Leadership and Emotional Intelligence - Essay Example

?Leadership and Emotional Intelligence This paper examines the concepts of Leadership and Emotional Intelligence with specific reference to the principles advanced in a notable book entitled Gung Ho! The book was authored by two business consultants who specialize in management practices that improve employee productivity, a goal similar to those of Leadership and Emotional Intelligence principles. After a brief review of the book’s theme and arguments, I will examine its relationship and contributions to the schools of thought regarding Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. Gung Ho! Review As advice to business leaders, this book, first published in 1998, is unusual in several respects. It is short enough to have been published as a pamphlet (185 abbreviated pages); claims to be the disguised true story of the astonishing and inspiring turnaround of a U.S.-based, once-unproductive manufacturing plant that was driven by a new, first-time, female plant manager; and recounts three animal-based allegories that reveal compelling management principles that are taught to the plant manager by a nature-centric Native American. One of the two authors, Blanchard has used similar unusual styles in his other books, perennial best-sellers, so it seems he knows how to connect even with presumably “by-the-numbers” business leaders. The three inter-related and cornerstone management principles of Gung Ho! may be summarized as follows: Spirit of the Squirrel: Squirrels are motivated to work hard (e.g., when gathering food) because they understand and share specific goals, and also understand that their work is important and worthwhile. When applied to people, “worthwhile work” is shaped by important and explicit values that guide all plans, decisions and actions, and serves to build self-esteem in each individual worker. (Blanchard and Bowles, 1998, pp. 25-29) Way of the Beaver: Beavers do the correct work in the correct way and are in complete control of achieving their goal (e.g., building a dam) without the need for supervision. When applied to people, the “way” of beavers describes a work environment where each individual takes charge of his work and, guided by explicit values, the way in which he achieves agreed-upon goals. The organisation not only allows this individual control, it actively encourages such behaviour, and is based on the belief that its workers’ ways to achieve goals are likely to be better than management’s ways. One caveat is that the work of each person cannot be beyond that person’s skills and training, while also demanding each person’s best effort and allowing each person to learn. (Blanchard and Bowles, 1998, pp.74-90) Gift of the Goose: The seemingly incessant honking of geese is their way of sending messages to one another that the authors describe as “cheering each other on” or “everyone cheering on everyone” for doing the right things. Moreover, this cheering on “brings enthusiasm” to the other two cornerstone principles. This is the simplest principle to explain but is not any easier to implement in organisations than the other two principles. (Blanchard, 1998, pp.129-136) In my opinion, these cornerstone principles have much merit as guidelines to lead an organisation to greater productivity, and I will address that further below. But in addition, I have concerns about two particular claims of Gung Ho! that the authors do not address: In order of importance to an organisation, the authors explicitly rank internal team members ahead of customers as the reason why organisations exist: “The work of an organisation is to look after customers, but the reason the organisation exists in the first place is to serve the people who work there, as well as the community they live in.” (Blanchard, 1998, p.54) This sentiment is at odds with what I have always understood to be the purpose of any business: to create and keep profitable customers. In fact, in a later book, Blanchard wrote “I’m always looking for companies that are trying to build themselves the right way – by focusing on their customers and creating people-first, performance-based cultures;” and “Common sense says that if you consistently treat those who serve customers as if they’re the most important people in the world, they’ll treat customers as if they’re the most important people in the world.” (Blanchard, 2004, pp.3-6) My interpretation of these comments is that Blanchard is backing away from his Gong Ho! pronouncement and now believes that customers are of at least equal importance to employees, and perhaps greater. In arguing for the universality of Gung Ho! principles, the authors claim that “the principles are the same, no matter what your organisation... [including a] government department.” (Blanchard, 1998, p. 161) I believe that the authors might have a different viewpoint today, when the sometimes great power of some unions, especially government unions, are threatening the financial stability of many countries around the world. The government employees do what their unions’ leaders tell them to do. Regardless of these concerns, the Gung Ho! principles are consistent with the principles and best practices of current theories about organisational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. Leadership The clearest expression of the leadership philosophy of Gung Ho! seems to be this quote:“Your job as General Manager is the same as any true leader’s. Let people know why the work is worthwhile. Decide where you’re going. Make sure the team shares the goal. Help set values. Get the resources in place. Hold the rule makers in check. Ensure you’ve got the support you need both inside and outside the organization. Keep your eye on the future to ward off trouble and be ready to change direction...It’s your job as leader to know where the plant is going. It’s the team members’ job to get you there.” (Blanchard, 1998, p.79) This expresses many important leadership principles, yet the book does not seem to explicitly advocate a “Situational Leadership” approach, in which “successful leaders… change their leadership styles based on the maturity of the people they're leading and the details of the task.” (Mind Tools, 2011) Nevertheless, Situational Leadership principles occasionally can be inferred from the book’s narrative, as when the plant manager’s behaviour toward her Division Managers changes. This is described as she and they begin to understand and share goals and otherwise begin to adopt Gung Ho! principles until finally, after three years, the organisation completes its development from low competence/low commitment to high competence/high commitment. (Blanchard, 1998, p.163) For me, the strongest practical arguments for the success of such enlightened approaches to leadership come from the endorsements by legendary business executives who formally incorporate good leadership principles into their business plans. One outstanding example that I became aware of from a business magazine some years ago comes from Jack Welch, the highly successful former Chairman of General Electric, a very large, diverse and profitable company. In GE’s 2000 Annual Report, Welch described his method of assessing the performance of his executives by measuring them on two criteria: whether or not they “made their numbers” (i.e., achieved their financial objectives) and whether or not they shared GE’s organizational “values” that Welch had been pushing. These measures resulted in all his executives being rated into one of four types of manager, as Welch proudly described: Type 1: shares our values; makes the numbers – sky’s the limit! Type 2: shares the values; misses the numbers – typically, [given] another chance, or two. Type 3: doesn’t share the values; doesn’t make the numbers – gone. Type 4… the manager who doesn’t share the values, but delivers the numbers. This type is the toughest to part with because organizations always want to deliver and to let someone go who gets the job done is yet another unnatural act, But we have to remove these Type 4s because they have the power, by themselves, to destroy the open, informal, trust-based culture we need to win today and tomorrow. We made our leap forward when we began removing our Type 4 managers and making it clear to the entire company why they were asked to leave — not for the usual “personal reasons” or “to pursue other opportunities,” but for not sharing our values. Until an organization develops the courage to do this, people will never have full confidence that these soft values are truly real. (Welch, 2001, p.3) As I have thought about the importance of Leadership matters to business plans, I more fully appreciate that these matters are widely ignored, at least in the business plans, and business plan templates, that I have seen. Inherently, such plans are about how a company intends to progress from one point to a better point, usually by doing new and better things and perhaps discarding failing things. In other words, the plan is based on projections of a business’s performance, which in some significant way must be a function of what new and better things that business’s leadership will help accomplish. Yet business plans seem to instead concentrate on describing programs and making financial projections, with little or no consideration of the reasons why and how the organisation’s people, including its leadership, will perform better. Emotional Intelligence For me, the clearest concise definition of “Emotional Intelligence” is “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and our relationships. It describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence…understanding how these talents matter in work life…[and] includes these five basic emotional and social competencies: Self-awareness… Self-Regulation... Motivation... Empathy... [and]... Social skills.” (Goleman, 1998, pp.317-318) Respecting this definition, my reading of Gung Ho! suggests that, when compared to the book’s prominent treatment of Leadership principles, Emotional Intelligence is very much a secondary theme. For example, the plant manager, as a result of the allegorical teachings from her Native American mentor, is depicted as beginning to develop her emotional intelligence only in limited ways. First, she becomes increasingly self-aware as she learns about the three fundamental lessons of the squirrels, beaver, and geese. Second, she begins to more carefully regulate her behaviour with respect to her Division Managers. Third, she begins to reveal a better understanding of what motivates herself and her personnel and an increased empathy for those personnel. But her initial progress is narrowly described and the narrative ends well before the plant turnaround is achieved, which does not afford much opportunity to fully present Emotional Intelligence principles. Everyday Applications Among the various ways the Gung Ho! principles can be applied in daily life, the one principle I have not yet mentioned may be the most important. It concerns the issue of how people become motivated to do some things and not other things. A somewhat mechanical explanation is presented in the book as E = mc?, a take-off on Einstein’s famous equation that in this case means “Enthusiasm = mission times cash and congratulations.” (Blanchard, 1998, p.138) In layman’s language, it means that a person’s motivation to accomplish a certain task is a function of that task’s goal and the rewards and recognition that the person can expect if successful. Thus, in daily life, if you ask someone to help you in some way, make sure the two of you agree on what is required and what benefits will accrue to your helper if he/she is successful. Conclusions In sum, Gung Ho! is an excellent introduction to understanding, in both professional and personal environments, what is required to adequately understand people’s behaviour, to help lead that behaviour in the ways most productive to achieving desirable goals, and to appropriately motivate and reward desired behaviours. But, perhaps most provocatively, adhering to Gung Ho!’s principles is likely to lead readers to a much higher awareness of themselves, their aspirations, and their values. In my case, for example, this book will be directly relevant because I am thinking about eventually getting involved in the food production industry, which seems to typically have people-intensive operations. All in all, the book is a worthwhile investment of a very few reading hours. References Blanchard, Ken, and Sheldon Bowles. Gung Ho!: Turn On the People in Any Organization. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1998. Blanchard, Ken, Jim Ballard, and Fred Finch. Customer Mania! New York: Free Press, 2004. Goleman, Daniel. Working With Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books, 1998. Mind Tools Ltd. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory. [online]. 2011. [Accessed 13 May, 2011]. Available from: . Welch, Jack. “GE 2000 Annual Report: Letter to Share Owners.” GE.com. [online]. February 9, 2001. [Accessed 13 May, 2011]. Available from: . Read More