Emotional Leadership: The Skills And Importance Of Emotional Leadership

Goleman and Cherniss (2001) postulates that emotional competencies are learned abilities. Social awareness or skill at managing relationships does not guarantee the mastery of the additional learning required to handle a customer adeptly or to resolve a conflict. It only prognosticates that we have the potential to become skilled in these competencies.

Taking the views of the different authors into consideration, it is possible to conclude that the skills and abilities of emotional leadership can be developed, nurtured and taught. In order to teach emotional leadership it is important to understand (referring to par. 2.3.5. on p.17) that emotional leadership is derived from basic elements that operate like hierarchical building blocks (see

Hattingh continues by saying that each human being canned choose the direction his or her life is going to take. There is only two choices, namely to continue on the same road and to be stuck in the past, or to take a journey of self-renewal. Selecting the route of self-renewal entails becoming aware of the patterns, habits and powers of the present and past that prevent self­ renewal and moving towards a self-fulfilled future, as well as becoming aware of the untapped inner potential. Hattingh (1997:273) suggests a model for self-knowledge and

In this self-reflexive awareness the mind observes and investigates experience, and emotion itself. In short, it means being aware of both the mood and thoughts about the mood. Covey (1992:66) outlines self-awareness as the ability to think about the very thought process, which is a uniquely human ability. Covey stresses that humans are not their moods, they are not even their thoughts, and continue to say that self-awareness enables humans to stand apart and examine the way they see themselves. Wilks (1999: 13) describes self-knowledge as the understanding of how the individual functions emotionally. Mayer and Salovey in Hein (2001: 4) refer to the perception, appraisal and expression of emotions as the first of four branches of emotional leadership. They define it as the ability to identify personal emotion in physical states, feelings, and thoughts. It leads into the ability to express emotions, as well as the needs related to those emotions, accurately, and the ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate, honest and dishonest expressions of feeling. Knaus (1994: 6) describes self-awareness as the awareness of thought, actions, and feelings in the deepest being of the individual that block a successful process of