Emotional intelligence is the capability of an individual to comprehend and manage interpersonal emotions as well as those of others. The concept constitutes of three core skills namely emotional awareness, the capability to bind emotions and integrate them into critical aspects such as decision-making and problem-solving. The emotional intelligence focuses on managing and regulating personal emotions by the people’s expectation. Emotional intelligence is often confused with intelligence quotient. Intelligence quotient defines the cognitive ability of an individual. High intelligence quotient without emotional intelligence neither results to success nor happiness as a virtue. The criticality of emotional intelligence plays a core role in success and failure of leadership.
Doe, Ndinguri, & Phipps (2015) research illustrate that emotional intelligence plays a critical role in determining leadership success and failure despite other determinants. The article focuses on the correlation between emotional intelligence and either success or failure in the organizational setup. An effective leader establishes a visionary mission and encourages his or her followers towards the mission accomplishment. Leadership is the capability of an individual to provide guidance by harnessing and harmonizing the emotional differences among the followers towards a common focal point of achievement. The leader is expected to mold the followers’ perceptions and behavioral aspects towards goal accomplishment.
Emotional intelligence element enables leaders to determine, evaluate and predict situations soberly considering their emotions as well as others, essential for decision-making and problem-solving processes. Adequate emotional comprehension facilitates rational thinking and decision-making (Doe, Ndinguri, & Phipps, 2015). Emotional intelligence enables an individual to precisely understand access and create emotions that reflect and enhance intellectual development. A good leader makes the decision taking into account every person’s opinion concerning the subject matter. Therefore, it is critical for a leader to comprehend the feelings of the followers to enable the analysis and evaluation of problems’ root causal within the organization.
Emotional intelligence involves the capability of an individual to encourage themselves and consistently remain objective through difficult times. An effective leader stays committed to his or her ability to visionary focus. High level of commitment initiates positive emotions that eventually result in good decision making by establishing a clear insight of emotional focus. The emotional intelligence ensures maximum regulation of emotional distress that would hinder rational thinking, empathy, and objectivity. The social consciousness skill of emotional intelligence and understanding, organizational and service course leads to core competencies measure of decision making.
The success of leadership depends on the individual potential and effectiveness in determining the proper and relevant objectives to be attained. The quality of organizational performance solely relies on the decision-making skills of the leader. Emotional intelligence enables an individual to visualize the enhancements of decision making and use it to promote self-belief, trust fervor and diversify the channels of problem-solving.
Barling, Slater, & Kevin (2000) studies demonstrate that emotional intelligence is correlated with the three major aspects of contingency compensation and transformational leadership. The article focuses on the three major aspects of transformational leadership which include inspiration, motivation and individualized accountability. A transformational leader is one who identifies the essential need for change, establishes a visionary act that serves as guidance for change through motivation and execution of the transformation. The leader is majorly focused on the creation of valuable and optimistic change in the team members with the ultimate objective.
A transformational leader fosters morale, zeal for accomplishment and proficiency of performance among the team members through a variety of transformational criteria. Emotional intelligence ensures the team members’ sense of connection and acknowledgment to the objective organizational accomplishment. The transformational leader symbolizes the team role model challenging the followers’ task accountability and comprehension of the members’ strengths and weaknesses. The leader can align the activities collectively to ensure proficient performance.
The core elements of emotional intelligence define a transformational leader. The basic elements of emotional intelligence are comprehension of individual emotion, emotional self-control, considering others’ emotions and their expectations, empathy, and establishment of relationships. The concept of emotional intelligence can be used to differentiate between the three major types of leadership styles namely transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership. A transformational leader employs emotional intelligence exclusively while a transactional leader acts by organizational policies and management expectation. The transactional leader’s decision is based on the management reward which does not take into account the individual employee’s opinion. The employees’ source of motivation is the end reward which could be remuneration or token for positive appraisals. Unlike the transactional leadership, the transformational leaders are the source of motivation despite the predetermined results. Laissez faire leadership involves members making their decisions with or without the leader’s consent. Transformational leadership has consistently exhibited its successful positive results throughout the years (Barling, Slater, & Kevin, 2000).
Emotional intelligence is vital for successful leadership regardless of the field of study. The concept initiates transformational behavior in leaders hence displaying emotional control and consciousness, a delayed indulgence which defines a role model suitable to follow, respect and trust. The health care organizations can overcome the leadership challenges by creating awareness on the importance of emotional intelligence in effective leadership.
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- Barling, J., Slater, F., & Kevin Kelloway, E. (2000). Transformational leadership and emotional intelligence: An exploratory study. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 21(3), 157-161.
- Doe, R., Ndinguri, E., & Phipps, S. T. (2015). Emotional intelligence: the link to success and failure of leadership. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, (3), 103.