What The Good Wife teaches us about Relational Intelligence
- Aparajita Sihag
- Jan 8
- 4 min read
And what it doesn't (spoilers ahead)
My husband introduced me to The Good Wife a few months ago and we catch an episode every day or two. We are about to finish Season 6 (Alicia just withdrew her nomination from the State's Attorney's race), and I've grown to love the twists and turns of the show.
One of the standout features of the storyline is shifting alliances at workplace and I couldn't help but draw parallels with the workplaces I've personally observed. The characters stew in a soup of ethics, ambition, power, and emotional restraint - and often engage in professional backstabbing without visible anger or long term grudges throughout the series. Obviously, real life isn't as dramatic as TV shows are - but the dramatics helped me clearly introspect what's relational intelligence and what it is not.
At the surface, it's easy to be confused and feel that most, if not all, of the main characters - Alicia, Diane, Peter, Kalinda, Cary, Eli, David Lee - are relationally intelligent. Afterall they are endlessly pragmatic and are able to (mostly) not take things personally. They betray each other in one episode and collaborate in the next. Their loyalty is conditional to the situations, their apologies are tactical, trust is never assumed, and their warmth is performative.
Take Alicia's example. She stands by Peter, not because she has forgiven him for cheating, but because they need each other in their careers. Cary asks her to join his new firm as a name Partner - not because he is friends with her - but because she is the wife of the Governor and that's good for brand value. A few episodes before this event, he hated her for being privileged and believed her to be the reason why he was let go from Lockhart Gardener. Diane and Will (may his character soul rest in peace) are at each other's throat when Derrick Bond joins the firm but all differences are soon forgotten once he is voted out. Or take how Louis Canning ends up becoming the Managing Partner at Lockhart Gardener despite trying to push the firm into bankruptcy a few episodes before.
We see characters demonstrating emotional neutrality through role-self separation and situational realism in the most arduous situations.
Role-Self Separation: Doing what the role requires without letting it define who you are as a person
Situational Realism: Reading the room as it actually is, not as you wish it were
It's a learned stance where:
Feelings are acknowledged internally but never processed
Relationships are kept flexible and reversible
Moral injury is tolerated as "the cost of the game"
But this behaviour points to being politically intelligent. Not relationally intelligent.
Political Intelligence answers "What will get me through this situation?". It's the ability to read power, incentives, timing, and leverage.
Relational Intelligence answers "Who am I becoming in the way I relate to this situation?". It's the ability to sustain trust, dignity, boundaries, and identity over time.
It's easy to confuse the two. And The Good Wife is brilliant (so far) because it doesn't.
LOW Political Intelligence | HIGH Political Intelligence | |
HIGH Relational Intelligence | Principled but Naïve (Trusts too easily, assumes good faith in bad systems, suffers moral injury quickly. Rare in The Good Wife. e.g.: Cary Agos in first season, Ned Stark in Game of Thrones) | Strategic Adult (learns from betrayal without becoming bitter, chooses collaboration with eyes open, does not demand emotional repair to function professionally. e.g. Diane Lockhart, Alicia Florrick and Cary Agos sometimes) |
LOW Relational Intelligence | Emotionally Reactive (Poor emotional accountability, short term power plays undermine long-term trust, confuses authority with relational capital. e.g., Peter Florrick at times) | Transactional Operator (Brilliant power reader, relationships are means - not commitments, emotional detachment masquerades as professionalism. e.g. David Lee, Eli Gold, Kalinda Sharma) |
Being politically intelligent is adaptive (and often useful) in high stakes environments such as law, politics, consulting, senior leadership positions, but without relational intelligence, it carries long-term costs:
Cynicism
Relational thinning
Loss of meaning
Identity drift ("Who am I when everything is transactional")
High relational intelligence does not mean being calm and friendly with everyone. But it does require coherence. It requires one to remember without poisoning themselves, to adapt without erasing themselves, and to collaborate without pretending nothing happened.
Low relational intelligence, on the other hand, can look calm, effective, and mature. But for very different reasons for different people. If you look at the grid above, you would notice that I have placed David Lee, Eli Gold, and Kalinda Sharma in the same quadrant. All three of them demonstrate low relational intelligence, but for very different reasons:
David Lee - Relationships don't matter (true relationship impoverishment)
Eli Gold - Relationships cost too much (choice)
Kalinda - Relationships are unsafe (choice)
And this distinction matters outside TV. In senior leadership environments:
David Lees are dangerous but predictable
Eli Golds are powerful but hollow
Kalindas are under leveraged
Carys burn out
Dianes and late-season Alicias integrate power and personhood
Have you ever thought of Relational Intelligence in these terms before? Do you know which quadrant you lie in? Let me know.
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