Why emotional intelligence isn’t extra. It’s essential.
Certifications. Degrees. Experience.
And yes, those matter. They open doors, help land jobs, and get your foot in the room.
But the longer I’ve worked in this field, the more I’ve learned that what keeps you in the room, what earns you real respect, isn’t always what’s listed on your resume.
It’s how you communicate.
How you manage conflict.
How you stay calm when things get messy.
It’s the soft skills. The ones that aren’t always taught but make the biggest impact.
What They Don’t Teach You in Training
They’ll teach you the software.
The standards.
The systems and specs.
But they won’t teach you what to say when someone questions your leadership in front of a room.
They won’t tell you how to redirect a conversation that’s gone off course or worse, gone personal.
You won’t find a chapter on how to correct someone twice your age without making them defensive.
Or how to be assertive without being labeled aggressive.
You won’t be handed a checklist for how to respond when your input is ignored until someone else repeats it five minutes later.
These are the things you figure out on your own.
You learn how to navigate rooms you weren’t expected to lead.
You learn how to earn respect without raising your voice.
You learn how to be the one people look to when tensions rise because you know how to carry the pressure without cracking.
How Pageantry Helped Me Lead
Pageantry and STEM sound like opposites.
But the skills I sharpened under the spotlight are the same ones I rely on in the field.
Speaking clearly.
Reading the room.
Responding with grace under pressure.
Knowing how to pivot mid-thought and still sound confident.
It’s not just about presentation. It’s about presence.
When I explain a complex system to someone who doesn’t want to hear it
When I mediate a disagreement between coworkers without taking sides
When I’m doubted, interrupted, or dismissed and stay composed anyway
That’s not just professionalism. That’s practice.
And it didn’t come from any engineering textbook.
Soft Is Not the Opposite of Strong
You can be gentle and grounded.
You can be graceful and still get the job done.
You don’t have to be cold to be taken seriously.
There’s strength in staying calm when the tone in the room shifts.
In choosing patience over panic.
In navigating complex people and complex problems with the same confidence.
Soft doesn’t mean silent.
It means strategic.
It means steady.
It means knowing when to speak and when to let your presence speak for itself.
What I Want You to Know
If you’ve ever taken a breath before responding just to make sure you wouldn’t be misunderstood
If you’ve ever replayed a conversation in your head wondering how you could have said it differently
If you’ve ever stayed up late writing the perfect email because you knew you couldn’t afford to sound emotional
If you’ve ever bitten your tongue in meetings where everyone else talked over you
If you’ve ever handled doubt, disrespect, or dismissal and still got the job done anyway
You are not soft.
You are sharp.
You are resilient.
You are leading in a way that cannot be taught, only earned.
And even when it feels invisible, it matters.
Because when you lead with emotional intelligence, the whole team operates better.
Because when you stay composed, people listen more closely.
Because when you bring clarity instead of chaos, people follow.
Soft skills are not secondary.
They are the reason so many women thrive in spaces that weren’t designed for them in the first place.
You don’t need to change how you show up.
You just need to know that the way you lead, quietly, confidently, and with conviction, is enough.
See you next week for Week 7: Wearing Both Well
We’ll talk about balance, not perfection, and how I show up in two different worlds without leaving any part of myself behind.
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