Emotional Intelligence for AP Leaders: Why Soft Skills Keep You in the Seat

In this episode, AP leader and consultant Nicole joins host Grace Berube to discuss why emotional intelligence is a critical but often overlooked skill for AP directors. Nicole explains that people are often promoted because they excel at the work, but leading the people doing the work requires a different set of skills. She breaks down the components of emotional intelligence, describes why AP leaders take on more emotional heat than most finance functions, and makes the case that developing soft skills is a form of risk management rather than extra credit. Nicole also shares practical, no-cost habits, including “the pause” and a daily self-debrief, along with ways to read the mood of a remote team and build trust through consistent, personal check-ins.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE

• Why strong technical performers can struggle as leaders, and why emotional intelligence and conflict management become the dividing line once the job shifts from doing the work to leading people.
• How emotional intelligence breaks down into self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, and why self-awareness has to come first.
• Why AP leaders need emotional intelligence even more than most, given how often AP absorbs frustration from internal partners, vendors, and auditors, and how conflict handling can turn an adversarial relationship into a partnership.
• How to reframe soft skills as risk management tied to turnover costs, error rates, and vendor and internal relationships, and why busy directors “don’t have time not to” invest in them.
• How to practice “the pause” before reacting, and how a daily self-debrief builds self-awareness over time.
• How to sense burnout, disengagement, or resentment on remote teams by using camera-on meetings, watching changes in communication patterns and participation, and holding regular check-ins that go beyond workload.

Nicole Caley

Nicole Caley stands at the forefront of the Operational Accounting world, bringing over 25 years of diverse and extensive experience, using her results- oriented, entrepreneurial mindset and leadership ability to drive change. As current Director Accounts Payable Shared Services with Aspen Dental Management Inc and Founder & President of Payables Solutions Partners, LLC, she not only leads a 16-person remote team that ensures the accuracy over $1.5 billion in payments annually, she also consults AP teams across the country creating world class AP departments and processes. In her roles, Nicole concentrates intensively on Organizational Leadership, staff development, training, and using technology to advance the world of operational accounting.

As a valued speaker and partner of The Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM), Nicole focuses her workshops on Leadership with sessions focusing on Emotional Intelligence, Conflict management, building and motivating high performing teams, how to make leadership a habit, and the essential soft skills of leadership. In additional to being a respected speaker in the industry, Nicole also teaches certification courses with IOFM for accounts payable, accounts receivable, procure-to-pay, and order-to-cash.

Nicole earned her BA in Accounting, with a Certificate in Forensic Accounting, and then her MBA with a concentration in Organization Development, from Benedictine University. She has served for the last 4 years as the President of the Board of the Illinois Chapter of IOFM. In 2016 she was awarded AP Director of the Year for companies over $1 billion by the Institute of Finance & Management. In 2018 Nicole was awarded Top Professional of the Year in Finance & Management by The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP), and in 2019 was awarded Empowered Woman of the Year by IAOTP where she was featured in Top Industry Professional Magazine. 

Grace Berube
Senior Content Manager, IOFM

Grace is the Senior Content Manager at the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM), where she has led content strategy and development since 2022. In this role, she oversees all aspects of IOFM’s digital and event-based content, ensuring it remains timely, relevant, and actionable for all financial operations professionals.

Grace manages IOFM’s robust library of site content, leads the organization’s editorial and member webinar programming, and hosts IOFM’s podcast series. She also oversees a team of subject matter experts who contribute thought leadership and educational articles. In additional, Grace curates and manages all speaker content for IOFM’s in-person and virtual events, ensuring consistency and quality across every touchpoint. With nearly three years in the role, Grace brings a deep understanding of the financial operations landscape and a passion for delivering content that empowers professionals to excel in their roles.

Transcription

Grace Berube: Welcome to the IOFM podcast, the go-to show for accounts payable professionals who want to stay ahead of the curve. Whether it's automation, artificial intelligence, career growth, compliance, leadership, or the trends shaping the future of AP, we're bringing you the real conversations with the professionals driving this industry forward.

Hey Nicole, how are you?

Nicole Caley: I'm doing fantastic, Grace. How are you?

Grace Berube: I am doing great. So excited to have you back on the podcast. It's been a little while. I think the last time we recorded one was when we were onsite a few conference cycles ago, so it's been a little bit.

Nicole Caley: It has. But the work never stops and things keep going, and I'm super excited to talk about our topic today. So, it should be fun.

Grace Berube: Yeah, me too. So, this is one that you talk a bit about at our conferences, emotional intelligence. So, we're talking today about some of those soft skills that you might have been promoted to a new AP leader, or maybe you're trying to.

00:01:00 

And I feel like emotional intelligence is one of those softer skills that sometimes gets left in the dust and not really talked about when it comes to upgrading your skill set to become an AP leader. So, I'd love to chat with you about that today.

Nicole Caley: Yeah, it should be fun. And in full transparency, and I think I've been very open about this, especially at the conferences, this has probably been one of my biggest struggles as a leader. And I think that's probably why I'm so passionate in talking about it because it has been such a struggle for me.

Grace Berube: Yeah. No, and that's really, it's great to open up and think about what are the points that you might have lacked and how—I mean, you're high up in AP now, and trying to learn those skills and to see your weak points too. And I think it's great that now, you feel like you can lead the charge in something like this. So, that’s amazing. It makes you really apt to talk about it today.

00:01:56

Nicole Caley: Well, thank you. Thanks. I'm super excited to get started.

Grace Berube: Yeah. So, talk to me. Emotional intelligence, it's something that I think we hear about in day-to-day personal conversations in our personal lives. But why do you think it's specifically important for AP departments and AP leaders to learn specifically? And what does that mean for an AP team?

Nicole Caley: You know, I think one of the biggest gaps we have is that people get promoted into leadership roles because they are really good at the work. But what they don't realize is that you can be the best at the work, but if you don't know how to lead the people doing the work, you are never going to be a good leader. And we all see it, right? We see people in leadership roles and we are like goodness, they don't belong in that role. They should not be sitting in that seat. They are a horrible leader.

00:02:51

And when you think about what makes people maybe not great leaders, usually it breaks into a couple of things. One is emotional intelligence and one is how they deal with conflict. But how people deal with conflict is so heavily driven on emotional intelligence. 

So, I just think that's really kind of where this divide comes. It stops being about the work, and what you can do, and what you can produce, and it really starts being about how good you can lead the people. And if you don't have this soft skill, you will really struggle because everybody is different. Everybody comes from different walks of life. Everybody has different experiences. We all even have our own experiences. So, how self-aware are you? How socially aware are you? Which are two components of emotional intelligence. And then, how can you package that together to really be a good leader?

And then, empathy comes into play. And this has been my struggle. And again, if you've ever seen me speak or you know me personally, you know empathy is something I struggle with. I had a really rough upbringing and it kind of set this stage for me to be really resilient, which is a great quality, but also really lack empathy, which is not a good thing, especially when you're trying to be a highly emotionally intelligent leader.

00:04:09

Grace Berube: Yeah, no. I think that's totally fair. I think that a lot of people just really focus on their career trajectory, and hitting their KPIs, and making sure that on paper they're ready for promotion, they're ready for the next steps, but don't think about the softer skills. So, I guess, too, for people who don't know what emotional intelligence is, how would you define that, and what are some traits that AP leaders could be looking for to have if they want to be emotionally intelligent or empathetic leaders?

Nicole Caley: Yeah. So, emotional intelligence is really your ability to understand yourself, so self-awareness to understand other people, which is social awareness. And then from social awareness, how can you work with other people?

00:04:55

So yes, you're aware of how other people are. You're aware maybe of what they think and feel and how things can affect them. But then, what do you do with that? So, how do you interact with that? What is the next step, I guess I would say, of that with people? 

So, we go from self-awareness to self-management. So, how do you regulate yourself? When you know you're having a bad day, do you come in and take that bad day and take it out on people? Do you know your triggers? Do you know how that looks? Think about a toddler. A toddler is in a store and something happens, and a toddler can have a tantrum. And socially that's acceptable maybe. But as an adult, is it acceptable for an adult to have a tantrum in a store? Absolutely not, right? That's your self-management.

And then, social awareness is how you read others, how you understand others, can you put yourself in the shoes of others? This is where empathy is huge. Empathy and social awareness go hand in hand.

00:06:00

Grace Berube: Yeah. We'd like to have those breakdowns in the store, but we can't.

Nicole Caley: Absolutely. And then from social awareness, we go into relationship management. So, that is your ability to influence, your ability to coach, your ability to resolve conflict and build trust. Because at the end of the day, emotional intelligence is the necessary component to build trust amongst your team.

Grace Berube: Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like as a leader, too, you deal with so many conflicting potentially personalities or just a lot of different personalities, ages, backgrounds on your team. So, just the ability to have that self-reflection and the awareness I feel like is super important.

Nicole Caley: It really is. One of the sessions that I do also at the conferences is talking about different personality types and how do we interact? And you have the DISC personality profiles, which a lot of people have heard of.

00:06:52

And you have a dominant personality versus maybe a more steady personality who, one, thrives in an environment that is fast-paced, and results-driven, and change, and all of these things. And the other, which is very much more happy or in a good place when things are steady, and things are consistent, and things are not changing, and things are not heavy on conflict or things like that. And then, now the two of those people need to work together. Well, the way that you work together is to have, again, this skill highly developed, so you know how to approach a situation. You know how to read each other and understand the context of where each other is coming from. 

Grace Berube: Yeah, I think that's super important. And talking about AP specifically, too, I feel like AP just blends so many departments or has to talk to so many departments at one time. So, it's not even just your individual teams, but it could be talking to your IT team, or higher-up leaders, or finance vendors. Why does that make emotional intelligence specifically in AP almost more important than other functions of the organization?

00:07:57

Nicole Caley: Yeah. If you've worked in an AP department, you know better than anybody that we are one of the few finance functions that take the direct, frequently emotional heat from people, especially outside of our own team, whether that's internal business partners, vendors, auditors, you name it. And we're often seen as the department that says no or does everything wrong. Because nobody looks at the million things we do right; they look at the one thing that we do wrong. So, we're visible to a lot of people, again, in and outside of our department.

But because we are oftentimes met with emotional, I don't want to always just say heat, but emotional responses from people—they don't like the answer, or they don't like what happened, or they're not happy about the situation—our department has a lot more pressure than a lot of other departments do because it raises the stakes on how we handle conflict. And how we handle conflict is going to be the determining factor on whether that relationship stays adversarial or it really becomes a partnership.

00:09:06 

Grace Berube: I feel like a lot of folks can struggle with those cross-departmental conversations. So, I think all of this really ties together. So, directors specifically is who we're really targeting today. So, I want to talk about, it's a very high-stress can be job. And it's also a job that doesn't allow for a lot of time for maybe potentially developing soft skills. So, what would you say to a director, an AP director, who's thinking I don't have time to work on the soft skills, it's probably not that important. Where would be a first step that folks could start? And what would you say to people that don't think that it's as important enough to focus on?

Nicole Caley: You know, I hear it all the time because I do quite a bit of consulting. And for everyone that tells me I don't have the time to work on soft skills, or emotional intelligence, or any of the others, my answer to them is always the same. And it really is, you don't have time not to.

00:10:00

Because at the end of the day, close is still going to run regardless. These things are still going to happen. Close is still going to run, whether or not people trust each other. It's just going to be worse, slower, and with more errors. So, things don't stop. Everything is going to keep going. 

So, you have to reframe in your brain that emotional intelligence as a soft skill is more of a risk management. It's not extra credit. Nobody is looking at you and saying you get extra credit for doing this. But it ties directly to turnover costs, error rates, vendor relationships, you name it. Even internal relationships we just were talking about, whether that internal relationship is adversarial or are you now a partnership. So, the answer really is simple. You don't have time not to.

00:10:55

Grace Berube: Right. No, it's so true. And you've got to where you are today as an AP director because of your skill set. But you can only really level up and make your team level up, if you handle those soft skills.

Nicole Caley: Absolutely. And my team—actually, I currently even have seven people on my team going through this kind of internal leadership training that I've put together myself. They're my identified high-potential folks on my team. And emotional intelligence is part of the training that we're doing.

Grace Berube: Yeah. No, I think that's so important. And you talked about it before, too, but there are some core emotional intelligence areas that I think are easy or that we should start with trying to apply to AP leadership situations. So, you talked about self-awareness, handling conflict, building trust. There's a social awareness relationship management aspect. So, I feel like self-awareness is probably the biggest one.

So, how do you coach a director to recognize their own triggers for self-awareness before they can react, before they react instead of just responding to something? What are some of those triggers that they could be looking out for?

00:12:01

Nicole Caley: You know, it's funny. Years ago, I had a, I can't remember if it was a controller or a CFO that told me, pulled me aside after a meeting and was like Nicole, I need you to practice the pause. And I was like oh, okay. Didn't know what it meant at the moment, but I was like okay. So, we had a further conversation about it, obviously. And he was like, not everything requires an immediate reaction. Oftentimes, you are correct. Your response is correct. But it is the way in which you deliver it. It is because you are frustrated. It is because you want to get your point across. He's like, but one, it may not be the right audience. Two, it may not be the right tone. There's a whole bunch of reasons you have to practice the pause.

So, I would say this. I would say most directors can list their triggers pretty quickly, if you ask them directly. They may not even have to think about it that long. That's the first step to catching them in the moment is just knowing what they are. And again, if asked directly, typically you can do it.

00:13:02

The pause is a whole new skill set. And the pause can come with things like give me a second, or I'll follow up shortly. Especially if you're not in a situation where it's face to face, right? If you're in email, absolutely. Take time between reading an email that maybe triggered you and responding to it. If you're face to face, you always can say, I need to look into that, or give me a minute, I'll get back to you. Find a way to politely end the conversation, if you're not sure. 

Or you can even take the pause in the moment. I've had to do that before where I do need to respond right then and there, I can't come back to it. But I also know that if I just spit out what's on the tip of my tongue, it's probably not going to be the greatest response that I want to give.

00:13:54

I also encourage people, and I do this still every single day and I don't think I'll ever stop. I debrief my day to myself, which is what did I do today that I would have liked to have done differently? Did anything happen today that I'm not super proud of, or that I wish I would have handled or done differently? And this builds our self-awareness muscle over time and it helps us to get better at those immediate interactions. 

Grace Berube: I feel like for me personally, I think anyone could take the advice, too, of the pause. And it's so interesting because a lot of people, and I'm guilty, feel like they have to respond right away. And whether it's a conflict situation, or if someone's asking you to do something at work or personally, I always feel the need to just respond right away. And then sometimes, I go back and think about that conversation and I'm like, oh no, what did I say? What did I agree to?

00:14:57

Or what did I give advice on that I probably should have taken a second and responded to, given myself a little bit of time to think about it? So, that's really great advice. 

Nicole Caley: I think it's practice. And I think that's a big thing to keep in mind with emotional intelligence as a whole is that this is not an overnight thing. You don't read a book about it tonight, hear this podcast today, and then tomorrow you're like okay, I'm ready, I'm good, I've practiced. I've been studying all this stuff, and I've been practicing all of these theories, and I've been teaching all of these concepts now for over 15 years. And this is still daily practice for me. Even at this time, it's still daily practice.

Grace Berube: No, I think that's great. You talked about even a pause over email, and I know that you talk about this at events too. Having social awareness with remote teams I feel like can be really, really difficult. A lot of people now join organizations and never even really meet their boss or their coworkers in person ever, or they have to wait a year for a company retreat or something.

00:16:04

But how do you train directors or leaders to sense burnout or resentment on a team that they don't see in person? So, that social awareness with different team members who may be remote. 

Nicole Caley: You know, this actually speaks to something I just put in place this week with my team. And it's funny because it's taken me some years, and part of me is embarrassed that it's taken years, but I'm not sure exactly what triggered. Maybe it was knowing we were having this conversation. But I never had a video mandate on my team as far as you have to be on camera when we meet, and I do now.

So this week, I just put it in play for all team members. So, regardless of your role, it's always been an unwritten rule for people in a certain position or above, and now it's for everyone. And it's because you can't read shifts in body language, or patterns, or things like that when people don't have their camera on.

00:17:00

And that is such an important part of trying to figure this all out, whether it's sensing burnout, or disengagement, or quiet resentment, or things like that. So, having that camera on really is a factor. 

Now, the better you get at all of this, and the more connected you are to your team, and the more trust you have with your team, you will also notice things like I notice. I can usually tell even by the way someone responds to a team message if they're having a bad day, or if something is going wrong, or if they are not in a good headspace because the way they write changes. It may become short.

Think about even your friends, guys. Your friends, your partner, your spouse, whomever, they have a normal cadence of texting. And now all of a sudden, they text and they say, sure. And you look at your phone and you're like, what is that? That is not how you usually respond to me.

00:17:59

And what is your first inclination? To be like, what's wrong? Are you okay? Because it's not their normal behavior, it's not their normal pattern. So, with remote teams, I do focus a lot on patterns. I focus a lot on participation. Yes, quality of work is probably something, but I also do normal check-ins. You've got to do normal, consistent check-ins, and check-ins where you're not just asking about workload. You're asking about them personally. You know them well enough to know if something else may be going on. Because at the end of the day, you cannot just rely on people to come to you and say, I'm struggling about something. 

Grace Berube: Yeah, no. And I think that that's a really great point. Just knowing little personal tidbits about your coworkers or your team. If they're running a half-marathon this weekend, if they're moving, just little things that you can go back and talk to them about.

00:18:59

Even if they don't seem that important in the moment, it's going to just build that trust and make them open up to you, probably about work-related conflicts if they do arise just because you've made them feel important and like you care about them outside of just the work life too. 

Nicole Caley: Oh, a hundred percent, Grace. But even think about the two examples you just gave. I don't know about you, but I'm not a runner. So, if I run a half-marathon, I'm going to be dead to the world for a couple of weeks. My energy level is not going to be there. But the same goes for moving. If you've ever moved, moving is not only stressful, but it is physically exhausting. It is mentally exhausting. There's a whole bunch of components there. So again, very good things to know.

So, when you see a change in someone, whether it's a change maybe in their energy or a change in their interaction with the team, you don't just automatically assume something's going on with work, or they're not happy in their role, or whatever it is. You could say oh, you know what? This is probably reflective of the fact that I know that they're getting ready to move and moving requires a lot. And I'm just going to give them grace and give them a break.

00:20:01 

And after they move and I know they're settled a little at least, because settling can also take a bit, I'll check back in and I'll make sure that they're good. And then if they need me, we'll figure that out from there. But I also think we forget to give people grace when we know they have things going on. 

Grace Berube: Totally. No, I think that's super important. And I think those are really great actionable takeaways too. We've mentioned three to five now already. But what do you think about, are there any actionable takeaways that people listening now could start developing next week or whenever they're listening to this with zero budget, not really a ton of extra time? What are a couple more things that they could do this week to start building their skill set and building up these soft skills?

Nicole Caley: Well, I think the pause is a big one.

Grace Berube: I do too, yeah.

Nicole Caley: The pause costs you nothing. It costs you nothing and it is not going to take any time.

00:20:54 

I also think putting to practice that kind of self-reflection at the end of the day is another big one. So, you're putting yourself in a new habit of observing yourself. Because let's be honest, folks. Before we should go out observing other people and making determinations about other people, we need to do that about ourselves. We need to look in the mirror first. 

This is why, if you look at the quadrants of emotional intelligence, self-awareness is first. If you don't have self-awareness, you will not be successful in the other quadrants of emotional intelligence. Yes, you might have great empathy. That may be something you excel in. But if you don't have high self-awareness, your ability to execute emotional intelligence is going to fall. So, I think the pause is a really good one. And then, just doing that daily self-reflection because neither of those are going to really cost you much. A little bit of time, but not even a lot.

Grace Berube: Right. Yeah, I think asking those questions to team members too. And I do like the idea of turning the camera on. We do that at our company as well. And I just think that you can see people thinking a little bit more. You can see more on their face, if they have questions. Those are just very easy things that you can implement this week that would help you grow closer, I feel like, as a team. 

00:22:07

Nicole Caley: Yeah, absolutely. And even if you think about trust, because trust is a really big thing that I'm always making sure we are practicing on my team. There's a level of trust you gain when you're on camera. Because how many times have you been on something with someone and you're not on camera and you're like, are they even paying attention or are they literally doing other work?

Grace Berube: Right. Oh, totally. Totally.

Nicole Caley: Right? So, you [unintelligible] level of trust when you feel that someone is intentionally in your meeting. They are focused. They are paying attention. They are present. And then, it builds a different dynamic of a relationship.

Grace Berube: No. Yeah, I completely agree with that. This has been great. So, talking a little bit more about you too. Where could someone go to learn more from you? I know that you won't be at IOFM Fall, but you're going to be at IOFM Spring 2027. But anything else, like where else can we find you to learn from you and to get more advice?

00:23:06

Nicole Caley: See, now you're challenging me, Grace, and I like to be challenged. So, I do mostly speak at IOFM conferences. I do some podcasts, not only with you guys, but obviously some other folks. I do webinars with different organizations. I would like to think I'm pretty good at posting those on LinkedIn.

But guys, here's the thing. I'm a millennial, but more of a Gen Xer because I was literally born right at the cusp. And us Gen Xers are not that great at social media. Well, at least I'm not; I don't want to speak for all. So, I am not the best at putting myself out there. It is something that I have on my list of goals for 2027. I do feel like I'm out there, but I don't make it known enough that I'm out there. So webinars, other organizations, conferences.

00:23:55

I do also have a plan and a goal for 2027 to rebrand my consulting business. So Payable Solutions Partners, I've had it for a decade now. It is kind of my platform for consulting work that I do. But I really need to rebrand that business. And I need to get YouTube videos going. And that's kind of where I'm focused for 2027. 

So, I would say as of right now, you're probably more limited to conferences, podcasts, webinars. But hopefully in 2027, you see a lot more of me out there doing niche things for AP, but also a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff on leadership.

Grace Berube: No, I think that's awesome. And yeah, always, always go to iofm.com and to our LinkedIn pages. We're always having you on webinars or podcasts, and we'll be releasing information about Spring 2027 soon. Any final thoughts or any more pieces of advice for any AP directors out there who might be listening today?

00:24:53

Nicole Caley: You know, I would just remember this. The technical skills that you have are what got you this seat. But the people skills that you have already developed and will need to continue to nurture and flourish in, especially emotional intelligence, are going to be the skills that will allow you to keep that seat.

Grace Berube: That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Nicole. Always so great to talk to you and hope to have you back on soon.

Nicole Caley: Absolutely, Grace. It's been my pleasure. Can't wait to talk again soon.

[music playing]

Grace Berube: That's a wrap for this episode of the IOFM podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's conversation, do us a favor and subscribe, or follow the show so you never miss an episode. And to stay up to date on everything happening in our world, including upcoming events, head on over to IOFM.com.

Continuing Education Credits available:

Receive 1 CEU per hour of listening time towards IOFM programs:

Receive 1 CEU per hour of listening time towards maintaining any AP and P2P related program through IOFM! These programs are designed to establish standards for the profession and recognize accounts payable and procure-to-pay professionals who, by possessing related work experience and passing a comprehensive exam, have met stringent requirements for mastering the financial operations body of knowledge.

Continuing Education Credits available:

Receive 1 CEU per hour of listening time towards IOFM programs:

Receive 1 CEU per hour of listening time towards maintaining any AP and P2P related program through IOFM! These programs are designed to establish standards for the profession and recognize accounts payable and procure-to-pay professionals who, by possessing related work experience and passing a comprehensive exam, have met stringent requirements for mastering the financial operations body of knowledge.