Drop those bad leadership habits: unlocking the key to EI
Chuck, a merchandising executive for a global retail company, received feedback that while he was generally a calm and rational person, his anger at mistakes and unpredictability during stressful situations were limiting his career growth. Additionally, those at the level above him felt his presentations were too “in the weeds” and not strategic enough. This meant he wasn’t being included in succession plans for higher level roles.
Chuck’s behavior was causing many challenges within his group. His unpredictability made his team hesitate to let him know about problems right away, as they were hoping to figure out a solution before having to approach him. By the time he did find out, the problems were much harder to resolve. This was causing larger supply chain issues and downstream revenue hits that most likely could have been avoided if Chuck were able to address the problems sooner.
You might be thinking that you know a few leaders like Chuck. Unfortunately, we find that feedback like this is all too common. In fact, the data we’ve collected through the thousands of executive leadership assessments, using the ExPITM, reveal that three of the four lowest rated leadership qualities are:
- Restrain
- Composure
- Resonance
Restraint points to a leader’s temperament and predictability. Composure is about how well a leader handles crisis situations and Resonance is about how a leader connects with others and positions him/herself to notice what others are thinking and feeling.
These three facets of leadership are key to emotional intelligence (EI) - the ability to notice our own emotions, manage our reactions, notice others' emotions, and respond appropriately - because they point to our ability to remain even-tempered, to take the heat out of crisis situations, and to address others’ emotions.Why do leaders have such a hard time demonstrating EI?Usually, it’s not that these leaders don’t have emotional intelligence. Rather, it is often a result of a couple of habits that get in the way.
- A strong 'action' bias. What has gotten these leaders to senior levels is this action: their ability to make quick decisions, act with speed, and respond efficiently to tactical questions. Therefore, when a situation requires thoughtfulness or a pause in the action, these leaders are not practiced in how to stop, slow down, think, and then act. And, if they are highly emotional their team will hesitate to reach out to them when thoughtfulness is required.
- Easily triggered. When a leader’s core value or deep belief is being challenged, they can be easily triggered. For example, a leader who has very high Integrity can quickly overreact when a team member seems to make a poor decision, even if it might be within the realm of a good decision to another leader. Or a leader can be triggered if a peer promises to send information by a certain date and doesn’t deliver.
Take Chuck, for instance. In prior roles, he made quick decisions regarding what customers would want which led to great buying decisions. He was able to change course rapidly and resolve problems when confronted with supplier issues. He was known as the guy who knew exactly where to go to get the right merchandise in the right stores. All great qualities, for a single contributor. And, arguably great qualities in lower level leadership positions. However, they are not great qualities for this executive leadership role. He was acting so quickly that his organization couldn’t keep up. And because he was so hot headed, his team didn’t let him know this was happening.
An African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” holds true for many of the leaders we work with. When their action bias is front and center, they are often alone. And when they take a moment to look in the rearview mirror, they see that their teams are floundering. Alternatively, we see that when leaders slow down, they can rally their teams to get on board with their vision. They create engagement and synergy within their team that leads to real business results.
What can you do?
If Chuck’s story hits close to home, or if you tend to react when you wish you’d thought the situation through instead, then building your mindfulness muscle might be the answer. Mindfulness, or the act of noticing our own emotions and creating a gap between the stimulus and our response, builds emotional intelligence. It also strengthens the qualities of Restraint, Composure, and Resonance.
The challenge is that it requires noticing habitual reactions, pausing, and choosing to respond differently instead. This is easier said than done. However, once we begin choosing a new response and do so consistently, over time, we create powerful new habits and begin demonstrating greater emotional intelligence.
How to incorporate mindfulness into your leadership
Here are some simple things you can do to begin building your mindfulness muscle.
- Assess your speed and slow down to bring others along for the ride
- Keep distractions to a minimum to ensure you are truly connecting with people and noticing what might not be spoken
- Notice when you are triggered and take a few deep breaths before responding
- Respond with curiosity to inquire about the other person’s perspective, as opposed to responding from your triggered, reactive frame of mind
- Prepare for a challenging meeting or conversation by anticipating what might trigger you and deciding how you will respond differently this time
- When things get heated, defer or postpone the topic by suggesting discussing it off-line, after the meeting, or after more information is gathered
You create your organization’s environment and your demeanor sets the tone for your team. Do you want to nurture a hectic, chaotic environment or a thoughtful, innovative organization?
It can often feel like there’s absolutely no time to pause. However, we know through working with thousands of leaders, that powerful and effective leadership resides in both the pause and the thoughtful response.
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From top-down to judgment all around: The AI imperative for organizations
Each business revolution has reshaped not only how businesses operate, but how they organize themselves and empower their people. From the industrial age to the information era, and now into the age of artificial intelligence, technology has always brought with it a reconfiguration of authority, capability, and judgment.
In the 19th century, industrialization centralized work and knowledge. The factory system required hierarchical structures where strategy, information, and decision-making were concentrated at the top. Managers at the apex made tradeoffs for the greater good of the enterprise because they were the only ones with access to the full picture.
Then came the information economy. With it came the distribution of information and a need for more agile, team-based structures. Cross-functional collaboration and customer proximity became competitive necessities. Organizations flattened, experimented with matrix models, and pushed decision-making closer to where problems were being solved. What had once been the purview of a select few, judgment, strategic tradeoffs, and insight became expected competencies for managers and team leads across the enterprise.
Now, AI is changing the game again. But this time, it’s not just about access to data. It’s about access to intelligence.
Generative AI democratizes access not only to information, but to intelligent output. That shifts the burden for humans from producing insights to evaluating them. Judgment, which was long the domain of a few executives, must now become a baseline competency for the many across the organization.
But here’s the paradox: while AI extends our capacity for intelligence, discernment, the human ability to weigh context, values, and consequence, is still best left in the hands of human leaders. As organizations begin to automate early-career work, they may inadvertently erase the very pathways and opportunities by which judgment was built.
Why judgment matters more than ever
Deloitte’s 2023 Human Capital Trends survey found that 85% of leaders believe independent decision-making is more important than ever, but only 26% say they’re ready to support it. That shortfall threatens to neutralize the very productivity gains AI promises.
If employees can’t question, challenge, or contextualize AI’s output, then intelligent tools become dangerous shortcuts. The organization stalls, not from a lack of answers, but from a lack of sense-making.
What organizations must do
To stay competitive, organizations must shift from simply adopting AI to designing AI-aware ways of working:
- Build new learning paths for judgment development. As AI replaces easily systematized tasks, companies must replace lost learning experiences with mentorship, simulations, and intentional development planning.
- Design workflows that require human input. Treat AI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot. Embed review checkpoints and tradeoff discussions. Just as innovation processes have stage gates, so should AI analyses.
- Make judgment measurable. Assess and develop decision-making under ambiguity from entry-level roles onward. Research shows the best learning strategy for this is high-fidelity simulations.
- Start earlier. Leadership development must begin far earlier in career paths, because judgment, not just knowledge, is the new differentiator.
What’s emerging is not just a flatter hierarchy, but a more distributed sense of judgment responsibility. To thrive, organizations must prepare their people not to outthink AI, but to out-judge it.
BTS acquires Nexo to strengthen its position in Brazil and Latin America
P R E S S R E L E A S E
Stockholm, May 5, 2025
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – BTS Group AB (publ), a leading global consultancy specializing in strategy execution, change, and people development, has agreed to acquire Nexo Pesquisa e Consultoria Ltda., Nexo, a boutique consulting firm headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nexo has been growing continuously since it was founded in 2017. With revenues of approximately 12 million Brazilian Reales (approx. 2.1 million USD) in 2024, and a highly capable team of 21 members, Nexo has built a strong reputation for delivering transformative projects in strategy, innovation, leadership, and culture.
Nexo collaborates with a great portfolio of clients across sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, and technology, assisting both local and global companies in navigating uncertainty, unlocking creativity, and activating strategy through people. Their work encompasses culture transformation, leadership development, employer value proposition, innovation culture, and vision alignment – supported by proprietary methodologies and frameworks.
BTS currently operates in Brazil servicing both local and multinational clients with a team of 13 employees. By acquiring Nexo, BTS not only increases the Group’s footprint in Brazil but also adds significant capabilities in culture and transformation services. Nexo’s client base has limited overlap with BTS, creating strong growth potential and synergy opportunities.
“Nexo is known for helping leaders and organizations tackle some of the most complex, human-centered challenges with creativity, empathy, and strategic clarity and the Nexo team is loved by their clients,” says Philios Andreou, Deputy CEO of BTS Group and President of the Other Markets Unit. “Their products and services complement and elevate our existing offerings, especially in culture transformation, and we are thrilled to welcome the Nexo team to BTS.”
“We’re excited to join BTS. We’ve long admired BTS’s approach and unique portfolio to support large organizations and leaders in connecting strategy with culture across the organization,” says Andreas Auerbach, co founder of Nexo. “Becoming part of BTS, allows us to scale our impact and bring more value to our clients while staying true to our values and culture,” adds Mariana Lage Andrade, co-founder of Nexo.
Upon completion of the transaction, Nexo’s business and organization will merge with BTS Brazil. Nexo’s founders will assume senior management roles in the joint operation.
The acquisition includes a limited initial cash consideration. Additional purchase price considerations will be paid between 2026 and 2028, provided Nexo meets specific performance targets. A limited portion of any such additional purchase price considerations will be paid in newly issued BTS shares. The transaction is effective immediately.
BTS’s acquisition strategy continues to focus on broadening our service portfolio, expanding our geographic reach, and enhancing our capabilities to support future organic growth in a fragmented market.
For more information, please contact:
Philios Andreou
Deputy CEO
BTS Group AB
philios.andreou@bts.com
Michael Wallin
Head of investor relations
BTS Group AB
michael.wallin@bts.com
+46-8-587 070 02
+46-708-78 80 19
High-performing teaming
Work today is too complex for individuals to succeed in isolation. Almost every critical decision, innovation, or transformation depends on teams working effectively together. Leaders rely on their teams to deliver results. Teams, in turn, rely on their leaders to create the conditions where performance is possible. This exchange, what leaders need from their teams, and what teams need from their leaders, sits at the heart of what we call teaming.
When teaming is strong, leaders get what they need from their teams [creativity, resilience, execution] and teams get what they need from leaders [direction, support, and the conditions to thrive]. It’s how strategy becomes action, how uncertainty becomes opportunity, and how businesses stay competitive in a fast-changing world.