In business environments where collaboration, empathy, and effective communication are traits that often distinguish future leaders, developing one’s leadership potential through the lens of emotion—and accessing “emotional intelligence” at work—has become an increasingly relevant skill.
In a recent ASUG Community Conversation, presented by ASUG Collective and held virtually in June, community members explored practical strategies for developing “EQ” to influence leadership, teamwork, and personal well-being. Alongside guest speaker Yush Sztalkoper, strategic coach, consultant, and founder of NeuroSpark, attendees reflected on how emotions impact decision-making, as well as leveraging their emotional awareness to strengthen relationships and achieve professional success.
“What I’ve learned is that the most powerful leadership shift doesn’t come from learning something new,” explained Sztalkoper. “It comes from changing how we show up, especially when things are at their most challenging.”
Sztalkoper opened the session, titled “Elevating Your EQ: Build Emotional Intelligence for Personal and Professional Success,” by positioning the power of Positive Intelligence® (PQ®) as an essential tool for personal development and professional leadership. The PQ framework was developed by Shirzad Chamine, and helps individuals strengthen emotional intelligence through daily mental fitness practices.
She emphasized that emotions work like “an intelligent system” that, when understood, can help you identify two important forces in your personal and professional life: the “saboteurs,” or forces that keep you stuck, and the “sages,” or intrinsic personal tools for moving past your limitations.
The Power of Inner Work
If EQ is knowing how you want to show up, PQ is the practice that gets you there consistently, even and especially under pressure.
“Just because someone knows about emotional intelligence, that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to access that wisdom in a stressful situation,” Sztalkoper explained. It’s one’s commitment to doing “inner work” that ultimately generates the leadership skills and professional connections needed to authentically build emotional intelligence.
“Inner Work = Outer Impact” is the guiding philosophy and tagline of Sztalkoper’s practice. It reflects her belief that meaningful leadership starts with how we lead ourselves — and that when we shift our internal patterns, we create more intentional, sustainable impact in how we lead others.
The goal of inner work is to shift negative thought patterns and enter more positive, resourceful states of mind. In the conversation, Sztalkoper laid out the fundamentals of PQ, encouraging her audience to reflect on how each one can guide individuals toward deeper self-knowledge.
“While I don’t always name it explicitly, my approach is grounded in lived experience — and shaped by a brain that’s wired a little differently,” shared Sztalkoper. “That lens naturally informs how I design and deliver emotional intelligence work. The PQ framework has been a foundational part of my own personal and professional growth. It’s not just something I coach — it’s something I’ve lived and practice every day. It gave me the structure to interrupt long-standing mental habits and lead with greater clarity, intention, and compassion.”
The core fundamentals of PQ® revolve around:
- Mental Fitness
- Saboteurs
- Sage
- PQ Reps (Positive Intelligence Repetitions)
The first core PQ practice is to “catch your saboteurs.” Saboteurs can manifest as voices in your head, Sztalkoper explained, that reflect negative emotions as you handle everyday challenges. Demotivating you and keeping you trapped with feelings of stress, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, restlessness, and unhappiness, these saboteurs can impact your performance, well-being, and relationships.
Meet Your Inner Saboteurs
The universal saboteur, the Judge, is a constant inner critic that fixates on flaws and partners with other saboteurs to fuel stress and self-doubt.
Other common saboteurs include:
- Avoider – delays the inevitable
- Controller – overmanages every detail out of fear something will go wrong
- Hyper-Achiever – overworks to feel worthy
- Hyper-Rational – prioritizes logic over empathy, hindering connection
- Hyper-Vigilant – lives in fear something will go wrong, leading to paralysis
- Pleaser – overcommits due to an inability to say “no”
- Restless – constantly looks ahead, avoiding the present
- Stickler – perfectionism leads to stress and inefficiency
- Victim – stuck in negativity, focusing on what’s wrong
“These saboteurs shift and change depending on the scenario—especially between work and home,” Sztalkoper explained.
Saboteurs tend to be at their strongest when somebody is going through a hard time. Sztalkoper emphasized the importance of practicing what she called “Sage brain” activation when you’re emotionally in a good place, so you can access that same side of your brain more easily under stress.
The Sage powers Sztalkoper outlined were:
- Activate – Act with focus and purpose to turn insights into real-world impact.
- Empathize – Connect with yourself and others through compassion and understanding.
- Explore – Approach challenges with curiosity to uncover root causes and new insights.
- Innovate – Generate creative, meaningful solutions.
- Navigate – Make decisions guided by your values and long-term vision.
The most successful leaders can build their emotional capacity to focus on the positive by partaking in “sensory practices,” Sztalkoper explained. These can be as simple as noticing the feelings you have while brushing your teeth or asking yourself what went well at work today. These micro-moments can add up, helping to rewire your brain.
Simply noticing the reactions you have to stressful situations, anxieties over control, or self-doubt can enable you to better regulate them, and assessing what kinds of saboteurs align with those reactions can also help you to redirect your emotions to activate your inner Sage in the future.
Encouraging leaders to practice a “pause and shift” before reacting, Sztalkoper noted that “when we react fast, it’s often because our nervous systems are in overdrive.” Taking a few deep breaths before responding can help calm the nervous system and create space to reframe a challenge. Then, leaders can ask themselves, “What would be the most Sage response in this moment?”
Sztalkoper shared an example of a leader being placed under executive pressure to navigate unclear expectations. Responses from that leader could often lead them toward stress, self-doubt, and blame. Accessing their inner Sage, that leader might take a moment, identify the stressors that they’re dealing with, consider how to navigate those stressors with intention, and ultimately lead with empathy — all by asking, “What can I clarify now to protect my focus and still deliver value?”
Sztalkoper concluded the session with actionable tips for success: celebrate even small mindset shifts, practice unconditional self-love, and focus on strengths. “This is all within you,” she said. “It’s about unlocking what is already there.”
To better understand one’s personal saboteurs, take the assessment here. For leaders seeking to improve team dynamics, a comparable team assessment is available here. Watch the full ASUG Collective Community Conversation here.
For more ASUG Community Conversations from ASUG Collective, register to attend "Effective Communication and Public Speaking: Influence, Inspire, and Inform with Confidence" (Sept. 25; register here).