Emotional Intelligence Part 3: When Everyone's Running on Empty

by Scott McBride

We all get the concept of being aware of ourselves and managing our behavior. Whether we actually do it? Well, that's a different question entirely. But here's what I'm noticing that honestly worries me: we're all getting worse at this. Not just you, not just me—all of us, collectively.

And I'm not just going on gut feeling here.

The Numbers Tell a Story We're All Living

So there's this massive ongoing study—6seconds.org tracking emotional intelligence across the world. Their most recent survey queried over 277,000 people from 169 countries and what they found from 2019 to 2023 stopped me in my tracks: global emotional intelligence dropped 5.54%. Four straight years of decline. Every single competency they measured went down.

Now, I know what you're thinking—5.54% doesn't sound like much. But stay with me, because when you break down what declined, you'll recognize it immediately. You're living it. I'm living it.

We're all living it:

People are losing their ability to manage emotions (down 5.67%). We're more reactive, quicker to blow up, slower to calm down. That thing where you take a breath before responding? Yeah, that's harder now.

We've lost our sense of optimism (down 8.56%—the biggest drop of anything). The ability to see possibilities, to believe things might work out? That's been slipping away faster than anything else.

Our internal motivation is tanking (down 7.73%). That get-up-and-go that used to come from within? For a lot of us, it's just... gone.

When you put those three together—can't manage emotions, can't see possibilities, can't find motivation—researchers have a name for it. They call it burnout. And friend, we hit all-time lows in 2023.

This is what people mean when they talk about an "emotional recession." Like the 2008 financial crisis, but instead of losing economic output, we're losing emotional capacity. And you can feel it everywhere—in traffic, online, at the grocery store, in meetings. People have shorter fuses. Less patience. More volatility.

And this is all before we factor in any political tension.

When I Became Part of the Statistics

It’s incredibly embarrassing but let me tell you about the day I became a walking example of everything I just described.

Recently, I was traveling back to my home in the Pacific Northwest from a work/vacation trip to Europe—about 36 hours into my journey at this point. I was in the restroom before my last connecting flight when it happened. There was this one guy having a very loud conversation on his phone at the urinals—not so uncommon anymore. But as I was washing my hands, I looked up in the mirror and could see the face of someone else on the phone looking my direction. That's when it hit me that this loud guy was FaceTiming in the bathroom.

Exasperated and tired, I decided to say "Not cool, dude" loudly as I was departing the restroom. Little did I know that this guy would then chase me down in the terminal. He started yelling at me, coming towards me and acting as if he wanted to fight. Shocked, I yelled back to leave us alone and that I could call the cops if he would like. He finally backed down and walked away. The flight crew next to me said he "appeared to be drunk and not to sweat it, and that the guy was a Dodgers Fan according to the baseball cap, so what did I expect."  Then they laughed and went back to looking into their phones.

I was scared, embarrassed (my wife was with me), and I wished I had tried to "Read the room" better instead of popping off.

And here's what hit me later: Both of us were perfect examples of what the research was describing. That ability to manage emotions? Gone for both of us. That thing where you assess a situation before engaging? Depleted. We were two people running on emotional fumes, and it nearly escalated into something much worse.

Neither of us could harness our feelings as any kind of resource in that moment. He couldn't handle being called out. I couldn't assess the emotional state of an overtired, possibly intoxicated stranger before deciding to engage. We were both proof that the statistics aren't just numbers—they're showing up in real life, in airport bathrooms, in ways that could have ended much worse than they did.

For the record, I never talk to people in the restroom, nor do I make phone calls from there either. But I wish I had used better judgment that day—judgment that comes from the very social awareness I'm about to discuss.

What We're Really Talking About When We Talk About Social Awareness

So, let's talk about Social Awareness—this next big piece of the emotional intelligence puzzle. At its core, it's the ability to understand what other people are feeling at any given moment and why. It's having a genuine awareness of what others are going through.

You know how sometimes you walk into a room and just... know something's off? Or you can tell your colleague had a rough morning before they say a word? Or you sense that a client is anxious about something they haven't mentioned yet? That's social awareness. Some people call it "having a pulse on the room."

But here's what nobody's talking about: this skill has gotten exponentially harder.

And there's a reason. The same research that shows we're worse at managing our own emotions also shows we're worse at reading them—both in ourselves and others.

Our ability to accurately identify and understand feelings has dropped 5.85%. Our capacity for empathy is down too.

Think about that for a second. If I can barely understand my own emotional state when I'm exhausted and irritable, how am I supposed to accurately read yours? If you're running on empty, how are you supposed to pick up on the subtle cues I'm giving off?

And we're all running on empty more often now. One in five Americans experiences loneliness every single day. Half of us were already lonely before the pandemic even started. So, we have a population that's simultaneously more emotionally volatile AND more disconnected from each other. That's not a great combination.

When You Can't Read the Room

We've all encountered people who are "Tone Deaf"—completely out of touch with what others are experiencing, misreading situations left and right. (And yes, I fully admit that being 36 hours into travel impacts every bit of judgment you have. I was definitely one of those tone-deaf people that day.)

But here's what I've realized: it's not always that people don't care. Sometimes they literally can't see it. We can usually tell when someone has social awareness and when they don't. What's harder is understanding why it's become so much more difficult for all of us.

The research fills in some of those blanks:

Younger people are struggling the most. Gen Z—the folks entering our workforce, becoming our colleagues, sitting across from us as clients—their ability to manage emotions has dropped 16% compared to about 4% for everyone else. They're not lazy or entitled. They're carrying a bigger emotional burden than previous generations did at their age.

Men are increasingly isolated. Since 2019, men's personal relationships have deteriorated 20% more than their work relationships. And get this: 15% of men now say they have no close friends. In 1990, that number was 3%. When you're that isolated, reading social cues becomes even harder because you're out of practice.

Most of us are burned out. In 65% of workplace sectors, burnout got worse between 2021 and 2023. Which means most people you encounter—colleagues, clients, the person in line at the coffee shop—are operating at reduced capacity.

So, when everyone around us is more depleted, more isolated, and less capable of managing their own emotions, trying to read the room becomes like trying to navigate in the fog. The signals are harder to read. The responses are less predictable. The margin for error is smaller.

Let's Get Personal for a Minute

My airport bathroom example is extreme—hopefully that's not your Tuesday. But when was the last time you misread a situation?

I'm curious about your world:

• Where do you struggle to understand what people are feeling? Maybe it's a specific client who you just can't get a read on. Or a colleague who seems fine but clearly isn't.

• Where is it hardest to connect? Is it during financial conversations when money anxiety is in the room but nobody's naming it? (By the way, people dealing with financial difficulties report being lonely twice as often as financially secure people—32% versus 15%. That's not a coincidence. Financial stress and emotional disconnection feed each other.)

• Where does it feel easiest? What conditions help you read people accurately? When do you feel most tuned in?

• How has everything changed in the last few years? Have your client conversations felt different? Team dynamics shifted? Are people just... harder to read now?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I'm genuinely asking because I'm trying to figure this out too.

Back to That Bathroom (I Know, I Know)

So, let's revisit what happened. What were my options? What would you have done?

Stay silent? Try to figure out if the other guys were as bothered as I was? Ask them? Confront the guy directly? Just walk away?

Honestly, there weren't many good options in that moment. And 99% of the time, I do just walk away. I don't try to read what everyone else is thinking, I don't engage and I don’t look up. This was an outlier for me.

But here's what I've realized after sitting with this for a while and thinking about it through everything I've learned:

There were three realities in play that I completely missed:

My reality: I was 36 hours deep into travel, running on fumes, and highly irritable. My ability to manage my emotions was shot. My judgment was compromised. If I were my phone I would have been categorized in “Low Power Mode”.  I was, essentially, a worse version of myself.

His reality: Maybe drunk, maybe also exhausted from travel, already making questionable decisions (FaceTiming from a bathroom suggests either desperation or severely impaired judgment). Whatever emotional regulation he had was clearly not functioning.

The bigger picture: Crowded airport. Everyone running on fumes. The collective emotional intelligence in that terminal was probably at an all-time low. Factor in that 20% of people are dealing with daily loneliness and you've got a powder keg of disconnected, depleted people.

What social awareness should have told me, and my wife graciously didn’t tell me afterwards: Don't light the match. This isn't a situation where my comment will land the way I want it to. I'm not going to change his behavior. I'm just going to discharge my irritation onto someone who has zero capacity to receive it constructively. The cost-benefit analysis was terrible, and I completely missed it.

The best move? Walk away. Wash my hands. Let it go. Save my emotional energy for the people and situations where I actually have the capacity to make a difference.

What I'm Trying Now (Maybe It'll Help You Too)

Given that we're all navigating this emotional recession together, here's what I'm working on. Not because I've figured it out, but because I'm trying to get better:

Assume everyone's tank is lower than you think.This isn't pessimism—it's just adjusting to current reality. The person who seems fine might be one comment away from their breaking point. Doesn't mean you need to walk on eggshells, but maybe it means giving people (including yourself) more grace than you think is necessary.

Check your own fuel gauge first.When I'm tired, hungry, or stressed, my ability to read people accurately drops like a stone. Now, before any conversation that matters, I do a quick self-check: What's my emotional capacity right now? If I'm running on empty, I either refuel first or adjust my expectations for how the conversation will go.

Don't rely on just one signal.Body language + tone of voice + context + timing = better accuracy. In my airport case, I saw "loud phone talker" but missed "baseball cap," "possible intoxication," and "bathroom = already vulnerable position." The more data points you gather, the better your read.

Think your way to empathy when you can't feel it. Here's something interesting from the research: while overall empathy dropped, the ability to understand another person's perspective intellectually actually improved during the pandemic. So even when you don't feel particularly empathetic, you can often think your way there. "What might this person be dealing with that I can't see?"

Build in more buffer.For yourself and for others. The burnout crisis means people need more time, more space, more recovery periods. I'm trying to build that into how I schedule, how I structure conversations, how I follow up. It's not weakness or inefficiency—it's adapting to the environment we're actually in.

Remember that this is measurable and changeable.The same research showing the decline also shows something hopeful: people who maintain higher emotional intelligence are 10 times more likely to be effective, have better relationships, experience wellbeing, and report higher quality of life. Which means if you can keep working on this while others aren't, you're not just surviving—you're building a real advantage. And more importantly, you're making things better for the people around you.

The Thing About Washing Your Hands

No matter what happens, I'll still wash my hands. That's non-negotiable.

But I'm also committed to getting better at reading the room, understanding what people are actually dealing with, and recognizing when everyone's capacity—mine included—is stretched too thin.

Because here's the truth: the emotional recession is real. The data proves it. But the question isn't whether we're all dealing with this. We are. The question is: How are you going to adapt?

Social awareness isn't just some nice-to-have soft skill anymore. In a world where everyone's running on emotional fumes, where volatility is up and connection is down, where burnout is the norm rather than the exception—being able to read people, understand what they're going through, and adjust accordingly might be one of the most practical skills you can develop.

Not because it makes you more polished or professional (though it does).

But because it might keep you from chasing someone through an airport terminal. Or being the person who gets chased. Or any of the thousand smaller ways we collide with each other when nobody has the emotional capacity to navigate the collision well.

Want to Know Where You Actually Stand?

Here's something I've learned: you can't improve what you don't measure.

I spent years thinking I was pretty good at this emotional intelligence stuff. Then I took an objective assessment and got humbling news: my scores were... mainstream. Average. Right in the middle of the pack. I had some significant blind spots—especially around social awareness. (Shocking, given the bathroom incident, right?)

But here's the good news: with practice and attention, my scores have grown. Not overnight, and not without intentional work. But they've grown. And that growth has changed how I navigate difficult situations, how I connect with clients, how I lead. It's made a tangible difference.

That's why I now offer objective EQ assessments that give you real data on where you are across all these competencies. Not the fluffy "feel-good" kind, but the kind that shows you specific scores and compares them to normative data. You get to see exactly where you're strong and where you're running on fumes before you even realize it.

And it's not just for individuals. I work with teams to conduct 360 Reports—getting feedback from peers, direct reports, and supervisors to see how your emotional intelligence shows up from multiple perspectives. Then we collectively focus on growing those scores together. Because when a whole team works on this, the impact multiplies.

Here's the thing about these assessments: they're a snapshot in time. Much like a fitness evaluation, they tell you where you are right now—your current capacity, your current strengths and gaps. And like fitness, emotional intelligence is a perishable skill. If you don't use it, you lose it. The good news? Also, like fitness, with focused and intentional work, it can grow. And when it does, it impacts your life and the people around you for the better.

The process I've developed isn't complicated, but it is intentional. It's built around the specific competencies that matter most in your world—whether that's working with clients, leading teams, or just navigating life without ending up in airport confrontations.

If you're curious about where you stand—or if you're ready to do something about it—let's talk. Because the data is clear: people who maintain or build their emotional intelligence while others decline don't just survive this emotional recession. They build real advantages in relationships, effectiveness, and quality of life.

And honestly? We could all use a little more of that right now.

So, I'll ask you: Where's your social awareness serving you well? And where do you need to build it up?

Because I guarantee you're going to need it. We all are.

[Interested in taking an objective EQ assessment or exploring 360 feedback for your team? Reach out to me. Let's get a baseline snapshot of where you are, and then work together on the focused, intentional practice that moves the needle. Because knowing is only half the battle—knowing what to do about it, and having a process to get there, is what actually changes things.]