Leadership and Emotional Intelligence
What sets a leader apart, those who are more than qualified or a leader who understands the importance of emotional intelligence? Leaders who are qualified to do the job and fail are lacking emotional intelligence and those leaders who are less qualified but, have a high emotional intelligence are being successful. Examining this issue will be discussed in this paper and why it is important in leaders today. This paper will explain Daniel Goleman’s five competence of emotional intelligence and why they are important to leaders.
Why Leaders Need Emotional Intelligence Today business and globalization have made emotional intelligence important. Daniel Coleman has done research on the importance of
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People who are self-aware are not overly critical or unrealistic hopeful. Self-awareness is being honest with you. Leaders who are aware of what they do and say and how this will impact those around them are self-aware. Part of self-awareness is how it extends to the person’s understanding of their values and goals. In making decisions they will consider their values and goals. Will I take a job just for the money and afterwards realize it does not line up with my goals or values or decide that I do not want the job for the money because of my values and goals the difference in being …show more content…
At Harvard Business School they are looking for students that have empathy, perspective taking, rapport, and cooperation (book pg 12-13) Emotional Intelligence is written by other people they all agree that it is important for leaders that the old way of thinking of leadership has change and a new one emphasizing emotional intelligence. An article from the Huffingtonpost said, “Great leaders are aware of their own leadership style. For them, having awareness of how their style influences their team, makes these already great leaders, exceptional. Truly great leaders identify, understand and not only manage their own emotions, But are able to do that with others in a very empowering way ( huff).” On the Forbes website an article written by a former Navy Seal talks about the importance of emotional intelligence, “My past experience in combat required me to develop emotional intelligence quickly. A skill that takes constant improvement but that has been beneficial in current leadership roles (Use of
There is an importance of leaders to first analyze the impact of their emotional manifestation. Leaders should own emotional intelligence. Those leaders that don’t possess emotional int...
Stein, S. J., & Book, H. E. (2011). Emotional intelligence and your success (3rd ed.). Mississauga, Canada: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
Rehman, R. (2011). Role of emotional intelligence among leadership styles, decision making styles and organizational performance: A review. Retrieved from: http://works.bepress.com/rashidrehman/2
Emmerling, R. J., & Goleman, D. (2003). EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ISSUES AND COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS. Issues and Recent Developments in Emotional Intelligence, 1(1), 1-32.
While emotional intelligence’s relevance to business has continued to spark debate over the past six years, Goleman’s article remains the definitive. reference on the subject, with a description of each component. emotional intelligence and a detailed discussion of how to. recognize it in potential leaders, how and why it connects to performance, and how it can be learned. Every businessperson knows a story about a high intelligent, highly skilled executive who was promoted into a leadership position only to fail at the job. And they also know a story about someone with solid—but not.
There are many different positions in an organization that require different knowledge, skills and abilities. Supervisory and management positions encompass more than just technical knowledge, skill and expertise in their given area, but being leaders over others. This is of interest to organizations in having leaders who are able to motivate, understand and get their teams to work together. Many organizations are looking to improve their performance and productivity through finding and placing the right people in leadership positions. How the concept of emotional intelligence and its evolution has come to the forefront in assisting companies about leadership performance and decisions will be discussed along with the debate among researchers and the review of three assessments as to their impact and uses.
The intelligent use of emotions has long been associated with effective leadership. Defined as the ability to control ones’ emotions and understanding others’ emotions, emotional intelligence (EI) is undeniably an important factor for leaders to build good rapport with their subordinates (Weisinger, 1998). In fact, a growing body of research literatures supported the essentiality of EI in the workplace, especially among leaders (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002). For instance, studies have shown that emotional intelligence (EI) could positively influence individual’s leadership skills (e.g., Hong, Catano, & Liao, 2011; Hur, van den Berg, & Wilderom, 2011). With EI, leaders would be able to handle stressful situation and conflicts by intelligently manage the emotion of self and others. Hence, EI was often used as a measurement of leaders’ effectiveness (e.g., Kerr, Garvin, Heaton, & Boyle, 2005; Madera & Smith, 2009; Thiel, Connelly, & Griffith, 2012). Indeed, individual with high EI is perceived as a better leader compared to those with lower EI (Thiel et al., 2012). Hence, the researcher believed that the link between EI and leadership should be further studied to gain better understanding and benefit from it. This review discusses the link between EI and leadership with the focus on the importance of EI on leadership.
Emotional intelligence is ‘a set of competencies that allows you to apply thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions.’ (SEI leadership report, 2013) In the report, the author makes critical analysis of the result of the SEI report. By presenting the analysis by ‘Know yourself’, ‘Choose yourself’ and ‘Give yourself’, the author has a more clear understanding of her strengths and weakness concerning her EQ. Based on the skills and analysis, the author applies the theory into her future professional career development in order to achieve her career goal.
Myers, L. L. & Tucker, M. L. (2005). Increasing Awareness of Emotional Intelligence In A Business Curriculum. Business Communication Quarterly, 68, pp. 44-50.
The development of Emotional Intelligence requires a recognition of one's own strengths and limitations, an exploration of how current decisions are framed through beliefs and prior experiences, and the actualisation of potential by using the greater self knowledge gained. However, in a report by the Institute of Management (2002) research showed that the quality of leadership in the workplace was poor. Further, the research reinforces a positive relationship between financial turnover and the priority given to leadership development (Institute of Management, 2002). Fifty-five percent of those questioned gave the characteristic of being inspiring as the most important attribute of leadership, but only eleven percent say they are witnessing it at work.
Sy, T., & Cote, S. (2004). Emotional intelligence: A key ability to succeed in the matrix organization. Journal of Management Development. 23(5). 437-455
An increasing percent of the population begins to know the idea of emotional intelligence. This concept was firstly developed by two American university professors, John Mayer and Peter Salovey (1990) and they concluded that, people with high emotional quotient are supposed to learn more quickly due to their abilities. Another psycologist named Daniel Goleman (1995) extended the theory and also made it well-known. In his articles and books, he argued that people with high emotional quotient do better than those with low emotional quotient. In this essay, it will be argued that high emotional intelligence can influence work performance positively to a relatively high extent. Both benefits and limitations of a high level of EI in the workplace will be discussed and a conclusion will be drawn at the end of this essay.
Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2000). Emotional intelligence: A review and evaluation study. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 15(4), 341-372. Huang, T., Beachum, F. D., White, G. P., Kaimal, G., Fitzgerald, A., & Reed, P. (2012). Preparing urban school leaders: What works?.
Success in leadership involves conducting self-awareness on various issues including the people that have had a profound impact on the business leader. It is imperative that one is self-aware of their personal beliefs and values coupled with their intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors. Showry and Manasa (2014) assert that self-awareness forces individuals to conduct a realistic review of their own developmental needs. It is through understanding the particular areas in one’s life that require improvement that a business leader achieves success. If one fails to be clear on this aspect of self-awareness, then it is likely that they remain directionless and ineffective leaders. It is therefore important for one seeking success in leadership to conduct personal introspection about what they are as a person and what resources they hold. On the other hand, emotional intelligence is an important aspect in becoming a successful leader.
Goleman, D., 2005. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.