Progressive Distributor - Making a positive impact through emotionally intelligent leadership

Making a positive impact through
emotionally intelligent leadership

by Melvin L. Smith, Ph.D.

“Great 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. Buth the reality is much more primal: Great leadership works through the emotions.”

~ Opening passage of Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

As the passage above suggests, emotions play a key role in explaining what makes outstanding leaders so effective. The fact of the matter is, emotional intelligence has been suggested to positively influence organizational effectiveness in a variety of areas including (but not limited to) employee recruitment and retention, employee commitment, morale and health, teamwork, productivity, efficiency, and customer outcomes. But just what is emotional intelligence? And, how does it influence employee well-being and organizational performance?

Emotional Intelligence Defined
Emotional intelligence, succinctly defined, is the ability to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others.1 And, if the good news is that emotional intelligence leads to favorable individual and organizational outcomes, then even better news is that unlike cognitive intelligence (as measured by the familiar intelligence quotient or IQ), emotional intelligence can actually be developed. In the model of emotional intelligence presented by Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee in Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence, they suggest a framework organized into four clusters of competencies, where emotional competence is defined as “a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work.”^2,3

The first of these clusters is self-awareness, the capacity for understanding one’s emotions, as well as one’s strengths and weaknesses. Moving beyond awareness, the second cluster of competencies, self-management, represents the capacity to also effectively manage or control one’s emotions and behavior. Together, due to their inward focus, these first two clusters comprise what has been labeled as an individual’s Personal Competence.

The third and fourth domains of emotional intelligence competencies represent a progression into the realm of Social Competence, which includes social awareness, the capacity to understand and to be attuned to the emotions of other individuals or groups of individuals, and relationship management, the capacity to induce desirable responses in others. The specific emotional intelligence competencies associated with each of these clusters are presented in the figure below.

Emotional Intelligence and Work Performance
Research has shown that it is these emotional intelligence competencies (as opposed to technical skills and purely cognitive abilities) that most often separate outstanding from average performers.

Emotional intelligence also serves to distinguish between outstanding and mediocre leaders. In the case of leadership, an emotionally intelligent leader is one who is able to create resonance with others in the organization. Resonant leadership entails being in sync with others, tapping into their passions and enthusiasm, and driving their emotions in a positive direction toward the achievement of group and/or organizational objectives.4

Truly resonant leaders are able to sustain their effectiveness over time through engaging in a renewal process involving the elements of mindfulness (being fully aware of self, others, and our work/life context), hope (believing in the attainability of our visions and goals), and compassion (understanding and feeling motivated to act upon the wants and needs of others).5,6

At the opposite end of the spectrum from resonant leaders are leaders who instead create dissonance. Rather than driving emotions positively, dissonant leaders create negative emotions such as anger, fear, or apathy. Whereas individuals working in an environment characterized as resonant are likely to feel empowered, enthusiastic, and engaged, those working in a dissonant environment are more likely to feel defensive, dispirited, and stressed out.

The fortunate thing about positive emotions (and the unfortunate thing about negative emotions) is that they are extremely contagious. And leaders, more so than any others in an organization, play an instrumental role in the spreading of these emotions, be they positive or negative. Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee discuss the contagion of those in leadership positions, offering that leaders tend to be watched and listened to more carefully than others in a group or organization. As a result, leaders establish emotional cues that are picked up by others, thus setting the emotional standard for the group.7 When negative emotions spread throughout the organization the environment can be described as toxic. Further, this toxicity is not necessarily confined to the organization and its members. Instead, it can spread to employees’ personal lives, as well as to customer relationships. Research has shown, for instance, that employee attitudes toward their organization influence their behavior toward customers, which in turn influences customer perceptions regarding the quality of their interaction with the employee and the organization.8 All of this suggests that the emotional tone set by leaders within an organization may have far reaching impact, influencing not only employees, but also customer relationships.

The Development of Emotional Intelligence
How then does one become an emotionally intelligent leader? As previously suggested, emotional intelligence can be learned or developed. Richard Boyatzis, co-author of Primal Leadership and faculty member in the department of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management, offers evidence of this development in his reporting of a series of longitudinal studies conducted at the Weatherhead School. Boyatzis and his colleagues found that, over a two to five year period, individuals who completed a competency-based MBA program were able to significantly increase multiple competencies suggested to comprise emotional intelligence.9 This is not to suggest that one need attend a competency-based MBA program to develop their emotional intelligence, but instead that a targeted approach aimed at developing emotional intelligence competencies can yield favorable results.

At the core of Boyatzis’ research on the development of emotional intelligence is his model of intentional change, which has benefited from over three decades of work with a variety of colleagues in the area of leadership development. Boyatzis describes intentional change as a process of “intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.”10 In its most recent form, this model of intentional change is suggested to involve five stages or “discoveries” that serve as enablers of individual growth and development.11

According to the model, the first discovery involves uncovering your ideal self, or who you really want to be. This is followed by the second discovery which entails assessing your real self (who you are today), as well as identifying the areas of overlap and the areas where gaps exist between the ideal and real selves. The third discovery involves the creation of a learning plan or agenda designed to build upon one’s strengths (areas of overlap between the ideal self and the real self) while reducing any identified gaps. After creating a learning agenda, the next step is to begin experimenting with and practicing new behaviors aimed at developing the desired competencies. This represents the fourth discovery. Finally, the fifth discovery, which may actually occur throughout the entire process, involves developing trusting and supportive relationships that can facilitate your process of growth and development.

As an organizational leader, engaging in this process of intentional change can help you build your emotional intelligence leadership competencies. You can also assist others in the organization in building their emotional intelligence by helping them engage in their own process of intentional change.

Conclusion
In sum, resonant leaders can conceivably leverage emotional intelligence in a variety of ways in order to potentially enhance the effectiveness of their organizations. First, they can work to develop their emotional intelligence leadership competencies in an effort to more favorably influence others (individually or collectively) through the creation of a resonant organizational environment. Second, by introducing others in the organization to the process of intentional change, leaders can assist them in their own development of emotional intelligence, thus further increasing the likelihood that resonant relationships among employees will be created and maintained throughout the organization. And finally, through the renewal process of mindfulness, hope, and compassion, resonant leaders can sustain their effectiveness over time, enabling them to have a long-term, significant impact on their organizations.

Melvin L. Smith, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior for the Weatherhead School of Managementat at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He will lead a session on Emotionally Intelligent Leadership at the ISA Business Expo. Reach him at melvin.smith@case.edu.

1 Daniel Goleman, “Emotional Intelligence: Issues in Paradigm Building,” in Cary Cherniss and Daniel Goleman (eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001).

2 Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam Books, 1998).

3 Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).

4 Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002).

5 Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).

6 Richard Boyatzis, Melvin Smith, and Nancy Blaize, “Developing Sustainable Leaders through Coaching and Compassion.” Academy of Management Learning & Education (forthcoming).

7 Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002).

8 Suzanne Masterson, “A trickle-down model of organizational justice: Relating employees’ and customers’ perceptions of and reactions to fairness.” Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 86(4) 2001 p. 594-604.

9 Richard Boyatzis, “How and Why Individuals are Able to Develop Emotional Intelligence,” in Cary Cherniss and Daniel Goleman (eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001).

10 Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002), p. 109.

11 For a detailed discussion of Boyatzis’ intentional change theory, see “Intentional Change Theory from a Complexity Perspective.” Journal of Management Development (forthcoming).