In the early days of Walmart, many of its stores were in rural, hard-to-reach communities. Their founder, Sam Walton, cared so much about visiting each store first-hand that he learned to fly his own plane. On-site, he would walk the floor, talk with associates, and listen to the associates’ experience. There are famous photos of him kneeling to speak with frontline employees, a yellow legal pad in hand, taking notes, and he was known for meeting someone once and remembering to ask highly specific questions about their family or their pets when he saw that person again years later.
More than sixty years later, Walton’s approach has a lasting footprint on the company culture. Lorraine Stomski, Chief Talent Officer at Walmart, describes Walton’s caring behavior as their “cultural DNA.” With more than 2.1 million global associates, they believe that their “people-led, tech-powered” mindset will be the ultimate competitive advantage as we head into the AI Era.
A Founder-Led Culture At Unprecedented Scale
“Walmart is a very magical place,” Stomski told me. “We are a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer. And that people-led piece is very intentional.”
Walmart serves roughly 270 million customers every week. Ninety percent of the U.S. population lives within ten miles of a Walmart store, and more than 2.1 million associates work for the company around the world. At that scale of human interaction, caring about people drives the business.
Stomski describes a company culture of humility, listening, and servant leadership. “You wouldn’t survive here if you didn’t have [those qualities],” she said.
That ethos traces directly back to Walton. His insistence on listening to customers, to associates, and to uncomfortable truths. This careful listening set a standard that still shapes how leaders are selected and developed today. Leaders are expected to take tough feedback without defensiveness, connect personally with associates, and remember that every interaction is human before it is operational. “These skills are all about EQ,” Stomski explained. “Being measured in your response. Showing care. Remembering details about people’s lives. Those things are embedded here.”
The Talent Flywheel: Why EQ Is a System, Not a Program
Stomski is a trained industrial-organizational psychologist, and she approaches her role as a systems thinker. “I don’t look at talent acquisition, performance management, learning, and promotion as discrete elements,” she said. “I look at it as one flywheel.”
The flywheel starts with attraction and selection, bringing in people aligned with Walmart’s purpose and values. It continues through development, movement, and promotion, with each part reinforcing the others. Emotional intelligence skills show up at every stage, not as a workshop bolted onto the side.
This systems view matters because human behavior doesn’t change in isolation. Training people in empathy while promoting those who don’t practice it sends a mixed signal. Walmart works hard to avoid that disconnect.
“It’s about stewarding the entire associate lifecycle,” Stomski said. “From the moment we bring people in to how we help them grow.”
Using AI To Create More Humanity, Not Less
Stomski describes herself as “an AI optimist,” specifically for the way she sees it freeing up people’s time. “The opportunity to lift some of the transactional, process-oriented work off our plate so we can spend more time with associates and customers. That’s what excites me,” she said, echoing a similar notion we’ve heard across dozens of interviews with L&D leaders.
Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to co-create an AI certification customized to the company. The goal is bold: give associates access to AI upskilling.
Walmart is also using AI to support emotional intelligence training and practice. One example is an AI-powered interview simulator designed for frontline associates. Many associates have never gone through formal interviews before, and practicing for a promotion can feel intimidating. “We created an AI interviewer that acts as a person you can practice with,” Stomski said. “You get feedback. You can try again. Sometimes we just need that safe practice space.”
Making EQ Stick: How Walmart Sustains Emotionally Intelligent Behavior
Walmart’s approach to emotional intelligence doesn’t stop at selection or innovation. It’s reinforced deliberately and continuously, especially in their Manager Academy.
Launched three years ago to ensure that leaders across 4,700 U.S. stores are deeply connected to Walmart’s culture and values, the program avoids technical instruction. Instead, store managers come to the home office to learn directly from senior leaders. They hear stories. They reflect on how values show up in daily decisions. They practice skills like coaching, listening, and care.
Self-awareness is reinforced through assessments, including pre- and post-360 feedback. Walmart is highly data-oriented, but Stomski is clear-eyed about the limits. “Human beings are too complex to predict,” she said. “We use assessments to elevate insight, not to oversimplify people.”
Finally, EQ is sustained through daily expectations. Walmart is reintroducing structured performance coaching for frontline associates, where leaders give feedback, coach growth, and model key behaviors.
The company tracks engagement and business outcomes closely. Stores with leaders who live the values consistently perform better. “We’ve put every U.S. store manager through our manager program,” Stomski said. “The NPS is extremely high and the stores where managers have been through our training outperform other stores across many key metrics.” Importantly, Stomski also emphasized how when managers return to their stores, they teach what they’ve learned to on-the-floor associates, creating a multiplier effect.
Stomski’s Go-To EQ Strategy: Her “Underreact” Mantra
For all the systems and scale, Stomski grounds emotional intelligence in something deeply personal. Her favorite EQ strategy is simple in concept, but tough to apply: “underreact.”
“I’m very intense,” she admitted. “That intensity can be used for good, but not if I let it hijack me.” In moments of conflict or frustration, she reminds herself to pause. To create space between stimulus and response. It’s a classic antidote to the amygdala hijack and one any leader can practice immediately. “It’s those moments that don’t feel good,” she said. “That’s where EQ really shows up.”
What Leaders Can Learn From Walmart
Walmart’s experience offers a few clear lessons for talent development leaders navigating the AI era.
First, emotional intelligence scales when it’s designed as a system (or “flywheel”), not as a single training event. Selection, development, promotion, and technology must reinforce the same behaviors.
Second, AI doesn’t replace the need for EQ, it actually amplifies that need. As technology handles transactions and administrative work, companies will allocate more and more time to those enduring human skills that AI can’t replace.
And finally, the most powerful EQ strategies are often the simplest. Listen carefully. Interact with people. Default to an underreaction, not an overreaction. Sam Walton understood that long before AI entered the conversation. Walmart’s challenge—and opportunity—has been to keep that insight alive at a massive scale. It’s working.
