How Emotional intelligence Shapes Great Leadership

November 12, 2025
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Sara Cohen

In my role at Emerging Ag, I’ve learned that finance is about much more than numbers. Numbers do tell a story, but it’s the people who really bring that story to life.

Over the years, I’ve always tried to first understand where people are at and meet them there. Building a sense of trust is the foundation for everything that follows. It’s one of the most interesting parts of my job and something that I truly enjoy.

When it comes to finance, not everyone starts from the same place. Some of our colleagues are very comfortable working through profit and loss statements, tracking multiple currencies or managing project budgets. We do training sessions as needed, and we just really talk through things and work through situations that might be specific to projects that they’re working on, but also touch on aspects that are important to the business overall.

My best tips really are that communication is so important — to have an understanding of the baseline knowledge of the person that you’re working with so that we can build from there. And then also in terms of coaching, to think about what are the pieces that we’re really looking to pull out and improve upon.

Catch the full conversation as I share more with our President, Robynne Anderson.