ORMIT - Emotional intelligence that connects
How does a leader make a difference? Is it through smart strategies or does it mainly have to do with their personality? There is no straight answer to this question, but what is sure is that the ability to manage your own and others’ emotions does make a leader effective – and it is a skill that can be learnt.
“Good leaders move us. They ignite our passion and inspire the best in us. When we try to explain why they are so effective, we speak of strategy, vision or powerful ideas. But the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through emotions.” This definition of leadership comes from Daniel Goleman, one of the creators of emotional intelligence (1), and appears in his book Primal Leadership (2). Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess and control the emotions of yourself – and others.
The development of emotional intelligence is essential to the development of strong, personal leadership, and this is a useful skill when in a management position. But this does not mean everything revolves around the manager. “Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large,” warns Goleman in one of his other books, Social Intelligence (3). “But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.” Social intelligence, according to Goleman, is an extension of emotional intelligence, and an essential competence for managers. “Empathetic people are superb at recognizing and meeting the needs of clients, customers, or subordinates. They seem approachable, wanting to hear what people have to say. They listen carefully, picking up on what people are truly concerned about, and respond on the mark.”
Emotional intelligence as a model
Daniel Goleman developed a model describing multiple dimensions of emotional intelligence. The dimensions self-awareness and self-management concern the recognition and management of your own emotions. For successful personal leadership, you need self-insight, emotional assertiveness and a proactive attitude.
The dimensions of social awareness and relationship management concern the recognition and management of other people’s emotions. These social components of emotional intelligence are of equal importance to effective leadership and in order to get results, today’s managers need to be more able than ever to connect people to themselves and to others.
Emotional intelligence is an important aspect of leadership development. Just as with any technical skill, emotional intelligence can be developed, by systematically and consistently working on acquiring the competencies in the model, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. There is however one important difference to learning a technical skill. Developing emotional intelligence often involves changing thought and behavioural patterns, and these may be hard habits to break. It often demands focused attention over a long period of time for these habits to be bent into more effective behaviour.
This article was sponsored by ORMIT. The original paper is available here. Find more information on www.ormit.be or contact ORMIT on +32 (0)2 533.98.90.
Sources:
(1) Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ¸1995
(2) Daniel Goleman, Annie McKee and Richard Boyatzis, Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence, 2004
(3) Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, 2009