Emotional Intelligence and Leadership - Essay Example

Running head: PART LITERATURE REVIEW – EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Introductory Part of a Literature Review on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership [STUDENT NAME] [COURSE NAME] Abstract This 5 page paper provides an introductory literature review on the topic of emotional intelligence and leadership. Specifically it covers information about Thorndike’s Law of Research (1920); Gardner’s Frames of Mind: Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) and Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) research proposed in Emotional Intelligence. A brief discussion of the debate on the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership follows. This paper serves as an introduction only to the main literature review. Introductory Part of a Literature Review on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership It was Salovey and Mayer (1990) who coined the phrase “emotional intelligence” which they defined as being a type of social intelligence that included the ability to monitor their own feelings and those of people around them. This awareness would allow the individual to use that information to modify their own behavior and speech patterns to greatly increase their chances of successful communication. However the concept of emotional intelligence has been traced back to Edward Thorndike and his work Law of effect research (1911). The key element of Thorndike’s (1911) theory was the idea that in cases where responses are made to a situation, if the consequence of those responses was a positive experience (bringing pleasure) then it was more likely for those responses to be evident again in future similar situations. Conversely those situations that bring about a negative consequence (pain) were not likely to result in recurring responses for future events. Thereby Thorndike offered a positive and negative law of effect. This was the first time that such a theory had been proposed and supported by experimental evidence. His later work on animal intelligence made constant reference to this same theory. For example he noted that in his experiment of a cat in a box that “gradually all the other non-successful impulses will be stamped out and the particular impulse leading to the successful act will be stamped in by the resulting pleasure…” (1898, p.13). He made similar observations about confined chickens. What he was looking for, or appeared to have identified was a connectionist theory that could explain the mechanism behind reinforcer action. This was an idea that was explored by later researchers such as Hull (1943) and more notably Skinner’s work on reinforcement. Skinner’s (1938) work on reinforcement did address a noted criticism of Thorndike’s work: namely circularity and affect. Thorndike’s aim was to find the underlying mechanism for certain actions – namely conceptual or physiological effects but there were some researchers who believed that Thorndike’s theory was flawed because it did not specifically address backward actions, circularity and the definition of satisfying and negative states (Wilcoxon, 1969). Skinner wrote “A reinforcing stimulus is defined as such by its power to produce the resulting change. There is no circularity about this; some stimuli are found to produce the change, others not, and they are classified as reinforcing and non-reinforcing accordingly” (1938, p.62). Thorndike’s methods for supporting his theories of law of effect became, over time, the backblocks of analyzing behavior. His experiments included replications of various situations to support the idea that his theories would work over all settings. He standardized his behavioral samples in controlled settings that helped to eliminate the effect of variables that were not part of the experiment. He was determined to provide the most factual support for his findings which was a departure from the observational or anecdotal evidence that had been used to support behavior theories prior to that point. With reference to emotional intelligence Thorndike’s (1911) work provided the beginnings of a framework for the factual analysis of behavior. Beyond that he also showed that there is a link between learning and positive reinforcement. His work on both the law of effect and animal intelligence showed that there was a clear link between behavior, actions and positive or negative consequence. Gardner (2008) on the other hand addressed the ideas of learning and processing information. His work comprised of empirical studies on groups of gifted children and later brain damaged patients. Through his studies he felt that it wasn’t possible for a single definition, mode and experience of intelligence to cover the broad spectrum of learning behaviors he had witnessed. His own definition of multiple intelligence (MI) was one based on “biological and psychological potential to solve problems and/or create products that were valued in one of more cultural contexts” (Gardner, 2008, p.1). In total Gardner identified seven aspects within the definition of multiple intelligences in his 1983 work - linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal; and he is considering a further two (naturalist and existential). The scientific impacts of this multiple intelligence theory are twofold – namely that humans have a variety of intelligences as opposed to the previously theorized one. Secondly that intelligence goes beyond genetics or life experience alone. A further idea – that humans seek to differentiate themselves would also impact the concept of intelligence. This last criterion became important when Gardner (2008) found educators taking his theories and putting their own interpretation on them. For example the idea that specific racial and ethnic groups have limited or specific intelligences, or that all children excel in at least one intelligence. Gardner’s influence on emotional intelligence comes from the fact that because humans are a unique species as individuals, care needs to be taken in managing people. Different intelligences will respond to different approaches and this is evident in the individual’s learning methods, their ability to respond and analyze information and the way they convey information to others. Secondly each individual has the ability to learn beyond a narrow definable set of parameters and that reliance on the traditional IQ measure would be erroneous because that one aspect of intelligence is only part of the entire individual’s ability to respond to any given situation. Salovey and Mayer (1990) are considered the first researchers to come up with the term “emotional intelligence”. In the abstract of their paper Emotional Intelligence they write “emotional intelligence, [is] a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in other, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan and achieve in one’s life” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p.185). Prior to this definition, the authors noted that researchers and philosophers alike had defined emotions more as an “acute disturbance of the individual as a whole” or as “a disorganized response…resulting from the lack of effective adjustments” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p.185). They then went on to make references to Thorndike’s work which referred to social intelligence as the ability to understand others so as to “behave wisely” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p.187) with others and Gardner’s idea of personal intelligences that includes the reference to feelings about self and others. The purpose of Salovey and Mayer’s theory of emotional intelligence was to bring together a broad base of ideas that had sprung up in different scientific fields, into one coherent theory that could then be measured, and studied using a set of standard measures. Much of their paper discusses the different types of measures necessary to determine an accurate baseline for emotions. For example they mention under the “emotion in self” that this process is initiated when a person first enters the perceptual system of the individual. Those individuals with a higher emotional intelligence will be able to accurately analyze and process the feelings associated with that information and then express it in a way that is beneficial to self and others. Salovey and Mayer went on to complete further studies on emotional intelligence and created an ability model to explain the construct behind the theory (Salovey & Mayer, 1997). Two other constructs were a non-cognitive model proposed by Bar-On, (1997) and the competency model that was proposed by Goleman (2001). Goleman’s original book on the subject, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (1995) was written more for the business community than scientists and researchers. Leaving aside a large volume of review and research literature that criticizes Goleman’s work Goleman did follow up on Salovey and Mayer’s ideas on emotional intelligence based on awareness of the feelings of self and others. Goleman (1995) did review a wide number of studies on intelligence and in particular studies conducted on children. His later extension of the competency based model of emotional intelligence was specifically designed for the business world however. The model involves 20 different competencies that are meant to cover four different abilities – self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management (Gardner & Stough, 2002). His model was strongly biased to the idea that emotional intelligence stemmed from a set of skills that could be learned rather than inherited. There have been attempts by researchers in the past twenty years to show a relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence although there is very little empirical research conducted on the topic (Garnder & Stough, 2002). Barling et al (2000) examined the relationship behind transformational leadership and emotional intelligence. Using the guidelines set by Salovey and Mayer (1990, 1997) and Goleman’s book (1995) they showed that leaders with high emotional intelligence were more inclined to use transformational leadership including their ability to display self-control in their emotions, thereby providing a solid role model for others to follow. They also surmised that leaders who do have a high emotional intelligence are better able to ‘read” the emotions of the people they interact with. This perception would be useful in determining what would motivate others, and to what degree motivations were necessary (Barling et al, 2000). Barling et al (2000) identified two different types of transactional leadership – one that required empathy or insight, and one that did not. But the overall premise of the theory was that there was no link between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Gardner and Stough (2000) were keen to show the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level management. They used the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT) devised by Palmer and Stouch (2001). The SUEIT uses five factors to score intelligence: Emotional recognition and expression, emotions direct cognition, understanding of emotions external, emotional management and emotional control (p.72). This model relates directly to emotions in the workplace. The authors were testing the hypotheses that “there will be a positive relationship between transformation leadership and overall emotional intelligence, and that there will be no relationship between transactional and laissez-faire leadership and emotional intelligence. Their results (based on 110 questionnaires returned from senior level managers) found that there was a strong relationship between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence. On the second part of the hypothesis the authors found that there was a negative relationship between laissez-faire and emotional intelligence. More accurately the study found that in those managers who were not supportive of their staff and requests for assistance were also not aware of their own emotions, were not able to understand the emotions of others in the workplace and had a lack of self control when expressing their emotions. References Julian Barling, Frank Slater, E. Kevin Kelloway, (2000) "Transformational leadership and emotional intelligence: an exploratory study", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 21(3), 157 - 161. Bar-On, R. (1997). Bar-on emotional quotient inventory: Users Manual. Multi-health Systems, New York, NY. Gardner, H. (2008). "The 25th anniversary of the publication of Howard Gardners Frames of Mind: The theory of Multiple Intelligences”. Harvard website, September 16 2011 Gardner, L. & Stough, C. (2002). Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 23(2), 68-78. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. (2001). “An EI-based theory of performance”. In Cherniss, C and Goleman, D. (Eds.) The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Hull, C.I. (1943) Principles of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century. Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1997). 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