down. After the offer, give your new hires a culture buddy and real-time feedback in the first ninety days. See how they handle the small storms before you put them in front of your biggest accounts.

No line item captures the relief of ending a tough call with a client who says, “Thanks for getting where I’m coming from.” That’s EQ paying dividends, and the compound interest is wild. When you make emotional intelligence the first filter, you’ll spend less time refereeing squabbles and more time building something worth the late nights. Hire humans who can handle humans, and the numbers will take care of themselves.