1-3: Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Overview of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership-study notes

I love ‘YouTube’ for the simple fact of typing in any famous person’s name or a particular subject matter and seconds later, you are able to retrieve countless video streams. It has proven to be a very handy resource for my management classes so far.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Goleman

                                        

This morning I watched the required ‘YouTube’ video called “Social Intelligence and Leadership” ,featuring the psychologist perspective of Daniel Goleman. He spoke about the importance of Emotional and Social Intelligence in organizational behaviour and management.

As defined in our textbook (Essentials of Contemporary Management-3rd Canadian Edition, p.297) Emotional Intelligence (EI) is "the ability to understand and manage one's own moods and emotions and the moods and emotions of other people". Daniel Goleman goes on to describe the importance of self mastery of EI skills. It's all about being aware of situations, acknowledging how you are feeling in a particular moment and containing your emotions to appropriately handle that moment.

“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal. If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."-Sun Tzu-The Art of War(Source-http://www.theaow.info/china/printer.htm)

In another interview, Daniel Goleman describes Social Intelligence (SI)as "being smart about relationships. It means being empathetic, sensing what the other person is feeling, understanding their point of view, and ease and facility in having smooth, effective interactions. So it's both knowing what the person is feeling and acting effectively based on that". (Source-http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6368484). Being Socially Intelligent is to be skilled at interacting with others. You have the keen ability to inspire empathy among friends or coworkers and are able to engage others. EI and SI seem to feed off each other. On one hand it's important to access a situation properly and keep your emotions in check, and at the the same time it remains relevant to interact with others, be positive and emit a sense of caring.
I really enjoyed Daniel Coleman's example of an individual who was completely in tune with their level of Emotional and Social Intelligence. He began describing the former CEO of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher. Goleman became very animated when he began to describe the sense of good that surrounded Kelleher. This CEO would approach people and offer praise, well wishes and was a great motivating presence among the organization. This man had it figured out. He knew how to stay emotionally balanced and interact with subordinates making them feel good about themselves and the company.

For further information and insight into EI and SI, please click here for a link to Daniel Goleman's blog.

Have you ever wondered how Emotionally savy you are? Click on the test button below for a short quiz to find out your EI.

                                                

Reflective Blog Entry: Managerial/Leadership Traits

I realize after organizing my thoughts for this second blog posting, that I may be leaning towards "overkill". I did alot of additional research, which is certainly assisting me in better understanding the components that make up our first module for this class. After review of module 1 activities, I would conclude that the most important management/leadership traits are as follows:

Integrity/honesty-these traits promote trust between employees and their leaders. It is also pretty hard to respect and follow what someone says, when you don't feel that they are sincere or following honest protocols. This trait is described in our textbook as something that assists leaders to behave in an ethical manner and in turn will help to earn confidence and trust.

“The thought manifests the word;
The word manifests the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let them spring forth from love
Born out of compassion for all beings.
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.”
― Juan Mascaro -Source-http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/integrity)

Maturity-this trait is often hard to come by with some individuals. I think that many people lack the life experience to properly lead a group of people and are not mature enough to make the best decisions to benefit their staff and organization as a whole. A manager and leader has to be able to take his or her responsibilities seriously and respond to issues in an appropriate manner, avoiding silly behaviours and unnecessary mistakes.

Self Confidence-this is an important trait for managers and leaders. People in a position of power must have the appropriate confidence in their knowledge, business sense and leadership skills to properly follow through with controlling and leading a group of people. Someone who is lacking in self confidence may be an easy target for slackers, bullies and other members of a team who search for a weak link to bend.

 

Till next time :)