The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Business with Josh Fitzgerald

Responding versus reacting is the distinction Josh Fitzgerald keeps coming back to, and he treats it as the whole job. Josh entered Zoomin Groomin as a franchisee in 2023, joined the corporate support team in 2024 while expanding to five locations of his own, and took over as CEO in August 2025. He joined hosts Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa.

In this episode we explore:

• Why technical skill gets you the role and EQ decides how it goes

• Guiding your emotions instead of letting them guide you

• The four customer metrics that move when trust breaks

• What a genuinely self aware answer sounds like in a meeting

• Predictable, two way communication as a system

• Journaling as a way to catch your own blind spots

Josh is unusually direct about the ceiling on technical ability. Skills get you into a leadership seat, but the thing that determines how that tenure goes is emotional intelligence, which he defines plainly as guiding your emotions rather than letting your emotions guide you. He extends it to a responsibility: people do not receive the same words the same way, and it is the leader’s job to adjust rather than expect everyone to translate correctly.

The pause is his practical mechanism. When the fifteenth fire of the day arrives, the person delivering it is usually the messenger and not the cause, and reacting in that moment is what damages a relationship or a culture. He is honest that the urge does not go away, which is what makes the pause a discipline rather than a personality trait.

He is also refreshingly concrete about measurement. Leaders often claim EQ cannot be measured, and Josh disagrees by naming what he watches: ratings, retention rates, rebooking rates, and tip percentage. When trust breaks between corporate, franchisees, and staff, it reaches the customer, and it shows up in those four numbers before anyone writes it in a report.

On systems, he wants communication that is predictable and two way, so people do not only hear from headquarters when something is wrong. Criticism goes private, affirmation goes public, and feedback is curious rather than accusatory. His own practice is journaling, then reading the week back to find the bias he could not see live. For a brand, that is the same loop that makes marketing honest, which is why Zero Company would rather show a client the uncomfortable number than the flattering one.

Key Takeaways

• (2:24) His ceiling argument: technical skills “can get you in a position of leadership for sure. But I think the metric that’s going to determine how successful your leadership time is, is what level of emotional intelligence you achieve.”

• (3:44) His definition, and the responsibility inside it: “guiding your emotions versus your emotions guiding you.” People do not respond the same way to things, “and it’s up to us as leaders to adjust to them.”

• (8:05) When trust breaks, it is measurable: “your ratings are going to drop, your retention rates are going to drop, your rebooking rates are going to drop. Tip percentage is going to go down.”

• (11:56) A signal of real EQ is comfort with silence. “I’m not sure. Let me think. I’d like to think a little more on that before I give you an answer.” He also watches how executives speak to assistants.

• (17:56) Feedback has a shape: critical feedback stays private, affirming feedback goes relatively public, and the tone is curious rather than accusatory, because “if you can’t understand that they weren’t trying to do wrong, it’s gonna be really hard to adjust yourself.”

• (22:36) His own system is journaling and then reviewing it: “it’s real easy to see your blind spots,” including the biases about parts of the business he had been ignoring.

FAQ

What is the difference between responding and reacting as a leader?
Reacting is instinctive and immediate. Josh Fitzgerald describes responding as taking a deliberate pause, remembering that the person bringing bad news is usually the messenger, and choosing a reply that does not damage the relationship.

Can the impact of emotional intelligence actually be measured?
Josh Fitzgerald says yes, and names four: customer ratings, retention rates, rebooking rates, and tip percentage. When trust breaks inside the organization, those numbers move before anyone reports a culture problem.

Should critical feedback be given publicly or privately?
Privately. Josh Fitzgerald keeps criticism between the leader and the individual, and makes affirmation relatively public through a group mention or a letter of recognition.

Leadership is less about control and more about connection. Hear the full conversation with Josh Fitzgerald, watch it on the video page, and find more on the Bliss Businesses series. Josh is at zoomingroomin.com.