Head & Heart Check

Take one real decision or conversation and check, with evidence, how well you read and used the emotions in it alongside the facts, so the next similar moment goes better on both counts.

Practice, not research: "head and heart" is this library's own composite, not a validated model. Emotional intelligence is mixed research (Salovey & Mayer, 1990; meta-analysis: Joseph & Newman, 2010), and so is servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1970; review: Eva et al., 2019). The 1 to 5 self-ratings are reflection, not a measure; any thresholds are rules of thumb.

Use it when:

• A decision was right on paper but landed badly with people, or the reverse.
• You face a similar hard moment soon (a restructuring talk, a refusal, a conflict) and want to prepare from the last one.
• Feedback keeps telling you that you are "all numbers" or "too soft", and you want to see it in one concrete case.

Skip it when:

• Your question is how much to involve others in a decision: use 3.16 Decision Style Matrix.
• Your question is what you stand for in general, not how one moment went: use 3.5 Values & Non-Negotiables.

Be clear about what this is: "head and heart" is a composite this library assembled, not a tested model. Its strongest strand is emotional intelligence, first proposed as the ability to perceive, understand and use emotional information (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). There is meta-analytic support for the construct, but how much it adds for leaders beyond personality and ability is disputed (Joseph & Newman, 2010), and the four-domain layout used here is the popular version. Servant leadership adds a second question: whom did the moment serve? Greenleaf (1970) argued that the leader exists to serve the people led; the research on it is growing but mixed (Eva et al., 2019).

The working claim is modest: emotion is information, and a leader who neither reads it nor manages it decides with less of the picture. That is why every rating on this page needs evidence from one situation. The limit: a self-rating of your own empathy is not a measurement, so treat the result as reflection to test with others.

Write what happened as a camera would have seen it. Name people by role, not by name.

Strong answer: "Tuesday, shift meeting. I told the packing team the night shift moves to a rotating schedule from March. Two operators walked out early. I said the decision was final and moved to the next item." Not: "A tough meeting about change."

What happened, in facts:

When, and who was there (roles):

What was at stake, for them and for you:

What you decided or said:

Illustrative example: the roles and the company are made up.

A production lead at a bakery plant in Denmark announces that weekend shifts will rotate across all three teams.

Step 1: "Friday briefing, 20 people. I read the new rota aloud. One baker asked why the day team had been told first; I said that was not the point."

Step 2: self-awareness scores of 2 (irritated, noticed only afterwards); read others' emotions 2 (missed the glances when the day team was mentioned); handled tension openly 1 (closed the question down).

Step 3: autopilot, because the lead wanted to finish before the line restarted. Value tested: transparency, partly honored. The moment served the schedule, not the bakers.

Step 4: leaned head. Better balance: admit the order of telling was a mistake and explain it. Micro-practice: tell all teams the same news on the same day, and pause after any question that sounds like a complaint about fairness. Check date: after next month's rota change.