How Can Emotional Intelligence Influence

Leadership?

Thesis

By

Kamila Rosik

Submitted in Partial fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the degree of

Bachelor of Science

In

Business Administration

State University of New York

Empire State College

2018

Reader: David Starr – Glass

Statutory Declaration / Čestné prohlášení

I, Kamila Rosik, declare that the paper entitled:

How Can Emotional Intelligence Influence Leadership?

was written by myself independently, using the sources and information listed in the list of

references. I am aware that my work will be published in accordance with § 47b of Act No.

111/1998 Coll., On Higher Education Institutions, as amended, and in accordance with the

valid publication guidelines for university graduate theses.

Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto práci vypracoval/a samostatně s použitím uvedené literatury a

zdrojů informací. Jsem vědom/a, že moje práce bude zveřejněna v souladu s § 47b zákona

č. 111/1998 Sb., o vysokých školách ve znění pozdějších předpisů, a v souladu s platnou

Směrnicí o zveřejňování vysokoškolských závěrečných prací.

In Prague, 18.04.2018 Kamila Rosik

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my mentor, David Starr – Glass, for his support, patience and valuable

advice that helped me develop and finish my thesis.

Abstract

The pressure of competition and innovation in today’s globalized and very complex world

makes us search for alternatives and extra skills that could help in gaining a competitive

advantage in business. Where education, experience and expertise are just a threshold

competence to enter a given field, there must be something else that stands for success.

This paper aims to investigate a possible relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI)

and successful leadership. In order to understand and then link these two complex concepts,

leadership styles and competences of EI were thoroughly analyzed, and potential influences

of EI on leaders’ behaviors were discussed. I also proposed suggestions and

recommendations of how EI can be best utilized as a predictor of success and a competence

to master in leadership development programs instead of a controversial topic of the

sceptics’ debate.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction ................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

II. Intelligence .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

A. Globalization of workforce ........................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

B. Predictors of Success ................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

C. The Concept of Emotional Intelligence ..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

D. Emotional Competencies – What are They? .............. Error! Bookmark not defined.

III. Leadership .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

A. What Is Leadership? .................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

B. What Is Followership? ............................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

C. Art of Leadership ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

IV. What Makes a Leader? .............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

A. Self – Awareness ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

B. Self – Management .................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

C. Social Awareness ....................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

D. Relationship Management ......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

V. Emotionally Intelligent Leadership ............................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

VI. Conclusion ................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

VII. References .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

1

Introduction

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is nowadays not only a new term for understanding a human’s

capability of feeling and recognizing emotions but it is a whole new approach that could be

noticed and examined in almost every aspect in our lives. Based on our emotions, which are

responses that have origins in our state of consciousness, we make decisions, we interact

with other people, we accept or decline situations. When an importance of emotions was

revealed by John Mayer from University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey from Yale

in 1990, and Daniel Goleman from Harvard in 1995, many pedagogues started to

implement social and emotional learning, SEL, in their educational institutions. Today SEL

is offered by thousands of schools globally. In some schools, students have mandatory

classes of SEL,, and they learn how to recognize their emotions, how to identify non-verbal

signals and what stresses out and motivates them. Besides United States, the initiative of

introducing SEL into educational programs was also implemented by Singapore, Malaysia,

Hong-Kong, Japan and Korea. In Europe, United Kingdom and Ireland are pioneers, but

many other schools in different European countries, Australia, New Zealand and in some

African and South-American countries also follow the idea of teaching emotional skills to

their subordinates (Goleman, 1995). In 2002, UNESCO started to promoted SEL and sent

the set of ten basic rules for the implementation of SEL to the Departments of Education of

140 countries. Many researchers examined results of SEL on chosen students and they

noticed a positive influence on the level of education of these students. In schools that

participated in SEL programs, around 50% of children achieved better results in tests and

38% increased their GPA (Goleman, 1995, p. 15). Moreover, schools became safer places:

there was around 28% less evidence of violence and 63% students improved their behavior

2

and frequency of attendance (Goleman, 1995, p. 15). Roger Weissberg from Collaborative

for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at Illinois University in Chicago analyzed

668 studies of the SEL programs influence (“A Major Meta-analysis of Positive Youth

Development Programs) on children in an pre-school to high-school age, and he admitted

that helping children in developing their self-awareness, gaining self-confidence,

controlling their negative emotions and impulses, and enhancing empathy lead not only to a

better attitude but also to better results in their performance in schools. These results

accelerated implementations of SEL programs in schools in the whole world and awakes a

curiosity of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and its benefits in other life areas.

In the business world, there have been many hot topics that appear and disappear, but EI

seems to be still one of them, even though it is almost 30 years old. A lot of research is

being done by professors, psychologists, scientists and even business people on

classification, testing and improving EI since it may be the key for outstanding business

performance results and a competitive advantage in the today’s globalized and very

complex world. Moreover, "Harvard Business Review" credited EI as one of the most

influencing concepts and many institutions, for example, Consortium for Research on

Emotional Intelligence in Organizations, CREIO and corporations themselves started to

look on business issues through the lenses of EI noticing more and more positives coming

from mastering this intelligence.

As a business student with a strong interest in organizational behavior and psychology of

human relations, I would like to examine how emotional intelligence (EI) can influence

leadership. In my paper, I use the Goleman’s typology since elements that he laid out (self

3

– awareness, self – regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills) are practitioner-focused

and seem to be the most adequate for a business paper.

In the first chapter, I will explain the concept of EI and why we need it in our globalized

world. I will also discuss why IQ can no longer stand alone as a predictor of a success. All

emotional competencies will be discussed and why we should take them into consideration

when we hire, fire and promote employees.

In chapter two, I will provide definitions of leadership and followership. I will discuss

many leadership styles and explain why there are so many of them. I will also examine why

a behavior of leaders can play a crucial role in an organization performance.

In chapter three, I will show how emotions influence leaders’ behaviors and how thanks to

emotional competencies they can be more successful.

In the last chapter, I will link leadership aspects and EI’s competencies together to show

how they might influence each other.

At the end, I will present my conclusions and recommendations.

4

Chapter One

Intelligence

"Leading with the Brain, Heart, and Soul"

Globalization of Workforce

It seems to me that this century is a time of change; a constant, rapid, inevitable change.

New technologies, innovations in every field and global rivalry could define the 21st-

century market and there are no doubts that all of these put a bigger and bigger pressure on

business organizations to innovate as well. More companies are becoming aware that what

matters now that did not matter in the past are "soft skills". There is a new, different way of

being smart which focuses not only on your training and expertise but on how well you can

handle yourself and people around you. This phenomenon is visible in the majority of

entrepreneurship in deciding whom to hire, whom to promote, whom to fire and whom to

retain. There are a growing number of publications showing that the soft skills such as

resilience, optimism, initiative and adaptability help employers to predict who from

candidates has a better chance to succeed or even to become a star performer (Goleman,

1998).

These internal qualities that can be interpreted in many ways from character to emotional

intelligence were already discussed by Freud and his supporters many years ago. They all

claimed that in addition to IQ, personality is an inseparable ingredient of excellence and

they were examining if a person was outgoing/introverted or "feeling"/"thinking" type in

order to measure his or her work potential (Goleman, 1995, p. 18). Soft skills are

5

fundamental for all positions in any workplace that demand interactions with other people.

More and more leaders are starting to understand that in the face of a huge competition

nowadays a human factor is more important than ever: “you don’t compete with products

alone anymore, but how well you use your people”, says a manager at Telia, the Swedish

telecommunications company (Goleman, 1998, p. 8).

Another issue worth mentioning is a fact that what mattered the most in the 1970's now is a

"must" to enter a field. Today, a diploma and a good average is just a minimum that must

be accomplished by candidates to be considered in the business' world. And there are new

traits that must be possessed in order to excel (Goleman, 1998). For example a few decades

ago, nobody thought that teambuilding and adapting to change would be an indicator

needed for a success because jobs were often very easy, repetitive and specialized, and they

did not demand advanced and differentiated skills. Now, in multinational corporations,

where there are many departments, many cultures, and offices in different countries, no task

could be accomplished without these traits. Thus, employers want to hire people who are

good with communication, possess outstanding personal skills and initiative because these

are the traits that make a leader and there is a huge demand for people who can lead others

in any corporations considering the complexity of tasks and multicultural teams.

Predictors of Success

In 1900’s, Binet and Simon developed an intelligence test and many researchers started to

quantify intelligence. In the twentieth century, the use of the intelligence quotient (IQ)

became synonymous with intelligence and this promoted a belief that a high IQ means a

6

high intelligence (Gage & Smith, 2016). However, what IQ quantifies is just a rational

intelligence which is "one's ability to think critically and to be able to analyze or solve a

concrete problem" (Gage & Smith, 2016, p. 2). Rational intelligence is learned throughout

our schooling in our development to adulthood and follows on from our primitive or

physical intelligence, that is, the intelligence we are born with (Gage & Smith, 2016). Thus,

naturally IQ can be used as a pre-requisite for leadership since leaders need enough intellect

to carry out their responsibilities and to deal with challenges (Goleman, Boyatzis &

McKee, 2013) but it is not enough to predict if a leader will be successful.

With the rise of new talents, new ways of measuring are needed. Even though the

McClelland's (1973) study is fifty years old, a lot of researchers agree with him that

"traditional academic aptitude, school grades, and advanced credentials simply did not

predict how well people would perform on the job or whether they would succeed in life"

(Goleman, 1998, p. 18). Moreover, we could deduct from his observations that

competencies of successful people are empathy, self-discipline and initiative and these

traits are unmeasurable by mentioned earlier tests.

IQ is also not always reliable. It happens often that people with high IQ perform poorer at

work than their friends with lower IQ test results. A lot of scientists, including John B.

Hunter and F. L. Schmidt, were researching the relationship between IQ and job

performance and what they found out was that IQ alone is only in less than 25%

responsible for achievement at work or in life (Goleman, 1995). Moreover, what you

learned in school when you are a lawyer, a doctor or an entrepreneur combined with

expertise, it is just a threshold competence, you must have it in order to get in this field and

it does not define if you will be a star. Furthermore, a common core of personal and social

7

skills proved to be a key ingredient in people’s success: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman,

1998).

Cognitive abilities only together with emotional intelligence can accelerate the way to a

success. I think that it is very unlikely that top-performers have no emotional competencies

due to the very simple fact that uncontrolled emotions can make the smartest person stupid;

as Dough Lennick, an executive vice president at American Express Financial Advisors

said: “The aptitudes you need to succeed start with intellectual horsepower – but people

need emotional competence, too, to get the full potential of their talents. The reason we

don’t get people’s full potential is emotional incompetence” (Goleman, 1998, p. 27).

The Concept of Emotional Intelligence

The term “Emotional Intelligence” has its birth in a research paper written by two

psychology professors, John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale in 1990. A few

years later, together with Caruso, a neurosurgeon, they published their theories, findings,

and implications of emotional intelligence in their book " Handbook of Intelligence" in

which they define EI as:

the capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking. It

includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, and of emotions to enhance

thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and

generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional

knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and

intellectual growth. (Sadri, 2012, p. 536)

8

Their model of emotional intelligence is composed of four levels of emotional abilities and

has been accepted by the academic community including the most prestigious universities

such as Yale or New Hampshire.

The first level of their ability model represents the ability to perceive emotion and

includes skills such as recognizing facial expressions in others and interpreting their

meaning.

The second level is the ability to use emotion to facilitate thought and includes

skills such as weighing conflicting emotions against each other to determine how to

react.

The third level is about understanding emotion and involves labeling emotions and

understanding the relationships associated with shifts in emotion.

The fourth level is the ability to manage emotion which enables to effectively deal

with own and others feelings. (Sadri, 2012, p. 536).

To measure these abilities, they created the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Test

(MSCEIT) (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2004).

Their model has been accepted by the academic community, and their test is used in many

leadership development programs.

However, as a business student, I prefer the second most cited model of Emotional

Intelligence, the Goleman’s model due to its a more practical use. Daniel Goleman is a

Ruthers’s psychologist and he was the one who started revealing the importance of EI to

business and leadership. He defines emotional intelligence as:

9

abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations;

to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress

from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope. (Sadri, 2012, p. 537).

His model is composed of five skills areas: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation,

empathy and social skills and there are two tools to measure proposed by Goleman EI’s

competencies: the Emotional Competency Inventory (ECI) and the Emotional and Social

Competency Inventory (ESCI) (Goleman, 1995).

Based on Goleman's insights and his way of "EI's categorization, many other scientists

started to examine these elements of "EI" even deeper. For instance, Elaine Mosakowski

from the University of Colorado, Boulder and LBS professor Christopher Earley focused

on social skills; HBS professor Tarun Khanna in “Contextual Intelligence” on “cognitive

empathy” and its influence on leadership; consultants Susan David and Christina Congleton

in “Emotional Agility” on self-regulation; and Steven Wolff on Marist College and CWR

professor, Vanessa Urch Druskat, on how emotional intelligence is manifested in and

strengthens teams (Ovans, 2015).

Moreover, many authors started to notice a connection between emotional intelligence and

effective leadership. For instance, George claims that leaders with a high level of EI are

able to recognize, predict and manage emotions that enables them to work with a team and

motivate its members (2000). Prati, Douglas, Ferris, Ammeter, and Buckley (2003) in their

work examine the influence of emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness and team

performance. They suggest that EI is crucial for effective team interaction and productivity.

Moreover, they claim that an emotionally intelligent leader has the ability to motivate and

transform team members.

10

Sadri (2012) emphasis that both primary and secondary research looking at the EI of

leaders is emerging. In his work on emotional intelligence and leadership development, he

points out: Cooper and his study on EI classifies emotional literacy, emotional fitness,

emotional depth and emotional alchemy as the “four cornerstones” of high profile business

leaders; Harrison and Clough and their research on fifteen “state of the art” leaders which

shows that one of characteristics leaders possessed was high EI; Barling, Slater and

Kelloway, examining self-reports of leaders and ratings of their leadership by their

subordinates, who found out that EI was associated with three aspects of transformational

leadership (idealized influence, inspirations motivation and individualized consideration).

Higss and Aitken, studying the EI of forty managers who participate in a leadership

development center, who found out that EI is related to a number of aspects of leadership

and they suggest that EI may prove to be a good predictor of leadership potential; Mandell

and Pherwani, examining thirty-two managers working for medium and large organizations

in the U.S, who also found out a significant relationship between transformational

leadership style and EI; The Rosete and Ciarrochii’s investigation on the relationship

between EI, personality, cognitive intelligence and leadership effectiveness on forty-one

executives which proved that EI was associated with higher level of effectiveness and that

EI portrayed variance explained by neither personality nor cognitive ability; Dries and

Pepermans who compared fifty-one high potential manages with fifty-one regular managers

and they found out that EI subscales of assertiveness, independence, optimism, flexibility

and social responsibility separated the high potential managers from regular ones (p. 538)

All of these studies show that there is a link between EI and leadership effectiveness.

Moreover, these results indicate that EI can influence assertiveness, independence,

11

optimism flexibility and social responsibilities, the factors that might lead to better

leadership. Furthermore, above evidence also claims that EI is a separated from personality

or cognitive ability, the factors that also might lead to better leadership. Therefore, EI with

its competencies is a factor itself that can influence leadership and its effectiveness and that

is why I decided to take a closer look on how specific emotional competencies can improve

leadership’ effectiveness.

Emotional Competencies – What are They?

An emotional competence could be defined as "a learned capability based on emotional

intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work while our emotional

intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its

five elements: self – awareness, motivation, self-regulation, empathy, an adeptness in

relationships" (Goleman, 1998, p. 28). The emotional competence framework can be

divided into two groups: personal competence that determines how we manage ourselves

(self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation) and social competence that determines how we

handle relationships (empathy, social skills) (Goleman, 1998). Basing on the explanation of

Goleman in his book "Working with Emotional Intelligence", we can define these traits as

follows:

- self- awareness – knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, and

intuitions which

self-regulation – managing one’s internal states, impulses, and resources

- motivation – emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals

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- empathy – awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns

- social skills – adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others (Goleman, 1998,

p. 32-34)

Thanks to studying hundreds of companies, Daniel Goleman together with Robert Buchele,

a labor economist at Smith College, found out that "the higher the level of the job, the less

important technical skills and cognitive abilities were, and the more importance

competence in emotional intelligence became" (Goleman, 1998, p. 39). It should not be a

surprise that workers who are responsible for getting others to work better by motivating

and inspiring them should be emotionally intelligent. There are many situations where an

improperly chosen manager or a leader who is emotionally blind causes many problems

and a general dissatisfaction among workers. Moreover, differences in levels of possessed

emotional competencies are a factor that differentiates star performances from mediocre

ones. The Goleman's (1998) research shows that "the stars showed significantly greater

strengths in a range of emotional competencies, among them influence, team leadership,

political awareness, self-confidence, and achievement drive. On average, close to 90% of

their success in leadership was attributable to emotional intelligence" (p. 39). However, the

situation is not as easy as one could think because it is not enough to be good at one or two

competencies, for instance just being emphatic and possessing good social skills while not

being able to regulate one's emotions. In order to be an effective leader, a person needs to

stand out in each emotional intelligence area: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation,

empathy and social skills. Only when used together, these competencies could result in an

enormous success (Goleman, 1998). When PepsiCo executives' EI was tested, it came out

that the ones with better scores in at least six competencies from across the entire spectrum

13

were more likely to perform in the top third in salary bonuses for the performance of the

division they led (Goleman, 1998, p. 44). There is not only one recipe for success and for a

perfect combination of these competencies. Every person, every leader is different, with a

specific character, personality, and style of leading, and it depends on him or her in which

competence he or she feels the most confident and in which one he or she will choose to

excel. For the same reason, there are also many leadership styles which need to be adjusted

to a current situation, preferences of a leader and his capabilities and followers' attitudes.

Interestingly, the leadership intelligence (LQ) does not end up on only rational intelligence

(IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ). Besides these two intelligences, there is a third one –

spiritual intelligence (SQ) which is considered to be the ultimate intelligence and the

foundation of both IQ and EO (Gage & Smith, 2016). Spiritual intelligence can be defined

as "the soul's intelligence that integrates our lives, giving us insight into our world,

including organizations and it allows us to dream, visualize and connect to a meaningful

purpose in life which has the transformative potential to develop leaders and those around

them” (Gage & Smith, 2016, p. 4).

14

Figure 1.

Ronthy’s Model of Leader Intelligence (Ronthy, 2014, p. 30).

Therefore, I agree with Ronthy (2014) that "effective leadership intelligence (LQ) is

constituted by leaders being able to manage their own and other's emotions (EQ), their

ability to reason and make logical decisions (IQ), and their abilities to follow their passions

and express their desires (SQ). Each organization has its own needs, however, the most

efficient and effective way to succeed is to find a golden mean between cognition, emotion,

and spirituality. Research (Gage & Smith, 2016) shows that all these three intelligence are

essential for effective leadership. Therefore, we can agree that having high IQ, EQ, and SQ

influence our leadership and the improvement in any of these can enhance our skills and

performance as a leader.

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Chapter Two

Leadership

What is Leadership?

There has been much debate about leadership nowadays. Many scientists try to define

necessary traits for a perfect leader. However, similarly as with Emotional Intelligence, the

term "leadership" is vague and itself hard to define. There are many schools of thought and

definitions of leadership.

According to Cole (1997), we could define leadership as a dynamic process within a group

where an individual (a leader) influences others (followers) to contribute voluntarily to the

achievement of group task in a given situation. A similar definition can be found in a

textbook “Organizational Behavior” written by Robbins and Judge (2011) where authors

define leadership as “the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or

set of goals” (p. 490). They also differentiated leadership from management by saying that

management is about coping with complexity while leadership is about coping with change.

Furthermore, they characterized leaders as the ones “who establish direction by developing

a vision of the future; then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring

them to overcome hurdles” (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 491). The history of leadership is

very broad and rich, and we had had leaders long time before we have started to define this

concept. Buddha, Napoleon or even Hitler can be mentioned as great leaders. Each of them

was successful in a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals. Moreover, all

of them were similar in such traits they possessed.

16

In the 1960s, researchers started to look at leadership in the context of traits of leaders and

they came up with leadership trait theories that consider "personal qualities and

characteristics that differentiate leaders from non-leaders" (Robbins & Judge, 2011). When

researchers started to organized traits around the Big Five Personality Model (extraversion,

agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience), they

found out that "most of the dozens of traits in various leadership reviews fit under one of

the Big Five (ambition and energy are part of extraversion, for instance), giving strong

support to traits as predictors of leadership" (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Studies show that

extraversion is the most important trait of leaders, especially strongly related to leader

emergence and a little bit behind it, there are conscientiousness and openness to experience

(Robbins & Judge, 2011).

While trait theories of leadership provide a basis for selecting the right people for leaders,

behavioral theories of leadership, which propose that specific behaviors differentiate

leaders from non-leaders, imply that we could train people to be leaders. The two

dimensions of leader behavior are initiating structure which is "the extent to which a leader

is likely to define and structure his or her role and those of subordinates in the search for

goal attainment" and consideration which is "the extent to which a leader is likely to have a

job relationships characterized by mutual trust, respect for subordinates' ideas, and regard

for their feelings” (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 501). . Synonymous to these two dimensions

is a distinction between a production-oriented leader, who emphasis technical or task

aspects of the job and an employee-oriented leader, who emphasizes interpersonal relations,

takes a personal interest in the needs of employees, and accepts individual differences

among members (Robbins & Judge, 2011).

17

In the mid-twentieth century, researchers came up with contingency theories which focused

on situational influences. The most known is the Fridler contingency model which assumes

that "effective groups depend on a proper match between a leader's style of interacting and

the degree to which the situation gives control and influence to the leader" (Robbins &

Judge, 2011, p. 503). Firstly, a situation needs to be defined taking into consideration

leader-member relations, task structure, and position power and then, we change the leader

to fit the situation or we change the situation to fit the leader. However, this and other

contingency theories such as situational leadership theory, path-goal theory or leader-

participation model give us a homogenous style of leadership with everyone and as we

know, everybody is different as are the relationships between a leader and different

followers. Thus, a more individualistic approach is necessary for real life.

Transformational leadership is a contemporary leadership theory that views leaders as

individuals who inspire followers through their words, ideas, and behaviors (Robbins &

Judge, 2011). The earlier theories that I mentioned were about transactional leaders who

"guide their followers toward established goals by clarifying role and task requirements"

and transformational leaders "inspire followers to transcend their self-interests for the good

of the organization and can have an extraordinary effect on followers" (Robbins & Judge,

2011, p. 512).

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Figure 2.

Transactional and Transformational Styles of Leadership (Bass, 1990, p. 22)

CHARACTERISTICS OF TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL

LEADERS

Transactional Leader

Contingent Reward: Contracts exchange of rewards for effort, promises rewards for good

performance, recognizes accomplishments.

Management by Exception (active): Watches and searches for deviations from rules and

standards, takes the correct action.

Management by Exception (passive): Intervenes only if standards are not met.

Laissez-Faire: Abdicates responsibilities, avoids making decisions.

Transformational Leader

Idealized Influence: Provides vision and sense of mission, instills pride, gains respect and

trust

Inspirational Motivation: Communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts,

express important purposes in simple ways.

Intellectual Stimulation: Promotes intelligence, rationality, and careful problem-solving.

Individualized Consideration: Gives personal attention, treats each employee individually,

coaches, advises.

Transactional and transformational leadership complement each other and transformational

leadership “builds on transactional leadership and produces levels of follower effort and

performance beyond what transactional leadership alone can do” (Robbins & Judge, 2011,

p. 520).

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However, the best leaders are transactional and transformational (Robbins & Judge, 2011).

Transactional leadership is more often used in the business environment especially in sales

departments (Bass, 1990). However, it is shown that transformational leadership is more

effective in achieving desired outcomes (Mackenzie, Rich & Podsakoff, 2001).

Transactional Leadership, also known as managerial leadership, implies itself that there

needs to be some kind of a transaction between parties. In this style of leadership, a leader

proposes to his followers a reward in exchange for desired action or a punishment in case

of a failure. Basically, if performance goals are met then an employee can expect that he

will get a reward in form of a bonus, commission or incentive. Here, the leader promotes

compliance and good performance through both rewards and punishments. This kind of

leadership is easy to implement and understand, however in some more complicated

situations not good enough. Taking into consideration an organization in which there is a

big pressure, sometimes an additional money, with already a high salary, is not tempting

enough to evoke a bigger commitment or encouragement. Therefore, a performance in the

environment of salespeople, where moments of doubts and discouragement are often, the

perspective of additional effort and time is not worth extra money. Sometimes, salespeople

just prefer to come back to home with less money in their pocket than staying after hours in

order to sell (or not) more. In this scenario, a leader should include transformational

leadership because only with these four styles leaders can motivate followers “to perform

above expectations and transcend their self-interest for the sake of organization.

Individualized consideration, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, and

idealized influence all result in extra effort from workers, higher productivity, higher

20

morale and satisfaction, higher organizational effectiveness, lower turnover, lower

absenteeism, and greater organizational adaptability” (Robbins & Judge, 2011).

A transformational leader is a person who stimulates and inspires (transforms) followers to

achieve extraordinary outcomes. He or she can be characterized as the one who leads with

raw enthusiasm, inspires rather than orders and directs, facilitates intellectual and emotional

stimulation, and possesses and infects others with a strong vision, remembering about

nurturing relationships with their followers (Prati, Douglas & Ferris, 2003).

Moreover, Goleman in his book “Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional

Intelligence” (2002) explained that a good leader should inspire us through tapping into and

working through our emotions.

What is Followership?

Undoubtedly, there can be no leaders without followers. They coexist and their role is

interdependent. Research shows that followers not only influence the results of leaders'

performance but their roles account for eighty percent of an organization's success (Kelley,

1992) How followers respond are the results of how effective leaders are in their way of

being and leading. In order to be successful, good leaders should teach followers how to be

good followers (Oyetunji, 2013). In order to do that leaders should be aware of types of

followers and know how to influence and motivate each of them. Kelly(1988) divided a

follower’s behavior into two dimensions: independent, critical thinking versus dependent,

uncritical thinking and active versus passive. A dependent, uncritical thinker does what a

leader tells him or her to do. An independent, uncritical thinker is ready to give a

21

constructive criticism even in spite of consequences (Oyetunji, 2013). Active followers are

more willing to take an initiative, participate in decision makings and do not need a

constant feedback from the leader. Passive followers on the other hand, rather wait to be

told what to do. Moreover, Kelly (1992) identified five basic styles of followership that

define to what extent one dimension preponderates over another: alienated, passive,

conformist, pragmatist and exemplary. Alienated followers are rather passive but

independent and critical thinkers which makes them very cynical towards an organization.

They often show their negative feelings and usually, they are perceived as nonconformists.

Leaders should know how to deal with their dissatisfaction and how to improve their

performance by increasing their motivation and engagement. Passive followers are also

passive in their role but they are dependent, uncritical thinkers who encumber leaders with

thinking for them. They are neither creative nor ambitious and are more likely to

experience job fatigue (Kelly, 1988). Passive followers are unenthusiastic, easy to

manipulate, not effective followers. Conformists are easily agreeable with followers and are

ready to do anything in order to keep with them a good contact. They rather are not critical

thinkers but they are active in their roles and often try to maintain a good atmosphere at the

workplace. Like passive followers, conformists slack enthusiasm, self-confidence,

creativity, initiative, courage, and ambition but at least, they are loyal to an organization

(Oyetunji, 2012). Exemplary followers are independent, critical thinkers who are in a

position of criticizing or even withdrawing of their support for a leader that is incompetent.

They promote justice and friendly relations with everybody in their organization.

Mushonga and Torrance (2008) argued that they are managers' best assets and often, they

complement and ease leaders' efforts. Pragmatic followers show a self-preservative

behavior. They are the mix of all styles mentioned above and they choose which one suits

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for them the best depending on a given situation. They rarely question leaders and almost

never show additional effort; they act to just survive (Oyetunji, 2012).

Kelly (1988) also pointed out the main differences between effective and ineffective

followers such as awareness of own goals, a unique commitment to the organization, a

desire to do better, courage, openness, honesty, enthusiasm, intelligence, and self-reliance.

Research shows that exemplary followers share all these attributes (Oyetunji, 2013).

However, in real life, we deal with followers who are mixes of few styles and attributes of

followership. The styles of followership also change depending on different situations.

That is why it is very hard for a leader to choose the best way of leading followers and that

is why there are many styles of leadership and the best leaders mix them all to be the most

efficient. However, it seems to me that understanding followership and its styles, leaders

not only can better understand their followers and choose the best style of leadership in

order to effectively influence and motivate but by knowing them well, they can also choose

the best style of coaching and teach them how to be good followers which can boost

general performance even more.

Furthermore, I think that it is worth to mention that like in any area of interactions, people

react differently because they are just different and unique in the way they exist and

behave. Each person has their own history and own emotional background that shapes our

way of being and ability to collaborate with others.

Following Asforth and Humprey (1995) who argued that emotions are inseparable from

organization's work settings, we can say that a leaders task is not only to acknowledge these

differences between people in organization and their emotions, but most of all, it is their

ability to recognize and to skillfully maneuver of them in the desired direction. Sometimes

23

emotions can impede situations, however, if a leader understands them and can manage

them, emotions can turn out to be a helpful tool and facilitate many processes.

Considering a fact that all employees are different, with different dreams, aspirations, and

motives, a good leader should be aware that he or she needs to use different styles of

leadership, appropriately chosen for a given individual, group, organization, and situation.

The research (Goleman, 2000) shows that leaders with the best results do not rely on only

one leadership style, “they use most of them in a given week seamlessly and in different

measure” (p. 16).

Art of Leadership

According to the textbook written by Robbins and Judge (2011) emotions are "intense

feelings that are directed at someone or something" (p. 239). They are specific and

numerous in nature (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise). They are caused by

a specific event and very brief in duration, usually accompanied by distinct facial

expressions. Also, emotions are action-oriented in nature so, they may lead to some

immediate action (Robbins & Judge, 2011). The fact is that we need emotions to

understand what is going around us. By studying brain injuries, researchers found out that

losing the ability to feel emotions led to a loss of ability to reason, which means that

emotions are a valuable source of information which helps us to reason (Robbins & Judge,

2011). However, we must remember that sometimes when emotions are too intense, we can

lose control and act irrationally. Therefore, it is very important that a person can understand

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and control his or her emotions. Only then, they can provide useful insights which can

assist in our rational thinking.

Affective events theory (AET) suggests that "workplace events cause the emotional

reaction on the part of employees, which then influence workplace attitudes behaviors"

(Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 241). A good leader should know that emotions can provide a

useful insight into a workplace and that by uplifting employees, their satisfaction and

performance can be improved. That is why it is very important for an organization to have a

leader who exhibits a high EI. Research shows that maintaining good moods and emotions

of employees can boost employees’ decision making, creativity, customer service and job

attitude (Robbins & Judge). Moreover, effective leaders use emotions to convey their

messages and influence their followers. Furthermore, “when leaders feel excited,

enthusiastic, and active, they may be more likely to energize their subordinates and convey

a sense of efficacy, competence, optimism, and enjoyment” (George, 2000, p. 1033)

One could wonder why the behavior of leaders matters that much. To answer this question,

many scientists started to examine how moods of leaders influence a whole organization.

To the primal surprise of everyone, and then to admit that actually, it makes sense, it came

out that the leader’s mood and behaviors drive the moods of everyone else (Goleman,

Boyatzis, McKee; 2001). For example in a company where a leader is arrogant, unable to

adapt and bad in teamwork, we can sense a toxic atmosphere where everybody feels

anxious. On the other hand, in a company that is led by a positive, inspirational leader, we

can see the totally different environment, full of optimism, positive attitude and good

relationships. The well-being of workers and a friendly culture of a workplace is a key for a

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good performance of a company. That is why a leader should be aware that his mood is a

very important factor that decides about a loss or a profit for the whole organization.

Taking into consideration that the leader's mood is very contagious and spread very fast

throughout the organization, it is crucial that a leader manages his or her own personal life

and himself in a good way in order to display good emotions and leadership style in his

workplace. It seems to me that in order to do that, he or she needs to possess a high level of

EI because no internal work with own emotions and no external work with emotions of

others can be done without self – awareness, self – regulation, motivation, empathy and

social skills, all competencies of emotional intelligence.

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Chapter Three

What Makes a Leader?

George (2000) reasoned that the emotionally intelligent leader can accurately assess others’

emotions and constructively influence those emotions so that team members will embrace

change. She (George, 2000) listed four aspects of EI that enable leaders to motivate and

transform followers:

1) Ability to accurately recognize others as well as personal emotions, allowing for

building and maintain good relationships with subordinates

2) Ability to predict emotional responses in different situations that shows an

outstanding knowledge about emotions

3) Ability to regulate own emotions which helps in maintaining good social

contacts with other which on the other hand have a positive effect on

performance.

4) Ability to manage emotions and direct own and others responses. (p. 1042)

All of these competencies have their roots in identified by Goleman (1995) aspects of

emotional intelligence that I described earlier: self-awareness, self-motivation, empathy and

emotional management. These aspects are crucial to establish strong emotional

relationships with members of a team or an organization and to effectively manage them.

Furthermore, the greater leaders' EI is, the better they manage these emotional relationships

and the more effective they are in their performance. (Goleman, 1995; George, 2000).

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Self – Awareness

A good leader should be aware of his emotions and the way he responds to them.

Moreover, an emotionally intelligent leader should maintain awareness in regards to the

way he behaves (Brown, 2014). Goleman in his book "Primal Leadership" (2013) argued

that in order to be aware of our emotions, firstly, we need to recognize them. Self-

recognition allows us to catch early our emotions and either give them power or constrain

to avoid a potential conflict with others. It is important for a leader-follower relationship

because it enables leaders to identify and solve emotional issues before they take over the

performance objectives of the organization (Brown, 2014). Moreover, self-aware leaders

are more effective in influencing and changing their own, as well as others', behaviors

(Brown, 2014). People will not follow a leader who has problems with his emotions since

he will not be an authority for them. Brown (2014) argues that according to Bradberry and

Greaves, self-awareness is highly linked to the performance of a leader, followers, and

organization as a whole and it has been noted that eighty-three percent of people who

possess a high sense of self-awareness are rated as top performers while only two percent

as bottom performers. This high percentage could be due to the fact that also self-aware

leaders have a better understanding of motivational triggers and are most likely to achieve

their goals as well as motivate others to do the same since they sense what drive others and

motives them (Brown, 2014).

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Self – Management

Following our previous discussion about self-awareness, we can assume that a none self –

aware person is not in a position to control their own emotions since she or he fails in

recognizing and understanding them. Goleman et al. (2013) argued that such a person will

lose control of their emotions when they only appear. A leader who is unable to control his

emotions such as anger, rage or anxiety will not only be consumed by them being unable to

focus on a given task but also will fail to recognize and control emotions of others his or

her group. On the other hand, a leader who is successful in managing his emotions and

displays positive emotions such as optimism, excitement and engagement will not only be

effective in managing and sustaining this positive energy but also he or she will "infect"

others with these emotions due to a contingency effect of positivity (Goleman et al, 2013).

Many scientists agreed that positive mood can facilitate innovative thinking and provide a

supportive atmosphere at a workplace. Taking into consideration the fact that a leader is at

the top of the hierarchy of a company, we can assume that his or her behavior reaches all

employees under him.

Brigita Wistrand, the CEO of a Swedish company, asked by Goleman (1998) in his book

"Working with Emotional Intelligence" about leadership, she put it as " Leadership is

giving energy" (p. 126). Psychologists discovered a long time ago that emotions are

contagious and are spread from the most expressive person in a group. Considering that

people in organizations spend the most of time looking for the leader during meetings and

gatherings, it is obvious that they will be affected by their moods. Moreover, to show their

approval and affection, followers tend to mimic and copy leaders' behaviors (Goleman et

al., 2013). Therefore, charismatic and emotionally intelligent leaders who exhibit a high

29

level of positive energy are not only more liked by their followers but also they are much

more successful since this energy spreads through the organization influencing everybody.

The more positive the mood of a leader, the more positive, helpful, and cooperative are

those in a group (Brown, 2014). Furthermore, the positive emotion of the leader inspires

members to perform with more enthusiasm which means better results (Brown, 2014).

It is also worth saying that "energy does not lie" and only if a leader is sincere and the

message goes from his heart with good intentions, it becomes powerful and convinces

followers. At this point, it is very easy to distinguish between a charismatic and

manipulative leader. To be a charismatic messenger, the leader must act from the authentic

belief (Wasilewski 1985). Furthermore, the transformational leader’s moral obligation is a

product of a leader's charismatic authority and ability, which Wasilewski (1985) argued

only can be obtained by the emotionally intelligent person.

Social Awareness

Social awareness could be defined as a person's ability to understand his or her emotional

surroundings, moods and emotions of others as well as a general atmosphere in which he or

she function. Goleman (1995, 1998, 2013) in his all books refer to this ability as empathy

which is defined by a dictionary (The Oxford Dictionary, 2012) as "the ability to

understand and share the feelings of another". As we can assume, this is very important for

the leader/follower relationship since it enables a leader to understand how his followers

feel and assist them in a need which can later help in building a trust in teams and provide a

30

sense of community. Moreover, it could result in good relationships and positive

atmosphere in the workplace which have a positive effect on performance.

Relationship Management

As I discussed earlier, empathy enables leaders to attune with feelings of his followers

which help in building trustful relationships. These relationships and management of them

are very important since it can foster positive interactions and exchanges effectively

between a leader and a follower/followers (Brown, 2014). A leader who has a good contact

with his team has a better influence on teamwork, can be seen as a mentor and inspire

others enhancing the same better outcomes for them.

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Chapter Four

Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

It is easy to notice in everyday company’s situations which leader is emotionally intelligent

and which is not. For example, in stressful situations that are usual for a business life, a

successful leader handles a stress well, he remains calm and he is still confident even when

a real threat occurs because he knows that only calm can save a situation. On the other

hand, an unsuccessful leader is fully influenced by a pressure of the situation and react with

moodiness, often portraying his anger to his subordinates. Most often also the unsuccessful

leader does not take responsibility for his actions and takes criticism very personally while

the successful leader treats a failure as a lesson and takes action to solve the problem. There

are no doubts that these behaviors have an impact on a trust between leaders and workers

because no subordinate would show a trust and belief in a leader who is not reliable and

who often puts his own well-being above others and an organization.

At this point, we understand basic concepts about leadership and emotional intelligence.

We know how an emotionally intelligent person behaves and what are the major benefits of

it. To present my final point of view of why I see the link between leadership and

emotionally intelligent, I would like to show this dependence from the beginning - a

leader’s emergence to the end – a leader’s success.

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Figure 3.

Emotional Intelligence Domains and Associated Competencies (Goleman et al. 2013, p. 39)

PERSONAL COMPETENCE: These capabilities determine how we manage ourselves

Self-awareness

- Emotional self-awareness: Reading one’s own emotions and recognizing their

impact; using “gut sense” to guide decisions

- Accurate self-assessment: Knowing one’s strengths and limits

- Self-confidence: A sound sense of one’s self worth and capabilities

Self-management

- Emotional self-control: Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control

- Transparency: Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness

- Adaptability: Flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming obstacles

- Achievement: The drive to improve performance to meet inner standards of

excellence

- Initiative: Readiness to act and seize opportunities

- Optimism: Seeing the upside in events

SOCIAL COMPETENCE: These capabilities determine how we manage relationships

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Social awareness

- Empathy: Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective and takinf

active interest in their concerns

- Organizational awareness: Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at

the organizational level

- Service: Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs

Relationship management

- Inspirational leadership: guiding and motivating with a compelling vision

- Influence: Wielding a range of tactics for persuasion

- Developing others: Bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and guidance

- Change catalyst: Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction

- Conflict management: Resolving disagreements

- Building bonds: Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships

- Teamwork and collaboration: Cooperation and team building

Above table presents EI domains and its competencies with definitions and it created by

Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2013). I decided to combine these specifically EI attributes

with three main traits of leaders from the Big Five Personality Model to show how these

factors correlate with each other.

Extraversion which is the most related trait to leader emergence (Robbins &Judge, 2011) is

highly associated with Emotional Intelligence since extraverted people like to be around

other people and are in position of asserting themselves. It seems to me that this ability is

either synonymous to having well developed social competencies or is a result of

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possessing them, which could mean that only an emotionally intelligent person can be

extraverted person which makes him a leader. If “the extraversion dimension captures our

comfort level with relationships” (Robbins & Judge, 2011, p. 502) then it means that a

leader should possess well developed competencies from the forth domain of EI which

includes inspirational leadership, developing others, change catalyst, conflict management,

building bonds, and teamwork and collaboration (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2013). At

this point, it should be mentioned that all four domains of emotional intelligence are closely

intertwined, with a dynamic relationship among them and EI leadership builds up from a

foundation of self-awareness (Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee, 2013) which means that only a

person who exhibits strengths in more than less competencies started from the EI’s first

domain of self-awareness, through the EI’s second domain of self-management, to the EI’s

third domain of social awareness can be able to exhibit competencies from the EI’s forth

domain of relationship management, assuming the same that only an emotionally intelligent

person can feel comfort with relationship which makes the most important trait for

becoming a leader.

Furthermore, sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group

situations, but leaders need to make sure they are not too assertive – one study found

leaders who scored very high on assertiveness were less effective than those who were

moderately high (Robbins & Judge, 2011) which brings other EI’s domain in light – social

awareness with a strong emphasis on organizational awareness and empathy. Only a person

who is organizationally aware and can read the currents and politics at the organizational

level know to what degree, she or he can be assertive in a given organization. Moreover, by

sensing other’s emotions, understanding their perspective and taking active interest in their

35

concern, a good leader knows when it is appropriate to be less or more assertive. It is also

worth to mentioning that the last competency of social awareness – service, which is

recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee,

2013) is a foundation of servant leaders which are a servant first. Moreover, they need to

exhibit a high level of empathy, which is another competency of EI, in order to serve

others.

Conscientiousness, which is a second in the most important traits from “Big Five Model”

for leadership seems to me also very dependent on the level of EI a leader possess. I believe

that a good discipline, which allows us to be conscientious (responsible, organized,

dependable and persistent) arises from an accurate self-assessment which is one of four

competencies of self-awareness, one of four domains of EI. Without knowing our strengths

and limits, we are unable to properly assess ourselves which can provide to overrating our

abilities, which on the other hand can provide to not enough discipline (considering our real

capabilities) that is necessary to accomplish a given task. Moreover, keeping

commitments not only demands a strong discipline but also it is necessary that a leader has

a self-confidence. The leader who lack a sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities

will have a problem with accomplishment of a task due to possible doubts in himself of

herself or not enough faith in himself or herself in case of possible difficulties or

complications. People are more likely to follow someone who is confident because she or

he is going in the right direction (Robbins & Judge, 2011). It means that in order to be

conscientious, a person need to possess a strong sense of self-awareness, the most basic

domain of EI. Besides strong self-awareness competencies, a leader who is or wants to be

conscientious is more likely to have a strong drive to improve performance in order to meet

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inner standard excellence, a strong motivation, which is an emotional competency of self-

management.

Openness to experience, which is the third and the last the most important traits for

leadership is the sum of all emotional competencies since only a self-aware leader can have

enough “healthy” confidence to be open to new experiences without overrating his

capabilities. Moreover, only a leader who is able to self-mange himself is in position to

keep disruptive emotions and fears of the unknown under control and be motivated and

optimistic. I think that also well-developed social awareness and relationship management

skills determine how open a leader is since a leader with good social competencies is

confident of his position and his relationships with other which results in his openness and

optimism for new and unknown experiences.

If traits can predict leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2011) and three most important traits of

leaders– extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience show the strong

relationships to EI’s competencies, we could assume that the level of EI can predict

leadership.

However, the trait research (Robbins & Judge, 2011) suggest that traits do a better job

predicting the emergence of leaders and the appearance of leadership than actually

distinguishing between effective and ineffective leaders. Thus in this case, Emotional

Intelligence tests would be the most useful to evaluate if a person has potential to become a

leader rather if he or she will be a successful one.

Considering behavior theories of leadership, I see a strong link between consideration and

emotional intelligence. An employee-oriented leader who puts his employees and

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relationships with them first, must be a highly empathic person. He or she needs to be

sensitive and understanding in order to take an active interest in concerns of his followers.

Moreover, an acceptance of differences among members and an interest in needs of

followers means that a leader must be respectful for his followers and it demands a mutual

trust among members. In some cases, it happens that some leaders use empathy for

manipulative reasons however a good leader never pretends because he or she does not

have to since he or she, most probably, already has built good relationships and bonds with

colleagues, and his or her integrity does not allow for such actions.

Trust, which can be defined as “a positive expectation that another will not act

opportunistically” (Robbins & Judge, 2016) is a primary attribute associate with leadership

and breaking it can result in serious adverse effects on a group’s performance. Trust from

followers, give a leader access to their knowledge and enables cooperation with team

members, which leads to a better performance of a team. It encourages taking risks,

facilitates information sharing, enhances productivity and trusting groups are more

effective (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Moreover, only subordinates who trust their leader will

follow him. In the book “Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Loose It, and Why People

Demand It” by Kouzes & Posner, we can read: “Honesty is absolutely essential to

leadership. If people are going to follow someone willingly, whether it be onto battle or

into the boardroom, they first want to assure themselves that the person is worthy of their

trust” (Robbins & Judge, 2016, p. 540). Research shows that there are three key

characteristics that allow followers to believe that a leader is trustworthy: integrity, which

refers to honesty and truthfulness; benevolence, which is having others’ interests always at

heart and ability, which is an individual’s technical and interpersonal knowledge (Robbins

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& Judge, 2011). I want to notice here that two of three components of trust: integrity and

benevolence are strictly results of a leader’s transparency, which is competency of self-

management, the second domain of EI. Only a leader who displays honesty, even in

ambiguous and difficult situations, can be defined as a trustful and caring person. Ability

also seems to be somehow linked to EI since only a self-aware person can properly assess

her or his abilities.

Moreover, integrity combined with well-developed social skills can guarantee good

relationships with subordinates and good atmosphere in workplace..

All these three characteristics, which have their foundations in EI enable for an emotional

bond between leaders and followers, which as we know is crucial for a follower-leader

relationship.

Considering Fridler contingency model, in order to define a situation, a leader needs to

evaluate the degree of confidence, trust, and respect of his or her followers. I think that it

demands skills especially in two domains of EI : self-awareness and social-awareness. A

leader should assess himself or herself accurately and sense what others feel and think if he

or she wants to know in what situation he or she found himself or herself.

Considering charismatic leadership and transformational leadership, we can assume they

are roughly equivalent in practice. However, transformational leadership is broader than

charismatic leadership but a leader who scores high on transformational leadership is also

likely to score high on charisma (Robbins & Judge, 2011). Both charismatic and

transformational leaders are likely to be extraverted, self-confident, and achievement

orientated. I would like to notice here that all of these traits are strongly linked with

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emotional intelligence. Extraversion which I discussed earlier falls under the forth domain

of EI: relationship management. Self-confidence is an emotional competency that classifies

under the first EI’s domain: self-awareness and achievement is a competency of self-

management, the second domain of EI. There has been a big debate if charismatic leaders

are born or made. The answer is that individuals are born with these traits but it can also be

learned. According to trait theories of leadership, we can test these traits in process of

selecting leaders and according to behavioral theories of leadership, we can train people in

these traits to make them leaders. In both cases, we could use emotional intelligence tests

and/or emotional intelligence development programs.

Furthermore, Barling, Slater and Kelloway (2000) agreed that emotional intelligence is

strongly associated with idealized influence, individualized focus, and inspirational

motivation – the tree attributes of transformational leadership.

“To provide vision and sense of mission, instil pride, gain respect and trust” (Bass, 1985, p.

22), which is idealized influence, a leader need to excel in relationship management

competencies such inspirational leadership and influence as well as in self-management

competence of transparency to gain respect and trust.

“To communicates high expectations, uses symbols to focus efforts, expresses important

purposes in simple ways” (Bass, 1985, p. 22), which is inspirational motivation, a leader

needs to be himself highly motivated which is result of good self-management skills. He or

she also should possess good social and communication skills.

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“To give personal attention, treat each employee individually, coach, advise” (Bass, 1985,

p. 22), which is individualized consideration, a leader needs to exhibit strong skills in social

competences such as empathy, service and developing others.

All of transformational leadership’s “prerequisites” that I just mentioned are naturally

competencies of EI, which make me again to admit that without EI, it would be impossible

to become a transformational leader.

We should also remember that a relationship between leaders and their teams is an

emotional one (Hoffman & Frost, 2006) and that is why I agree with Goleman et al. (2013)

that “great leadership works through the emotions”. Great leaders lead through emotions

and it is what makes them successful. Moreover, Daniel Kahnman’s research, a Princeton

University psychologists who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in

2012, demonstrated that people make decisions first for emotional reasons and then

secondly for rational reasons (Town, 2014) which means that sometimes we react rather

emotionally than rationally. It shows how important is emotional knowledge and that both

head and heart are crucial for an effective leader, which allows me to suggest that EI can be

used as a good predictor for a leader’s success.

Since EI could predict a leader’s emergence and his or her success, I would also like to

present how enhancing of EI could be related to leadership development practices.

According to Conger (2004) there are four approaches to leadership development: personal

development, conceptual understanding, feedback and skills building. Sadri (2012) showed

his understanding of how four approaches integrate with Goleman’s EI’s competencies as

follows: personal growth integrate with self-awareness (both focusing on developing

greater awareness of self), feedback with self-regulation (where feedback on leader helps

41

him or her to recognize his abilities and then, to manage his or her resources) and skills

building helps to develop social skills (p. 542). I agree that there is a strong link between

these factors and enhancing each of them are synonymously to enhancing its EI’s

equivalents, thus improving leaders’ capabilities.

Moreover, the recent study presents six themes that constitute “practice-based definitions of

effective leadership and leader development” and include full-commitment, people

orientation, education, difficult challenges, communication and ethics (Sadri, 2012, p. 42).

The link between these themes and EI could be as follows: people orientation with social

skills (both involve getting the most from others), communication with empathy (empathy

enables effective communication), ethical behavior with self-awareness (being aware of

how a leader should behave) and with self-regulation (being able to control his impulses to

stay true to his or her values) (Sadri, 2012, p. 542).

As we can see, three out of four leadership development categories integrate with three out

of five EI competencies and three out of six effective leadership themes integrate with four

out of five EI competencies (Sadri, 2012), which is a strong argument that EI plays a key

role in developing better leaders.

If leadership development programs are composed of improving set of skills that overlap

with emotional intelligence competencies, it means that improving these emotional

intelligence skills can result in a more effective leadership. Concluding, if the programs aim

at enhancing these competencies, it also means that they influence leadership, which means

that a level of a leader’s emotional intelligence can have an impact on his or her leadership.

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I would like also suggest here that in all development programs global issues should be

considered. Nowadays, it happens very often that a leader is sent to another country or he

or she has multicultural teams to lead. Thus, it is very important leaders are aware of

possible differences in emotional expressions and leadership styles usage between cultures.

Considering different cultures and emotions, people from all over the world interpret both

positive and negative emotions in a similar way. They try to avoid negative emotions such

hate, rage and view them as destructive while they desire to experience positive emotions

such love, joy and happiness. What differs across cultures is the degree to which people

experience emotions and the norms for the expression of emotions (Robbins & Judge,

2011). People in all nations experience both positive and negative emotions but in different

frequencies and intensities. For example, people in China are much more restrained in

showing what they feel and they experience fewer positive emotions than people in other

parts of the world. It can mean for leaders that some people from different cultures can be

harder to please and evoke positive moods. Also, since these people are less showy in their

emotional expressions, it can be harder for leaders to read their followers’ emotions and

handle them. Moreover, each culture has its own norms of expressing emotions. In some

countries, mostly in collectivist ones, people treat and interpret everything in view of a

relationship between each other while in individualistic countries, people do not think that

emotional expressions of others are directed at them (Robbins & Judge, 2011). It is very

important for leaders to be aware that some employees treat everything personally and

others do not care about it that much. It can influence the relationship between a leader and

a follower and a good leader should be able to recognize with whom they can have an

emotionally distant relationship and with whom a more easy-going one.

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Generally, people easier recognize emotions of people from the same culture (Robbins &

Judge, 2011) as they are and it enables a closer, more empathic relation between them.

However, leaders should remember that employees from others culture can interpret

differently their messages and should adjust actions that everybody feels comfortable and

understands what is going on. I would suggest leaders to do a good research about culture

he or she is going to lead or take a special training about cultural differences.

If it comes to leadership, the situation looks more complex. The analysis of GLOBE (the

Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) revealed that different

countries could have different approaches to leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2011). For

instance, in Brazil employees were more team oriented, participative and humane thus,

leaders high on consideration would be valued. In France, leaders should be task oriented

since a more bureaucratic system is used there. In Egypt, people are more team-oriented

and participative than U.S however, there is a high power distance culture so a leader

should clearly differentiate himself or herself from his or her followers. China’s employees

are naturally high performance oriented but also very polite and unselfish which could

suggest a moderately participative leadership (Robbins & Judge, 2011).

All of the above shows that leaders need to take culture into consideration when they lead

multinational teams since there is some variations across countries. However, studies

(Robbins & Judge, 2011) shows that transformational leadership are associated with

effective leadership, regardless of the country, being the most effective in higher in power

distance and collectivistic cultures. As with emotions, leadership has some universal

aspects which can be follow in every country but considering possible variations, it is

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always better for a leader to treat each situation individually and adjust the best, unique

way of leading for it.

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Conclusion

At first, thinking about EI and leadership I was driven by my intuitive appeal that these two

must be somehow connected. I was thinking about who lead on the streets, who lead in

kinder gardens or who lead in politics and all of these people were differently smart. Maybe

they were rationally intelligent but it was not what differs them from others, it was

something else. I could be guessing if it was street smartness, charisma or social skills and

then all of my clues brought me to one thing – emotions. All of these people could detect

emotions, in some way control them and use them for their benefit, Independently if it was

done by Hitler, a crying to her mother baby or a frightening thief, actions caused by these

people invoke in others emotional triggers which influence how they reacted. When I

started to read more about EI and its physiological origin, I found out that the amygdala, a

small almond-shaped part in our brain, is responsible for emotional responses like love, fear

or sexual desire and long ago, it was our the only one “thinking” machine. Now, we life in

the civilized world and thanks to evolution, our brains became more complex as our

thinking did. However, in some situations, especially stressful ones, we come back to the

old “thinking” method and we react impulsively on an emotional basis because it is our

survival mode – fight or flight. Therefore, it is crucial to understand that sometimes,

especially in a business, when we face difficult or threatening circumstances, we will be led

by emotions. And here I think there is this huge secret of those great leaders that they do

not allow themselves to be led by emotions but they lead through them. I think that

nowadays, it is the greatest assets for a leader to possess a high level of Emotional

Intelligence since emotions are inseparable from our lives. Considering the fact that this is a

biological concept and it is very hard to not be consumed by own emotions, it is naturally

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what differs great leaders from mediocre ones. Some of them either thanks to genetics or

proper training are superior in controlling, reading and influencing emotions of others and

this is what makes them successful in the business world.

There was a lot of research done by biologists, psychologists, academics and business

people on EI, and I cannot agree that it is still too young field to discuss and to speculate

about relationships and influences that EI can have with other factors. I also think that

saying that EI is too vague concept to consider and examine is somehow closing us for

innovation, self-knowledge and mastery of us as a civilization. We evolve; we develop as

human beings so it seems naturally to me that the more and more considerations arise and

yes, it makes things more complicated and ambiguous. It is hard to classify everything

since some aspects are unique and individual like we, human beings, are and that is why it

can be not that easy to measure it. Furthermore, emotions have their roots deep in human

psyche both individualistically and collectively and that is why a lot of things are important

to consider and measure which make thing harder but not impossible. There are already a

lot of tests that measure EI available which enable for a deeper exploration of the topic. I

also think that there is enough evidence that differentiate personality and IQ from EI and

validity of EI should not be any longer in suspect.

Considering criticism whether EI is a form of intelligence, we can find many authors like

Mayer, Salovey and Caruso who defends EI and say that EI meets three criteria that make it

a form of intelligence: firstly, EI tests can provide correct answers; secondly, EI correlates

modestly with other intelligences; thirdly, EI develops with age (Sadri, 2012). However, to

all of sceptics who still think that EI is too vague, unmeasurable and cannot be treated as an

intelligence, I would like to suggest to treat “each of the EI competencies as discrete skills

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and assist leaders in developing each skill independently” (Sadri, 2012, p. 545) which

closes the whole debate on validity and reliability of EI and focus on competencies which

we prove to have connections with leaders’ emergence and their success.

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