In Asia’s business cultures—where social hierarchy, face, and collective harmony influence interactions—emotional intelligence (EI) is a critical skill to work effectively, motivate teams, and deliver results. A recent NTUC report (2025) highlights an interesting gap: 83% of leaders self-rate EI highly, but only 50% of employees agree.
For HR professionals and executive coaches working across Asia, supporting leaders to develop better EI and close this gap is a required activity for results today and sustainable success into the future.
EI covers the full range of applied skills, but we have chosen three areas that often come up in our work at 1point5 Solutions.
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Managing Stress and Building Resilience
Asian leaders juggle intense workloads, familial duties, unique regional complexity, and rapid growth and change. This is a recipe for stress and potential burnout, requiring dedicated EI strategies to support leaders in managing stress, maintaining calm, and building resilience in self, teams, and organisations. Sometimes, the strategies are simple and not so obvious.
For example, in Singapore during COVID, DBS Bank’s CEO Piyush Gupta maintained composure and regulated fear amid market crash and profit drops by using transparent townhalls to rally 30,000 staff. He understood that emotions are contagious, so he regulated his own to influence others. He also fostered a startup culture, which required staff to take risks and adopt a fintech mindset (2025), which requires an emotional shift as much as a cognitive one. He is described as leaving behind a legacy of “ambition, resilience, and innovation,” all underpinned by an emotional state.
Strategies for HR & Coaches:
HR: Embed “resilience audits” in annual reviews—regular check-ins scoring stress triggers (1-10). Pair with suggested 10-minute mindfulness via apps like Headspace, tailored for the Asian context.
Depending on the organisational culture being created, use the audits to measure specific emotional states that support your specific vision. For example, DBS might measure “how comfortable staff feel to take a risk” if they want to build an innovative culture. Singtel has stated they want to create a culture of belonging, so pulse surveys that measure employees’ “feeling of belonging and connection” will help guide people and culture strategies.
Coaches: Use the “stress autopsy” exercise: Post-challenge, map emotions chronologically (“What triggered your response? And what else?”). Role-play boundary-setting phrases like “I’ll reflect and respond by end of day” to counter face-saving impulses. Also, brainstorm available relevant resources leaders can access that will help build resilience and develop extra capacity. Record via reflections and journaling to track resilience gains and “manage what gets measured.”
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Managing Emotions in Self
There is an expectation in high power-distance cultures that leaders will embody stoic control—anger must never erupt publicly, anxiety can’t paralyze decisions, frustration can’t leak into “face-destroying” outbursts (Chen, 2016)
Unlike Western transparency norms, Asian contexts prefer leaders to be emotional anchors—holding space for collective harmony while suppressing personal turbulence. Unmanaged emotions don’t just hurt the leader; they damage trust, respect, and can fracture the team’s relational contract (Dandona, 2026)
Self-regulation is a cultural skill learned from childhood. That said, sometimes not expressing emotions can lead to unhealthy outcomes for leaders, so support from HR and, at times, from coaches becomes an important outlet to safely allow emotional expression in private whilst maintaining emotional regulation publicly.
Strategies for HR & Coaches:
HR: Often, you will see the symptoms without being able to have a conversation safely. This is when a “recognise and refer” approach may be the best strategy to support leaders. Implementing surveys (e.g., anonymous pulse apps) where leaders and teams can safely share “emotional temperatures” will help understand the landscape more broadly. Role-modeling and promoting pause protocols like 30-second breathing before email replies can help develop self-regulation across the organisation.
Coaches: Asian leaders want practical tips and actions. Share simple tools like the “3R drill” to: 1) Recognise the emotion, 2) Reframe the source, and 3) Respond constructively. For example:
(1) Recognise the emotion by naming it: “I’m frustrated.”
(2) Reframe the cognitive component: from “you never deliver on time” to “let me find out what’s really going on.”
(3) Respond constructively by asking a question: “Can we explore what’s going on and then work together to develop options to move forward?”
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Motivating Others at Work
As workplaces change and workforces become increasingly global, keeping up with this evolution is key for leaders to really understand what is required to motivate others. This is a critical EI skill all leaders need to understand and evolve with. Our previous blog on Gen Z’s perspective illuminates this difference. The old adage “what got you here won’t get you there” is particularly relevant here. Most leaders today grew up embracing a deferential attitude to a top-down leadership style. Today’s generations are different, and when top-down goals are imposed, it can lead to “quiet quitting” or surface compliance. In talent-scarce markets—like Singapore, where unemployment in 2025 was between 2-3% (MOM, 2026)—understanding what drives and dives motivation is critical.
Strategies for HR & Coaches:
HR: Spend time making “purpose bridges” explicit. For example, use some time in team workshops linking tasks to personal stakes—for instance, “How does working hard on this project support your family?”
Coaches: Use GROW to map emotions and motivation:
- Goal—to include personal why aligned to purpose.
- Reality—to surface any apathy and uncover the motivational interferences.
- Options—and highlight or develop the intrinsic motivations/benefits.
- Way Forward—to cement small steps and follow up by recognising progress and celebrating success to maintain motivation.
- Specifically identify support, given this is an active ingredient in coaching effectiveness.
Conclusion: EI as Asia’s Leadership Currency
Business and Management in Asia (2026) nails it: In power-distant, harmony-seeking cultures, EI converts emotional chaos into cohesive performance. HR builds systems; coaches forge mindsets, equating to results today and sustainable success tomorrow.
At 1point5 Solutions, we partner with HR and talent professionals across Asia to develop leaders through evidence-based, culturally aware coaching & workshops.
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Authored by: John Raymond
References:
Abdullh, I. N. (2025) DBS Banking Masterstroke Coming to an End Under Piyush Gupta. Fintech News Available at: https://fintechnews.sg/109412/digital-banking-news-singapore/dbs-banking-masterstroke-coming-to-an-end-under-piyush-gupta/.
Chen, S. X. (2016) ‘The role of culture in the expression, experience, and management of emotion.’, in Kumar, U. (ed.) The Routledge international handbook of psychosocial resilience: Routledege, pp. 135–146.
Dandona, A. (2026) ‘Emotional Intelligence in Asian Business Leadership: A Key to Sustainable Success’, in Endress, T. & Yuosre, F.B. (eds.) Business and Management in Asia: Opportunities and Entrepreneurship. Singapore: Springer Nature, pp. 35–57.
Endress, T. and Yuosre, F. B. (2026) Business and Management in Asia: Opportunities and Entrepreneurship. Singapore: Springer Nature.
MOM (2026) Summary Table: Unemployment. Available at: https://stats.mom.gov.sg/Pages/Unemployment-Summary-Table.aspx.
NTUC (2025) ‘Employees cite ‘emotional intelligence’ as key leadership gap, highlighting disconnect at the top’: NTUC.
