The Role Of Emotional Intelligence On Leadership

  Leaders have to develop a culture of self-responsibility when addressing issues and when communicating with employees, a quality achievable through elevation of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence entails the ability to understand personal emotions with accuracy, generate emotions to assist the thought process, and to contemplatively control emotions so as to enhance emotional and intellectual development (Gleeson, 2014; Shahhosseini, Silong, Ismaill&Uli, 2012).Poor emotional intelligence results in miscommunication, negatively impacts employee retention,hinders effective progression among deserving employees, and ultimately leads to low productivity. In the endeavor to transform an organization, a leader who has laudable levels of emotional intelligence is able to inspire togetherness and employees work towards a common goal, which is essential for purposes of smooth transition and subsequent harmony in the working relationships. But while emotional intelligence is an important component of leadership, some family-run businesses such as Mars, Inc. mainly confer leadership based on family links at the expense of emotional intelligence demonstrated by employees. Emotional intelligence is a vital leadership skill since it enhances self-awareness, emotional management, effective communication, social awareness, and conflict resolution (Shahhosseini et al, 2012; Modassir& Singh, 2008). These qualities enhance better understanding of the workplace, including an understanding of the possible ramifications of all actions of the employees. Self-awareness enhances emotional restraint and encourages caution in approaching others.Social-awareness, which entails a sound understanding of the environment in which one is operating from, including how specific individuals relate to them when subjected to varied situationshelps the leader to devise suitable strategies for approaching different employees, cognizant of their individual reactions to the situation at hand (Shahhosseini, 2012).Emotional intelligence further enhances emotional management among leaders, a value which if inspired among the employees could lead to a sound sense of respect for one another and a feeling of personal support. Emotional management basically encompasses the act of restraining one’s mind in their response to events occurring before them. According to Modissar and Singh (2008),emotional management leads to the question: ‘is my response acceptable or does it display ignorance of the feelings of others?’ This question provides a bridge between emotional management and effective communication. Effective communication addresses an issue in a suitable and comprehensive manner, providing a link to the nature of situation at hand while ensuring that the communicator acknowledges and respects the feelings of others (Ahsanul, 2013; Shahhosseini et al, 2012). This implies that effective communication is also considerate of others’ feelings, and it is achieved through the premeditation offered by emotional management.Finally, when the leader is at a position to display a high level of emotional control, they are well positioned to mediate in conflict resolution processes, which is a role bestowed upon them because of their seniority and the expectations that come with holding leadership positions. Clearly, the five components of emotional intelligence are highly interconnected and together yield desirable communication which enhances respect and cohesiveness among employees. Emotional intelligence plays a central role in the process of effecting organizational change. Change is a basic component of the organization today, since the firm has to catch up with advancing technology, a changing environment, and changes in leadership and the workforce at all times. However, the constant and progressive nature of change is hardly appreciated in its context as a continuous process, and family-run businesses could tend to ignore this fact and hire external leaders to lead their firms throughradical transformations on a temporary basis.Mars, Inc. and other family-run entities need to recognize transformational leadership as a compulsory component of their incoming leadership at all times. But effecting change is not always a welcome move. Modissar and Singh (2008) noted that people are afraid to effect change due to fear of marching into unknown or ‘unfamiliar territory’, which stresses the need for cohesiveness in implementing change. To successfully inspire change among team members, the leader has to be focused and emotionally intelligent – such that they can inspire the change they desire among the workforce. Quoting Dvir et al, Modassir and Singh (2008) stated that transformational leaders have the ability to influence their followers such that they get the confidence to focus on the goals of the organization and perform higher than stipulated in their work agreement (p. 4). More so, such a leader must be charismatic enough to arouse admiration from among the followers, who are basically the junior employees. Modissar and Singh focused on “intellectual stimulation” as one of the dimensions of transformational leadership. This dimension reinforces “intelligence, rationality, and superior problem-solving tactics”. In this respect, emotional intelligence promotes cohesivenessand instigates a sense of control, which is important in securing the confidence of the workforce. While enhancing important values and inspiring change are important attributes of leaders who harbor emotional intelligence, sustaining a culture of responsibility and mutual support for all parties in an organization is the starting point for effective leadership and sustenance of high productivity. Such a culture encourages caution in raising conflicts and advocates for a calm approach to tricky situations. Ahsanul (2013) noted that one of the ways through which organizations’ staff confirm the existence of management’s support is through interactive processes, such as communication.Besides lessening the burden of leaders who otherwise have to constantly resolve more disputes, upholding a responsible communication approach enhances job performance and output by employees. The study by Shahhosseini et al. (2012) emphasized the strong link between emotional intelligence and job performance. In this study, the authors noted that communication being a single aspect of emotional intelligence is a central variable in ensuring satisfactory job performance among employees. In a way, leaders with a commendable level of emotional intelligence communicate more effectively, enhancing understanding, privacy, loyalty, and better approaches to conflict resolution. Furthermore, emotional intelligence develops creativity which is an important ingredient for job performance. Despite the strong association already established in the large body of literature depicting emotional intelligence as a natural component of effective leadership, family-run businesses still tend to overlook such empirically confirmed benefits and appoint leaders based on bloodlines. The appointing authorities in such entities vest greater importance to the loyalty that the family-based leaders are bound to provide, insinuating that loyalty is a superior attribute of leadership than emotional intelligence. The above notion that loyalty supersedes emotional intelligence as a leadership quality is not empirically proven. In fact, loyalty does not embody the important qualities needed in interpersonal communication.But an emotionally intelligent leader should be considered more loyal than one who basically remains loyal because of a sense of ownership since they harbor the intentions to continuously transform the organization through mediated processes that enhance teamwork – more or less weaving a family of partners who work together for the good of the organization. The way leaders and other employees react to various situations differs considerably, and such reactions have the potential to build or ruin an organization, both in reputation, production and administratively (Batool, 2013). Emotional intelligence is attributed to five important aspects of leadership, including self-awareness, emotional management, effective communication, social awareness, and conflict resolution.Previous research exerts great weight in the direction of the positive contributions of emotional intelligence on organizational performance. The way leaders communicate issues to staffs builds a culture of communication and general approach to the issues. Such a culture is an important instrument for boosting a sense of security, goodwill, and support among employees. Emotional intelligence was also shown to play an important role in leaders’ intentions to transform an organization. The mere need for loyalty among leaders in family-run businesses does not compare with embodying emotional intelligence. To cap the discussion on how emotional intelligence helps leaders to transform an organization, it was shown that a leader who possesses this important trait is able to instill a sense of cohesion and collective responsibility in the way employees react/ respond to acute situations, which are quite common when change is underway. This way, the firm moves ahead as a unit, and all employees feel that they are a part of the transformation through their shared goals and vision.