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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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........

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