Emotional Intelligence and Leadership - Coursework Example

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Name Institution Date Introduction Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability, proficiency or, in the trait EI model’s case, a self-perceived capability of identifying, assessing, and controlling one’s emotions, those of others, as well as those of groups. A range of models and meanings of EI have been formulated but with substantial disagreements, both in terminology and operationalization. The choice preferences of any scientific literature, however, remain the trait EI and the ability models. The distinct models have enhanced instrument development for assessing constructs, and as much as measurement overlaps may be experienced, researchers agree on measurements tapping different constructs. Criticism, however, question the validity of construct as actual intelligence and also the incremental validity basically over intelligent quotient and the main five personality dimensions, as is further expounded on. EI and leadership styles The proponents of emotional intelligence have constantly emphasized that it enables leaders to be self aware and effective in a sufficient way hence use acceptable styles in various situations accurately, an idea reinforced by (Zeidner, 2004; Shareef, 2007). The leadership styles linked to EI include pace-setting, commanding, democratic, affiliative, visionary and coaching. However, the first two are cautioned against by Schulte et al (2004) as able to cause dissonance. Pace-setting involves the leader building challenges as well as exciting goals to individuals and anticipating excellence through exemplifying, a case where motivated and proficient team produces excellent results even though it has negative climatic impact. Commanding entails a leader soothing fears, clearly directing through a powerful stance, commanding and anticipating total compliance, with self-control being significant in success. A democratic leader values contributions and commitment through involvement and listens to both good and bad news. There is always a positive climatic impact. Affiliative leadership connects people hence harmonize the organization, and apart from its positive climatic impact, it values emotional needs above work needs. It is also best in overcoming stressful conditions and healing rifts. In visionary leadership, the leader drives people to a common vision, indicating where to be and not how to reach there, hence motivating forward struggles and enriching others with knowledge through open information sharing. With strong climatic impact, it is excellent in setting new directions. A Coaching leader connects organizational goals, holds conversations beyond workplace setting, and enables realization of strengths and limitations while linking them to career aspirations and activities. It is excellent in long-term capability building, delegating challenging tasks, and building loyalty. Can emotional intelligence be learnt? Goleman et al (2002) states that without emotional abilities, self-awareness, ability to manage distressing emotions, empathy and effective relationships, the smartness of an individual doesn’t matter since the person is not going far, EI is invaluable. Whether emotional intelligence can be learnt has been a controversial issue for a long time. Even though inadequate research is an impediment here, various literatures and a bulk of the scientific research fortunately support its ability to be learned. It is with immense seriousness that Antonakis, Ashkanasy and Dasborough (2009) also discuss emotional intelligence from birth to adulthood, its role in leadership and whether this may be learnt. This further claims that even though some people may be naturally highly gifted than their counterparts, skills in emotional intelligence may be learned. These skills, increasing with age, are attained when people are personally motivated, practice extensively what is learnt, get feedback and finally reinforce the new skills. Research also suggest that it is fully established during early adulthood and thereafter can be modified to a minimal extent, while a given school of thought also claim this can be achieved through a given peak experience in an individual’s life, children can be taught how to handle emotions properly. While difficult to learn among adults, other problematic emotional intelligence behaviors are able to be solved through coaching and reinforcing feedback. Currently though, few emotional intelligence training programs are already developed with other schools advancing to incorporate it in their education curriculum. To succeed, do leaders need EI”? Naturally, emotional intelligence may be deemed as necessary in productive and effective leadership, as suggested by several writers. Antonakis, Ashkanasy and Dasborough (2009) however differ, indicating the inability of the link in holding up to the empirical scrutiny. When leaders become quite sensitive to other’s emotional states, difficulty is experienced in ignoring such states hence leaders compromise on organizational vision. As indicated, leadership partly concerns managing the emotions of people hence does not require tremendously well-tuned emotional intelligence to manage people’s emotions. Smartness is what is vital and leaders can effortlessly manipulate other’s emotions, making them jovial or sad, through condition-action script (schemata) attained from repeated event exposures. The main argument and response This is a rather intriguing issue concerning the relevancy of emotional intelligence in leadership. Antonakis, Ashkanasy and Dasborough (2009) argue that smartness is fundamental in leadership as opposed to emotional intelligence as it is crucial in identifying weaknesses, communicating vision and formulating plans. Even though this sounds convincing, individuals with higher intelligence quotient ratings have been known to be socially as well as interpersonally inept, quite a bad combination for successful leadership. On the other hand given the value of emotional intelligence, its role in leadership is one of a great concern. Various literatures agree that wide intelligence areas define the success level of individuals, including leaders. Measured as an emotional intelligence quotient, it is increasingly significant in crucial work-related results like individual performance, developing individuals and organizational productivity. This is because the principles inherent offer means of understanding and evaluating behaviors, attitudes, the management styles, potential of individuals and interpersonal skills. It is also increasingly invaluable in planning the human resources, job profiling, staffing, interviews and selecting, education and growth, as well as client relations. As such, a combination of emotional intelligence and smartness, when used appropriately in various situations, produce better, effective leaders who are also tough, determined and having vision. Other leadership skills Apart from emotional intelligence, the escalating awareness and claim for the idealist leadership principles increasingly emphasize the value of other leadership skills including personality, charisma, conflict resolution skills, cross-cultural competencies, understanding power and Problem solving skills. Personality Personality is a great determinant of leadership ability. It is always perceived in two perspectives; actors and observers. Actor’s view focus on an individual’s hopes, wishes as well as values (identity), while observer’s view relates to how the person is perceived by others. Leadership effectiveness often focuses on personal attributes, behavioral approach and situational approach. Leaders do not only posses distinctive identities, but also distinctive reputations. The personality traits relevant in leadership success entail high energy, stress tolerance, internal control orientation focus, personal integrity, emotional maturity, self-confidence, low affiliation need, fairly high achievement orientation as well as socialized motivation for power. Research indicates that there are five wide dimensions defining personality. These are core self-esteem (adjustment), social charm (agreeability), social potency (ascendance), consciousness and obedience (prudence), as well as intellect/openness (curiosity in addition to vision). Recent definitive meta-analysis indicates that 4 out of five dimensions in the given five-factor model forecast leadership ratings irrespective of the specialty. Highly recommended predictor is adjustability while likeability remains the weakest. Therefore good and bad leadership is a function of personality (Guy, 2009). Charisma Charisma is defined as a social relationship existing between the followers and their leaders. It is perceived in numerous ways from the personal attributes comprising of physical characteristics to the social relationships comprising power. Charisma is a great attribute that enables leaders to use the personal charm in ensuring accomplishment of duties by others, as such; it is an immensely powerful means of leading others. Basically, such a powerful charismatic effect over followers may be achieved that the leaders may ensure certain people accomplish extraordinary tasks. The charismatic leaders are most frequently considered as heroes who have capabilities of using the personal appeal, including oratory ability, creation of myths as well as legends, innovativeness and success, to lead people. Charisma, however, has its downside in organizations since the intentions may be good or bad for an organization (Guerrero, 2010) Conflict resolution skills The relevancy of conflict resolution skills is inevitably immense in any company, especially considering that the workplace consists of people from diverse backgrounds and diverse behavioral patterns. An effective leader therefore finds this skill as quite necessary. Conflicts revolve around unsatisfactory performance, finger-pointing, workloads, promotions and gossips. Occurrence of conflicts require an effective leader with such skills knowledge as relevant, to contain, in place, build cooperation and harmony in the workplace. The leader therefore has to establish the reasons for conflicts, which often arise from poor communication among individuals, consider impacts and set staff expectations that limit particular behaviors. Leaders with this skill are able to reinforce team work hence create competitive advantage. Cross- cultural competencies Referred to as the personal abilities, underlying traits, as well as behavior driving excellent work performance across the national borders, there is absolutely no doubt that cross-cultural competence is essential in the current global organization. It is clear that for cross-cultural roles to be successful, cross-cultural competency must be available. The international roles, which are often complex, difficult and demanding flexibility, always require experienced and exceptional leaders in comparison to domestic roles. Flexibility in ways of achieving objectives (whether universal) is a much valued and desired attribute here. The past few decades have hence seen various international as well as domestic organizations ensuring their leaders are competent in the cross-cultural relations and interactions. Transition to global economy as well as increasing workforce diversification therefore emphasizes to leaders the relevancy of cross-cultural competencies (Sue, 2003). Understanding power Organizations comprise individuals coming together so as to attain the common goals. When resource scarcity is experienced, individuals as well as groups compete with others attaining their goals and others failing to attain the goals. Understanding power entails studying its nature and use, including how tasks are performed, subconscious attitudes influencing personal interactions, methods of influencing individuals, and the necessary requirements for progress. In organizations, the leaders are primarily responsible for ensuring free and just resource competition and allocation. They also ensure that the individuals with power over the resources continue so since they have skills and capabilities which will eventually benefit every organizational member. The various power sources also enable leaders to effortlessly influence their followers thereby receiving things from the same. It should also be considered that leaders with people knowledge and no power knowledge are ineffective and that excessive power use results in resistance (Vanino, 2005; Zaccaro & Horn, 2003). Problem solving skills Just as an American industrialist named Henry Kaiser once stated that problems are merely opportunities in job attires, problem solving skill is key and may create a huge career difference. In the workplace, problems always take the central part in what several people do. One either solves a client’s problem, supports the problem solving process, or discovers other new problems yet to be solved. Problems may vary from difficult, complex or even, small, easy, simple to large. As such, leaders must posses the sixth sense to subtly solve issues. This is termed as tactical proficiency and entails taking responsibility, meeting commitments, understanding strength and weaknesses in team-working and providing appropriate decisions. The process involves problem definition, generating alternatives, evaluating and also selecting alternatives, and finally implementing the solutions (Puccio et al, 2010). Conclusion Leadership is considered a universal phenomenon and as such, wherever people are, leaders are among them. With constant problems, incompetency, poor decisions and the emerging cross-cultural competencies in the current organizations, good leaders are essential in every work place. As such, good leadership and what makes a good leader are key issues discussed. In as much as it might look simple, leadership is often demanding and entails a number of significant aspects that stand out to make a person a leader. Due to a great interest from enthusiastic and inquisitive researchers on the way leadership is brought about by, several studies have been able to demystify various leadership issues. As has been discussed, among the major issues causing much reactions and argument among various researchers are the leadership skills. The most predominant in the above discussion is emotional intelligence. A lot of controversy has ensued over the relevancy of emotional leadership, with proponents reinforcing their ideas with models, and suggesting that emotional play is fundamental. As is indicated, these proponents emphasize that leaders, through understanding and manipulating emotions, are able to achieve organizational success. They also claim that emotional intelligence has a significant role of enabling leaders to be self-aware, both in an effective and sufficient way, thereby enabling use of appropriate styles. Emotional intelligence is also associated with leadership styles like include pace-setting, commanding, democratic, affiliative, visionary and coaching. The opponents on the other hand argue that this emotional intelligence has no role in effective leadership. They claim that smartness of an individual determines the person’s success and enables the person to apply better leadership methods on individuals. They further claim that emotional intelligence is likely to make weak leaders who are susceptible to emotions hence may fail to realize company goals. Apart from intelligence quotient and emotional leadership, other leadership skills are also relevant. These include personality, cross-cultural competency, conflict-resolution, problem solving, understanding power, and charisma. These skills, when applied accurately and appropriately, are what make a good leader. Reference Antonakis, J., Ashkanasy, M., & Dasborough, T. (2009). Does leadership need emotional intelligence? The leadership Quarterly Guy, P. (2009). Leadership: Theory and Practice. SAGE: London. Puccio, G., Murdock, M., & Mance, M. (2010). Creative Leadership: Skills That Drive Change. SAGE: London. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership. Boston: HBS Press. Schulte, M. , Ree, M., & Carretta, T. (2004). Emotional intelligence: Not much more than g and personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 1059−1068. Vanino, A. (2005). Understanding people and power: an important key to business leadership. Moving Forward Sue, D. (2003).  Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Guerrero, L. (2010). Cases in Leadership. SAGE: London Shareef, R. (2007). Want better business theories? Maybe Karl Popper has the answer. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 6, 272−280. Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., & Roberts, R. D. (2004). Emotional intelligence in the workplace: A critical review. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 53, 371−373. Zaccaro, S., & Horn, Z. N. (2003). Leadership theory and practice: Fostering an effective symbiosis. Leadership Quarterly, 14, 769−806. Read More