How to build EQ as a Product Leader - Pippa Topp (CPO, giffgaff)

Apr 1, 2026

Pippa Topp, Chief Product Officer at giffgaff and experienced product coach, explores emotional intelligence in product teams. She explains how low EQ shows up as defensiveness and reactive communication. She covers applying empathy inward to colleagues, the conscious competence model for self-awareness, coaching techniques, building an EQ culture, neurodiversity, and the role of AI in checking tone.

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ADVICE

Use The Conscious Competence Ladder

Use the conscious competence model: make unconscious incompetence visible, coach to conscious practice, then aim for unconscious competence.
Pippa recommends coaching and practice to move EQ from effortful to automatic.

ADVICE

Use Life Stories To Reveal Strengths

Ask people to tell their life story and then map patterns to reveal hidden strengths and behaviours.
Pippa uses life stories plus factual vs narrative separation to uncover why someone reacts defensively.

ADVICE

Use Behavioural Tools To Identify Empathy Misses

Use behavioural assessments like Insights to spotlight patterns and 'empathy misses' rather than label people as high/low EQ.
Pippa uses Insights colours to explain how enthusiasm can disengage others.

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Pippa Topp, Chief Product Officer at giffgaff, joins Lily and Randy to talk about emotional intelligence in product teams — what it is, how it develops, and why it matters for leadership. The conversation covers recognising defensiveness as an EQ signal, the conscious competence model, applying empathy inward as well as outward, and how to cultivate a culture of reflection across a product org. Pippa also shares her own journey from judgement to over-empathy to finding the balance, and makes the case for self-belief as the foundation of emotional resilience.

Chapters
00:00 – Introduction & what is emotional intelligence?
04:39 – How low EQ shows up at work: defensiveness and reactive communication
08:28 – Extending product empathy skills to stakeholders and peers
10:33 – The conscious competence model and coaching people who don't know what they don't know
13:21 – Coaching techniques: life stories, separating facts from narrative
14:58 – Assessment tools and organisational EQ at giffgaff (Insights)
16:33 – Pippa's own EQ journey: from judgement to over-empathy to balance
22:37 – Coaching a junior PM through resistance, self-doubt, and breakthrough
28:40 – Leading through a forced decision: surfacing team emotion to move forward
32:39 – Cultivating EQ culture: group coaching, values-based behaviours, measurement
38:48 – Neurodivergence, self-awareness, and building a feedback culture
44:00 – Can AI support emotional intelligence?
47:41 – Is it okay to cry at work?
51:29 – Self-belief as the foundation of emotional resilience

Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.