Imagine a fully remote product manager jumping onto a launch call already juggling three pressures at once: Engineering pings her nonstop on Slack with a last-minute security concern, a sales leader leaves her a voicemail asking for customer-ready messaging by end of day, and her newest team member nervously tries to prioritize his day’s work from three time zones ahead.
In a fully remote company, these moments happen regularly. Messages move fast, context can become difficult to decipher, and managers can easily spiral into a state of overwhelm.
Yet at 1Password, where the workforce has operated remote-first for more than 20 years, these moments rarely derail progress. They’ve built a system where clarity, connection, and emotional intelligence (EQ) anchor everything they do.
As their Chief People Officer Katya Laviolette told me, “We’re on a journey to high performance, and you simply can’t do that without emotional intelligence. EQ is the lever that keeps people grounded, connected, and able to perform at the pace we move.” The research backs up their focus on emotional intelligence, showing that high EQ teams can exceed the sum of their parts when it comes to both EQ and overall effectiveness.
1Password’s growth pace is swift, expanding from roughly 1,000 employees in 2023 to more than 1,500 today across six countries. They serve over 180,000 businesses and millions of consumers worldwide. As the company shifts from its origins as a consumer password manager to a multi-product identity security company, the people strategy has had to evolve just as quickly.
Why Emotional Intelligence Is a Key Lever in the AI Era
At a company on the forefront of technology and specifically AI, Laviolette doubled down on the importance of emotional intelligence. “You can’t reach a billion-dollar trajectory without people, and people need EQ,” she said. “There’s AI everywhere now, but humans still want to be cared for, listened to, and supported.”
What does EQ mean inside 1Password? She broke it down simply using four C’s:
- Context: “People don’t just need to know what we’re doing; they should know why it matters.”
- Clarity: “Ambiguity is constant, so we teach people how to ask the right questions.”
- Communication: “Every strategy is slightly different for every employee. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.”
- Care: “Managers need flexibility and accountability. Both matter.”
How to Build Emotionally Intelligent Leaders At Every Level
1Password approaches leadership development in a structured and in-depth manner, reaching leaders at every level of the organization. It combines in-house training, experience-based external coaching, and grassroots mentorship. Emotional intelligence is embedded across each layer, influencing nearly all of the leadership skills they train for.
1. People Essentials: The Manager Curriculum
More than 100 managers have graduated from People Essentials, an in-house program custom-built by 1Password’s internal Learning & Development team.
“Because we’re scaling so fast, you can have a manager with 20 years of experience sitting next to one with two,” Laviolette explained. “So we match managers by experience level—not title—to ensure the training actually hits.”
The curriculum includes:
- Leading through change
- Clarifying expectations
- Communication mastery
- Resilience
- Thriving in ambiguity
- Coaching and feedback
2. Director+ Level: Operational Coaching
For more senior leaders up to VPs, Laviolette’s team leverages external coaches with deep and practical operating experience. “It’s not life coaching,” Laviolette explained. “I want coaches who’ve been CIOs, CTOs, and operators. People who’ve lived the reality of what our leaders face.”
These coaches focus on leadership skills like:
- Strategic decision-making
- Complex stakeholder management
- Leading at pace
- Navigating ambiguity
3. Mutual Mentorship Across the Organization
A mentorship program, originally launched by an employee resource group, has expanded across Sales, Technology, and other functions. “It’s true mutual mentorship. ICs learn from leaders, leaders learn from ICs. In a remote environment, that connection matters,” she said.
Biannual Surveys Measure Manager Impact
Twice per year, 1Password runs its employee experience survey, which focuses on four levers:
- Employee net promoter score
- Manager effectiveness
- Positive culture and work that matters
- Company confidence
Laviolette shared one of her biggest takeaways from the latest results. “The communication flows clearly at the executive level. It then flows relatively well to the next level. But after that, it dissipates slightly. That’s an emotional intelligence challenge. It means we need stronger direction and prioritization, and continuous feedback loops between our managers and senior leaders.”
To dig deeper, they created a Manager Effectiveness Index combining:
- leader performance ratings
- manager effectiveness survey scores
- team engagement scores
They then categorize each manager as: At-risk, Effective, or Strong.
Some of the statements employees rate include:
- “My manager articulates clear objectives.”
- “My manager leads our team through change.”
“My manager provides coaching and actionable feedback.” - “My manager recognizes impactful work.”
- “My manager gives me the autonomy I need.”
This index helps identify areas where 1Password has an opportunity to improve. Overall, their scores across employee experience and manager index are high and trending upward.
Training Leaders to Thrive in Ambiguity
“You can’t thrive at 1Password if you require a rigid structure,” Laviolette told me. “Things change fast. Products evolve. Teams shift. Leaders need to guide people through that.”
For this reason, their People Essentials program includes modules on leading through change and ambiguity:
- Leading through change
- Asking clarifying questions
- Prioritizing during uncertainty
Emotional intelligence is foundational to all of these skills. Whether that’s having the self-management skills necessary to stay calm under pressure, the social awareness to recognize when your team isn’t quite getting your message, or the relationship management skills needed to coach team members toward better outcomes. As Laviolette put it, “Thriving in ambiguity starts with psychological safety. If you work for me, I want you to be able to say, ‘I don’t agree, can we walk through this together and look at other angles?’ That’s what clarity is built on.”
Preparing Employees For An AI-Driven Future
As a security company, 1Password balances being at the forefront of AI with a healthy dose of caution. “People are curious, but they’re nervous in some cases,” Laviolette said. “Especially in security. So we’re building an ethical approach to AI. This includes how we use it, how we teach people to use it, and how we protect against risks.”
Their AI work stream includes:
- Ethical use guidelines
- Tooling adoption
- Guardrails for AI-based learning
- Planning for agentic AI in the identity security ecosystem
“Our job is to create awareness and understanding,” she added. “There’s a lot of benefit to AI, but also real risk. We stand at a critical juncture of security and productivity, and so we need to prepare our people for thoughtful adoption.”
3 Lessons From 1Password’s Leadership Development System
Three key lessons stood out in our conversation:
- EQ isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the engine of high performance and rapid scalability.
- Measurement creates focus. Twice-a-year data helps refine manager development, communication, direction, and prioritization.
- EQ is foundational to leading through change. To thrive in times of change, leaders need to be able to manage their emotions, show they care, and communicate clearly. And team members need to feel safe speaking up and asking questions.
