Acta Polytechnica Hungarica Vol. 17, No. 5, 2020 – 229 – Generations and Emotional Intelligence A Pilot Study Renáta Machová 1 , Tibor Zsigmond 1 , Kornélia Lazányi 2 , Veronika Krepszová 1 1 J. Selye University, Faculty of Economics, Department of Management, Hradná st. 21, 945 01 Komárno, Slovakia machovar@ujs.sk, zsigmondt@ujs.sk, krepszovav@ujs.sk 2 Óbuda University, Keleti Faculty of Business and Management, Dean Office, Tavaszmező u. 17, 1084 Budapest, Hungary lazanyi.kornelia@kgk.uni-obuda.hu Abstract: Emotional intelligence is at the heart of our research. Our aim was to examine the differences that exist between generations, based on the views of their representatives. In the theoretical portion we dealt with defining emotional intelligence and presenting it from the leaders’ aspect. Finally, each generation is introduced. In our paper we set up 2 hypotheses, which are cross-tabulated and / or analyzed with the help of related statistical methods. In the end, both our hypotheses proved to be true. This article contains 2 figures and 2 tables. Our paper ends with a section on conclusions, in which we summarize our research, results and outline our findings. Keywords: emotional intelligence; generations; workplace 1 Introduction This article is about emotional intelligence. We chose this topic in order to demonstrate the presence of emotional intelligence in the 21 st Century. Emotional intelligence plays an important role in everyday life. We do not notice it, but our emotions determine our actions. It also affects our personality and personal relationships. That is why we would like to show how this is present at the workplaces of each age group. A job is the place where we spend most of our time, and where we meet and work with many people every day. It is important to get along well with others and that our emotions do not adversely affect our relationships or hinder our work. In the theoretical part we introduced the concept of emotional intelligence. Within this, we introduced the individual points of view and then we approached the topic