Emotional and Social Intelligence - Relevance to Leadership - Literature review Example

Emotional and Social Intelligence: Relevance to Leadership Your Name University Name Leadership involves influence. The best way to gain influence is to comprehend what goes on people’s minds when you interact with them and possible changes that can be made so as to make interaction possible for all the parties involved. In order to improve organizational effectiveness, many scholars are beginning to emphasize the importance of a manager’s emotional and social intelligence (Offermann et al., 2004; Higgs & Aitken, 2003; Harms & Crede, 2010; Douglas et al., 2004). What are emotional intelligence and social intelligence and how are they relevant for effective leadership? To answer this question, there is need to define emotional and social intelligence, qualities of a good leader and effective leadership. Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence is a combination of skills that enable an individual to manage his or her emotions, to gauge other’s emotions and influence decisions (Harms & Crede, 2010). Goleman 1998 as cited in Harms & Crede (2010) defines emotional intelligence using a model of five dimensions as follows: a) Self awareness: this is the ability to understand personal emotions, strengths and weaknesses and the ability to assess oneself. b) Self management: this is the ability to control personal emotions, maintain trustworthiness, be responsible over one’s own actions, deal with changes and be accommodative to innovation. c) Motivation: this is an emotional drive that facilitates the achievement of goals and objectives. It is made up of the achievement drive, commitment, optimism and initiative. d) Empathy: this refers to the ability of an individual to place him or herself in the shoes of others. By doing so, one will be able to understand others feelings, needs, concerns and perspectives. e) Social skills: these include the ability to stimulate desirable responses in others by use of persuasion (influence), psyching and guiding individuals and crowds (leadership), listening and use of convincing signals (communication), maintaining good relationships (building bonds) and working towards a common goal (cooperation and collaboration). On the other hand, Carmel (2003) defines social intelligence as how an individual interacts with others and how one assesses the surroundings or situations so as to achieve a win to win solution. He further explains that social intelligence involves the application of emotional intelligence to social environments. In other words, how an individual responds to different surroundings will depend on an individual’s social intelligence. From these two definitions, we get to see that the emotional and social intelligence are inter-related (Ferris et al., 2002; George, 2000). However, social intelligence is not well developed like emotional intelligence (George, 2000). This is perhaps because many scholars have not taken a keen interest on it. Qualities of a Good Leader According to George (2000), leaders share common traits, despite the fact that what makes one a leader is largely debated. First, a leader is always passionate and is able to communicate his passion and enthusiasm to others (Harms & Crede, 2010). Second, a leader is always full of integrity. Integrity in this case consists of self knowledge (knowing ones strengths and weaknesses), candor (being honesty with oneself) and maturity (being dedicated, experienced, and truthful, knowing how to work with others) (Ferris et al., 2002; Offerman et al., 2004).Third, a leader is always focused. A leader has a vision of the goal that he or she wants to achieve and will be ready to pay any cost so as to achieve this goal (Carmeli, 2003). To finish, a leader is always curious and daring (Walter & Heike, 2009). Any leader should be ready to learn and take risks. Effective Leadership Effective leadership refers to the ability of a leader to manipulate others so as to get a task done through high quantity and quality standards of performance while at the same time, ensuring that the people are satisfied (Higgs & Aitken, 2003). For any leader to be effective, he or she must possess at least all the above mentioned qualities. Relevance of Emotional and Social Intelligence to Effective Leadership. Self awareness aspect of emotional intelligence boosts self confidence and self efficacy in leaders (George, 2000).Leaders who are self aware obtain increased perceived control over interpersonal events and their outcomes, thus boosting their self confidence in leadership. Self awareness also enable leaders to comprehend the implications of their own feelings and thoughts, thus are able to provide orientation to followers. According to Abelman & Dalessandro (2009), “managers who maintain self awareness have more attributes of emotional intelligence and appear to be more effective to their superiors and subordinates.” Studies by Walter & Bruch (2009) also reveal that managers who are self aware are looked upon favorably by their seniors when it comes to promotions and performance evaluations. The self-consciousness aspect of emotional intelligence can be used to maximize performance appraisal ratings (Dougas et al., 2004). A leader can achieve this by showing care and concern to everyone and by practicing servant leadership to subordinates. Increased performance ratings are indicators of success in leadership. Social intelligence makes one to be generous and have people-oriented attributes which enable leaders to attract colleagues and keep investors in business (Ashkanasy et al., 2002; Carmeli, 2003).This in turn contributes to the growth of a business. On the other hand, emotional intelligence makes a leader to keep focused on the goal (George, 2000). This is because a leader will not settle for short term gratifications but will strive towards achieving the major goal. Both emotional and social intelligence cause open mindedness in leaders, which enables them to be able to accommodate different kinds of people and work situations (Walter & Heike, 2009). Open mindedness among leaders leads to generation of new ideas in problem solving (Ferris et al., 2002). This causes effectiveness at work place. Leaders who are emotionally and socially intelligent always give others a room to express themselves (Harms & Crede, 2010). Since communication is the most important tool in leadership, these leaders emerge to be successful. Such leaders also prefer to decentralize power in work situations (Ashkanasy et al., 2002). For instance, they allow employees to make task implementation decisions, with out any interference in their decisions. Leaders who are emotionally and socially intelligent maintain good interpersonal relationships with their superiors and subordinates (Carmeli, 2003). They trust their subordinates in undertaking tasks and know how to deal with their superiors. This reduces time wastage as the leaders do not have to spend much time in non productive activities like giving unnecessary deep details to their subordinates ( Douglas et al., 2004). Instead, they give them simple details and entrust them with tasks. This also creates room for creativity and innovation in undertaking tasks. Emotional intelligence makes leaders to empathize with subordinates (Douglas et al., 2004). Empathy is being aware of the feelings and needs of others. Leaders recognize the fact human being is prone to error, and thus do not fire their subordinates for minor mistakes as they are not technocrats (Carmeli, 2003). Leaders who are emotionally intelligent also demonstrate empathy by constantly seeking to learn by asking questions during board meetings and being attentive to the responses. They constantly are concerned with the team’s needs seek to know the team’s power structure (Ferris et al., 2002) Emotional intelligence enables a leader to consider the situational forces before blaming others. It makes a leader to listen before drawing conclusions and to be able to handle his own feelings while appreciating other people’s feelings (George, 2000; Walter & Heike, 2009). George (2000) states that, “many leaders fail because they find themselves not able to adapt to changes in the environment, organizational culture, work processes, and technology.” They never get feed back from those that they are leading, thus resulting to tension. Emotionally and socially intelligent leaders always present opportunities for self development and career growth to their employees (Higgs & Aitken, 2003). They recognize the social need of a man to grow, and thus they constantly present opportunities for growth. They also use their perceived positions and strong personalities to impact on others (Douglas et al., 2004). For instance, they are usually aware that their appearance causes dramatic impact. Thus, they use this to develop ways of bringing out the best in others. Emotional intelligence makes leaders to be always dedicated and passionate in their relevant areas of governance (Douglas et al., 2004). They believe and make others believe that they must succeed. They encourage others to believe that the most challenging goals can be met (Carmeli, 2003). They stay focused and are ready to pay any cost for the achievement of a goal. Socially intelligent leaders always encourage inclusion and team work (Offerman et al., 2004). This is in the view that human beings are social beings and at the same time, since different people are expertise in different areas, then they should work together so as to accomplish a task successfully (Carmeli, 2003; Offerman et al., 2004). Leaders who are emotionally and socially intelligent are always able to influence others in a positive way (Harms & Crede, 2010). Ability to influence others is a key indicator of effectiveness in leadership. Such leaders are able to develop the potential in others (Higgs & Aitken, 2003). Emotionally and socially intelligent leaders drive results and champion for beneficial change (Walter & Heike, 2009). They are patient with others and help them to overcome fears, explain reasons for decisions, and maintain high morale of others (Carmeli, 2003). However, they do not tolerate people who are completely resistant to change and people who waste their time (Offerman et al., 2004). Socially intelligent leaders always find a way of connecting with their people (Ashkanasy et al., 2002). They avail themselves for consultation and respond to their people in ways that make them feel respected (Offerman et al., 2004). However, too many impromptu visits may cause fear among people, thus there is need to strike a balance. Emotionally intelligent leaders are good communicators (Walter & Heike, 2009). They always ensure that they maintain a close touch with the organization. They are not all good public speakers but they ensure that they provide timely information. They use emotional intelligence to select words and means of passing across information to the people (Offerman et al., 2004). Effective leaders ensure that they are always candid in their communications. Socially and emotionally intelligent leaders balance feelings and logic (George, 2000, Offerman et al., 2004). They do not only consider facts so as to arrive at decisions. They recognize the importance of their own instinct and other’s instincts while making important decisions (Ferris et al., 2002). Socially and emotionally intelligent leaders are always able to identify and use the key strengths of others in the organization (Higgs & Aitken, 2003). This ensures that everyone in the organization is suitably placed. Conclusion Both social and emotional intelligence are important aspects of leadership. Emotional intelligence in leadership involves the application of Goleman’s five dimensions which include: self awareness, self management, motivation, empathy, and social skills. On the other hand, social intelligence involves the application of emotional intelligence to social surroundings. It deals with how an individual interacts with others and how one assesses the surroundings or situations so as to achieve a win to win solution. Thus, the two aspects are much inter-related. The application of both emotional and social intelligence in leadership results to effective leadership of an organization as it facilitates good communication, creates room for innovation and allows participation in decision making leading to effective policies, among other benefits. References Abelman, R. & Dalessandro, A. (2009). The institutional vision of historically black colleges and universities. Journal of Black Studies, 40(2), 105-134. Ashkanasy, N., Hartel, C. and Daus, C. (2002). Diversity and Emotion: the new frontiers in organizational behavior research. Journal of management, 28(3), 307-338. Carmeli, A. (2003). The relationship between emotional intelligence and work attitudes, behavior and outcomes. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18 (8), 788-813. 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EQ versus IQ: the relative contribution of emotional intelligence and cognitive ability to individual and team performance. Human Performance, 17 (2), 219-243. Walter, F. & Heike, B. (2009).An effective events model of charismatic leadership behavior: a review, theoretical integration and research agenda. Journal of Management 35(6), 1428-1452. Read More