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
12
- 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.
15
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).
18
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).
19
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
22
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
24
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
25
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
34
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
38
& 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
39
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
46
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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