Emotional Intelligence & Leadership
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence.
– Robert K. Cooper, PhD
In the light of the above-mentioned statement, emotional intelligence is simply defined as an art of making emotions work for you, instead of working against you. It’s a set of cognitive skills and capabilities to perceive, understand, and regulate one’s own as well as others’ emotions in undesired circumstances in a way that creates a win-win situation for both the parties. Creating a win-win situation itself encompasses a number of psychological factors such as emotional connection, human energy, and influence over the person/group of people standing before you. Human energy is a collection of a person’s belief system, values, emotions, thoughts, and attitudes toward various situations. Another important factor playing a vital role in leaders with high EI is dispensing information effectively that aligns with his audience’s current emotions, feelings, and circumstances.
Emotions and Workplace
For several years, emotions were marginalized in the workplace and were considered to have a negative impact on employees’ performance, other employees’ attention-to-detail as well as workplace culture. Gradually, psychologists and researchers began to work on it to understand the importance and impact of displaying emotions in the workplace. Luckily, the results showed that sharing your moods and emotions helps your coworkers and manager understand you and boosts your work performance as well. Suppressing emotions (unless it’s required for your job design) proves to be stressful and exhausting for workers.
Emotions and Leaders
The researchers and culture departments of today also put a great emphasis on managers and leaders to be emotionally intelligent and be mindful of their team members’ moods and emotions. Daniel Goleman, a pioneer in providing EI training to leaders and managers, says that emotional intelligence is the only quality that differentiates between a truly effective leader. Although technical skills and intelligence are necessary for team leaders and managers, EI is what makes the difference in leadership style and organizational culture.
Key Competencies
The key competencies required in EI and effective leadership in both organizations and societies are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, social awareness, and empathy. All other competencies fall under these five in one way or another. Whether a person is leading a small team, an entire organization, or a whole society, he needs to have high levels of emotional intelligence to bring out the desired results from himself as well as from others.
How to Get Started
The practice for EI starts from within oneself. A leader must be able to first understand himself, his emotions, and the associated triggers. Then he must move towards managing his emotions in a positive manner according to the situation. People who are great at self-regulation can also be effective situational leaders because they tend to have a better understanding of themselves, others, and the situation they are in. After he has learned to regulate his emotions, the leader needs to keep himself motivated by regularly setting goals, accepting his flaws, removing his weaknesses, and setting high standards for himself. Now communication joins in. Communicating the motivation and inspiring his team, organization, or society leads to social awareness. Leaders should be mindful of all the cultural and social backgrounds their people belong to and should listen to their feedback and concerns empathetically.
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