Burnout, Turnover, and the Balance Sheet: Why Emotional Intelligence Is a Financial Strategy

By Jordan C. Kabins, Ph.D., MBA

Introduction

Although emotional intelligence is often labeled a “soft skill,” it is a critical behavioral competency that significantly influences organizational stability, leadership effectiveness, and sustained performance. 

As an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist with an MBA and a leader at a national fintech company, and someone who has also worked within hospital and public health systems during COVID-19, I have observed that emotional intelligence is a key determinant of whether individuals adapt under pressure or experience occupational failure.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive emotions, regulate internal responses, understand social dynamics, and utilize emotions constructively in decision-making. Employers should care because emotional intelligence directly shapes coping behavior, which, in turn, drives performance outcomes and organizational behavior.

Emotional Intelligence and Coping Behavior

While workplace stress is inevitable, the ways employees cope with it vary.

Coping behaviors generally fall into two categories: adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive coping includes active problem-solving, planning, reframing challenges, seeking support, and maintaining perspective. Maladaptive coping includes denial, avoidance, behavioral disengagement, and emotional withdrawal.

Emotional intelligence frequently serves as the primary factor distinguishing these two coping patterns. 

When employees lack the ability to regulate emotional overload, stress escalates into fatigue. Fatigue becomes emotional exhaustion. Over time, exhaustion evolves into burnout and disengagement (Kabins, 2026).

Emotional intelligence provides the cognitive abilities and capacities necessary for effective emotional regulation. When emotional responses are not recognized or regulated, maladaptive coping behaviors emerge. Those behaviors often drift away from professional standards and personal codes of conduct, ultimately weakening organizational culture, performance, and long-term stability.

Lessons from COVID-19 in Healthcare Systems

During COVID-19, healthcare environments endured extreme and prolonged workplace stress. The COVID-19 pandemic was the first time healthcare workers experienced frontline conditions. Nurses and managers faced supply shortages, patient death, ethical strain, policy ambiguity, and escalated public scrutiny (Kabins, 2026). 

Within these environments, I observed a distinct divergence in behavioral responses.

Some professionals demonstrated emotional regulation, forward communication, and sustained commitment despite strain. Others experienced cognitive overload, and they could not cope effectively, which manifested as avoidance, frustration, and behavioral disengagement.

The distinguishing factor was neither clinical knowledge nor educational attainment; rather, it was the capacity to have sufficient psychological capital to emotionally regulate and cope effectively during this time.

When emotional intelligence is underdeveloped, fatigue rises. Burnout increases. Employee satisfaction declines. Turnover accelerates.

Hospitals across the world experienced staffing challenges during the pandemic due to increased absences, presenteeism, and employee dissatisfaction, and one can only question whether these challenges would have been endured if healthcare providers had been trained and provided ample psychological capital, including emotional intelligence (Kabins, 2026).

Organizational Consequences of Low Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence influences not only individual well-being, but also the organization’s financial performance.

Low emotional regulation is associated with increased absenteeism and presenteeism. When employees experience conflict, they become avoidant, and it becomes more frequent and less productive. Behavioral compliance weakens, eroding team cohesion, which in turn causes client and/or patient rapport to suffer, leading to organizational operational decline.

In high-pressure industries such as healthcare and finance, these behavioral shifts translate into measurable costs. 

Organizations often attempt to fix performance issues through policy changes or technical training. However, when the root issue is emotional dysregulation, structural solutions alone will not resolve behavioral instability.

Emotional intelligence operates as a foundational behavioral infrastructure; in its absence, organizational systems become increasingly fragile under stress.

Emotional Intelligence as a Strategic Leadership Competency

When organizations intentionally develop emotional intelligence, employees are better equipped to anticipate stressors rather than avoid them. They are better able to uphold professionalism under pressure. They demonstrate stronger commitment and pliability.

If hospitals and businesses implement robust resilience systems that integrate emotional intelligence and psychological capital, they foster adaptive capacity rather than relying on reactive coping strategies (Kabins, 2026).

This transition constitutes a strategic advancement.

Conclusion

All industries encounter uncertainty, stress, and rapid change. Technical competence alone is insufficient to sustain performance under such conditions.

Emotional intelligence enables emotional regulation. Emotional regulation enables adaptive coping. Adaptive coping protects engagement, performance, and organizational stability. Emotional intelligence training is essential for contemporary organizations and introducing and implementing emotional intelligence training will not only improve occupational performance but also improve employees' lives outside of work.

 Reference:

Kabins, J. (2026). The Challenges and Experiences of Mask Compliance among Nurses in Southern Nevada during COVID-19.