Very thought provoking Meghan.  I too have observed the "just do the minimum to get by" in people working in the places i go on a day to day basis.  If you depend on having a job for your survival you have also been depending on the intelligence and integrity of those who have the "power" to create a sustainable economic future.

It is a crisis of personal leadership.  It's also the design of our system- go to school, get good grades, get a good job and you will be set for life.  Our education system has created a culture of people being trained to serve and be dependent on the system.  The financial meltdown is the ultimate symptom of a system that is broken because it is built on outdated assumptions.

Managers may be "tone deaf" but I think the reason is systemic in nature.  For one thing many managers (and on up) got to their position because of their knowledge or skill in their technical arena.  We seem to approach emotional intelligence as though it is transactional in nature, just like the other activities of doing a job. We keep trying to fix the problem through training, but I think we need to affect the basis for which people get placed in management positions to begin with.

Thomas's comment just reinforces my belief about this:  "couples communication techniques, problem solving strategies, and characteristics of emotional intelligence (products) do not in-and-of themselves drive a positive outcome of treatment." That is essentially what we keep doing - we teach people the skills when the source is the heart.  We have essentially dehumanized the business environment - how can we expect to develop emotional intelligence in an environment where a very narrow range of human emotion is acceptable?

Thomas wonders if we can couple emotional intelligence, personal leadership, and fiscal performance?  I don't think it is a question of if, I think our future depends on our ability to find a way.