Emotional Intelligence:
Can emotional intelligence be learned or is it something out of our hands? Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to perceive, understand, reason with and manage emotions and feeling. “Emotional intelligence has proved to be twice as important as technical skills and IQ for jobs at all levels” (Goleman, 1998, p. 84). As a leader, emotional intelligence includes Self-Awareness, Empathy and Self-Regulation, all of which have an effect on how each person performs as a leader.
Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness is about knowing yourself and understanding your moods, emotions, strengths, limitations and having a strong self-confidence. People with strong self-awareness have a good balance between being too critical and unrealistically hopeful. Self-aware people make decisions that coincide with their values. Leaders need to be self-aware, and know their limitations as strengths, and how this compares to challenges they are being asked to take on. “Leaders are constantly required to make judgment calls that require a candid assessment of capabilities- their own and those of others…People who assess themselves honestly – that is, self-aware people are well suited to do the same for the organizations they run” (Goleman, 1998, p. 85). People with a strong self-awareness often seek for constructive criticism, which helps them continuously improve themselves and become better leaders.
Empathy
Empathy understanding others peoples emotional makeup and treating others based on their emotional reactions. Being highly aware of others emotions creates a great leader. As a leader, it’s important to remember that nobody is the same and that you need to clearly understand different personalities. “They know when to push for better performance and when to hold back. In the way they motivate their protégés, they demonstrate empathy in action.” (Goleman, 1998, p. 90). By being sensible to what another person’s needs are (ex: challenges, deadlines, comfort) it can help leaders know how to organize things, and how to gain respect of their teammates or coworkers. According the OB text book people who are high in the aspect of other-awareness such as emotional intelligence are not only sensitive to the feelings of others but also can anticipate the emotions that people will experience in different situations. In contrast, people who are low in this aspect do not effectively sense the emotions that others are experiencing, and if the emotions are negative, this inability could result in the person doing something that worsen the situation. (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2012, p. 319) As a leader you should not be oblivious to others around you and should strive to keep harmony between the team.
Self-Regulation
Self-Regulation also known as emotion regulation involves self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, and innovation. It is about being able to recover quickly from emotional experiences. As a leader one should be able to regulate his/her temper to some extent because it may send a negative message to the rest of the team.
Creating structure and organization:
Companies are made of many different departments which are each comprised of many different people that each have different responsibilities in the company’s success. Its leader’s job to have a structure in place that facilitates cooperation between all groups and members.
Build Understanding
Its essential that coworkers have an understanding of the challenges, resources, and constraints of those they work with. “People can’t find this information in formal job descriptions; they can learn it only by observing and interacting” (Morieux, 2011, p. 78). A leader should implement a program where workers from different areas shadow each other to gain a deeper understanding of how their roles interact. Without this perspective they tend to blame the other group for being incompetent when things go wrong. Having an understanding will not only stop them from pointing fingers at each other, it will also show them areas where they can help. This should be done not only by the workers, but by the manager as well. When all parties have the same knowledge they can identify the root cause of an issue and develop a solution.
Enable Integrators
Having an understanding between groups is important, but isn’t something that can be done on a daily basis. That is why a leader will also identify integrators that can keep the lines of communication open between the groups. When headquarters comes up with a strategy that leads to a breakdown at a specific location, the integrator is someone who is on the front lines of the breakdown and can facilitate the cooperation that will solve the issue. “Once you’ve identified them, you should reinforce their power by increasing their responsibilities and giving them a greater say on issues that matter to others” (Morieux, 2011, p. 82).
Spread responsibility
Once groups have an understanding of each other and an integrator to keep them connected, the leader can spread the responsibility between the groups to increase cooperation. When Team A and Team B are responsible for each other’s success, they won’t shy away from helping the other. This also means that a team or person is held accountable for being uncooperative. An example of railway company describes, “It was decided that once a unit told others it had a problem, the units that failed to cooperate in solving the problem would be held responsible for the delay” (Morieux, 2011, p. 86). Spreading the responsibility creates an environment where cooperation is in everyone’s best interest.
Even though organizations have many different people and teams with many different tasks and roles, they are all working for the success of the same company. By having a structure that helps them understand and communicate with each other, a leader can help all teams function as one unit working toward the same ultimate goal.
Consideration:
Leaders have to work with many different personalities and teams that have a variety of different tasks, motivations, and responsibilities. In order to effectively deal with all of them, a leader must be considerate of the position that others are in.
Focus on Others
One method is to not overemphasize personal goals. It is a basic human characteristic to concentrate on your own needs, but truly great leaders learn to focus on others. The goals of a leader are achieved when the people they are in charge of are successful, so they must take the focus off of themselves and instead examine the problems and breakdowns others are experiencing. Focusing on the team will have the lasting results that come from true leaders. “True leadership is about making other people better as a result of your presence— and making sure your impact endures in your absence.” (Morris, Ely, & Frei, 2011, p. 160)
Put Persona Aside
Another area that holds back a leader’s ability to be considerate is being too caught up in their reputation. Managers create a persona as they move up in an organization, but if when they become a leader they are too caught up in maintaining their persona they’ll lose some of their effectiveness. The leader has a choice between maintaining an image or making a real impact. To make an impact they shouldn’t act like they know everything and should ask questions of others. An insight from a volleyball coach perfectly described how putting reputation aside and being more human with employees helps, “If you want people to care what you think, first make it clear that you care what they think.” (Morris et al., 2011, p. 162)
Understand conflict
It helps when a manager humanizes themselves to the employees, and it is also important to humanize those that they conflict with. “Distorting other people is a common response to conflict, but it carries significant leadership costs.” (Morris et al., 2011, p. 162) This mentality only causes more conflict and good leaders will learn to recognize that others are just people doing their job and that they could probably be allies or at least find a way to coexist.
Motivation:
Goal Setting:
Some may assume that setting a goal is simple, like “try harder” or “do your best,” but the Goal Setting Theory explains it is much more complex. According to the theory, a goal is aimed for a specific quality level to be reached within a set time period (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 170). The five principles of goal setting strongly structure the way goals should be created. To motivate, goals must have: clarity, a challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity. When creating goals based on clarity, goals must be well defined and measurable with a time frame.
Challenge
Goals also need to be challenging. As noted by psychologist Daniel Gilbert, “people are happiest when they’re appropriately challenged—when they’re trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach” (Morse, 2012, p.85). .If goals are not attainable, then individuals may become discouraged if they find out that they do not have a great chance of success. If an individual feels that their goal is both challenging and attainable, the commitment will be there. Typically speaking; the harder the goal is, the more commitment is involved.
Feedback
Feedback is another import principal of the goal setting theory. Feedback provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal difficulty, and gain recognition. This is important because this keeps the individual on task, makes minor tweaks, and creates positivity during the process of accomplishing a goal.
SMART Goals
S-M-A-R-T goals are a great way to make sure that your goals are clear and concise. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, results based, and time sensitive (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 175). An example of a S-M-A-R-T goal could exemplify as “Increase my grade by 3 percentage points, 3 weeks before finals, to get a 92% in Business Administration 330” This goal is specified by increasing the grade 3 percentage points; measurable by increasing to a 92% in the class; achievable because it is a grade that an individual is able to get; results based as you will be able to see the results; and time sensitive because it includes when action is going to take place.
Reward:
Managers have a choice in the type of motivational tactics that they use. They can threaten and punish those that don’t meet standards or they can recognize and reward those that do good work. So which will be more effective? An interview with psychologist Daniel Gilbert reveals the scientific findings. Gilbert states, “Psychologists have studied reward and punishment for a century, and the bottom line is perfectly clear: Reward works better” (Morse, 2012, p.85).
Raises and Promotions
The most obvious form of reward is a raise or promotion. Leaders need to be very fair when using these methods to reward employees. The reason to be cautious is explained by the Equity Theory of motivation. This theory holds that people keep a mental ledger of inputs and outcomes and use that ledger to constantly compare themselves with others (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 185). While these rewards are definitely effective, they can cause jealousy between coworkers and should only be used when appropriate. Since a company has a limited amount of promotions it can give, what are some others ways that leaders can reward workers?
Recognition
The simplest form of reward is recognition. The desire to be acknowledged is a basic human characteristic and leaders that can play off of those feelings might be able to give the emotional cue that pushes an employee to make the extra step. These are quick and inexpensive things that can add a lot of value. Leaders can use meetings as a forum to recognize strong performers in front of their peers. Other tactics can be simpler like an email acknowledging someone’s good work and saying thank you. Recognizing an employee will let them know that their hard work has not gone unnoticed which encourages them to work that hard again. It also creates an atmosphere where everyone is competing to do their best to gain that recognition.
Can emotional intelligence be learned or is it something out of our hands? Emotional Intelligence is one’s ability to perceive, understand, reason with and manage emotions and feeling. “Emotional intelligence has proved to be twice as important as technical skills and IQ for jobs at all levels” (Goleman, 1998, p. 84). As a leader, emotional intelligence includes Self-Awareness, Empathy and Self-Regulation, all of which have an effect on how each person performs as a leader.
Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness is about knowing yourself and understanding your moods, emotions, strengths, limitations and having a strong self-confidence. People with strong self-awareness have a good balance between being too critical and unrealistically hopeful. Self-aware people make decisions that coincide with their values. Leaders need to be self-aware, and know their limitations as strengths, and how this compares to challenges they are being asked to take on. “Leaders are constantly required to make judgment calls that require a candid assessment of capabilities- their own and those of others…People who assess themselves honestly – that is, self-aware people are well suited to do the same for the organizations they run” (Goleman, 1998, p. 85). People with a strong self-awareness often seek for constructive criticism, which helps them continuously improve themselves and become better leaders.
Empathy
Empathy understanding others peoples emotional makeup and treating others based on their emotional reactions. Being highly aware of others emotions creates a great leader. As a leader, it’s important to remember that nobody is the same and that you need to clearly understand different personalities. “They know when to push for better performance and when to hold back. In the way they motivate their protégés, they demonstrate empathy in action.” (Goleman, 1998, p. 90). By being sensible to what another person’s needs are (ex: challenges, deadlines, comfort) it can help leaders know how to organize things, and how to gain respect of their teammates or coworkers. According the OB text book people who are high in the aspect of other-awareness such as emotional intelligence are not only sensitive to the feelings of others but also can anticipate the emotions that people will experience in different situations. In contrast, people who are low in this aspect do not effectively sense the emotions that others are experiencing, and if the emotions are negative, this inability could result in the person doing something that worsen the situation. (Colquitt, Lepine, & Wesson, 2012, p. 319) As a leader you should not be oblivious to others around you and should strive to keep harmony between the team.
Self-Regulation
Self-Regulation also known as emotion regulation involves self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, and innovation. It is about being able to recover quickly from emotional experiences. As a leader one should be able to regulate his/her temper to some extent because it may send a negative message to the rest of the team.
Creating structure and organization:
Companies are made of many different departments which are each comprised of many different people that each have different responsibilities in the company’s success. Its leader’s job to have a structure in place that facilitates cooperation between all groups and members.
Build Understanding
Its essential that coworkers have an understanding of the challenges, resources, and constraints of those they work with. “People can’t find this information in formal job descriptions; they can learn it only by observing and interacting” (Morieux, 2011, p. 78). A leader should implement a program where workers from different areas shadow each other to gain a deeper understanding of how their roles interact. Without this perspective they tend to blame the other group for being incompetent when things go wrong. Having an understanding will not only stop them from pointing fingers at each other, it will also show them areas where they can help. This should be done not only by the workers, but by the manager as well. When all parties have the same knowledge they can identify the root cause of an issue and develop a solution.
Enable Integrators
Having an understanding between groups is important, but isn’t something that can be done on a daily basis. That is why a leader will also identify integrators that can keep the lines of communication open between the groups. When headquarters comes up with a strategy that leads to a breakdown at a specific location, the integrator is someone who is on the front lines of the breakdown and can facilitate the cooperation that will solve the issue. “Once you’ve identified them, you should reinforce their power by increasing their responsibilities and giving them a greater say on issues that matter to others” (Morieux, 2011, p. 82).
Spread responsibility
Once groups have an understanding of each other and an integrator to keep them connected, the leader can spread the responsibility between the groups to increase cooperation. When Team A and Team B are responsible for each other’s success, they won’t shy away from helping the other. This also means that a team or person is held accountable for being uncooperative. An example of railway company describes, “It was decided that once a unit told others it had a problem, the units that failed to cooperate in solving the problem would be held responsible for the delay” (Morieux, 2011, p. 86). Spreading the responsibility creates an environment where cooperation is in everyone’s best interest.
Even though organizations have many different people and teams with many different tasks and roles, they are all working for the success of the same company. By having a structure that helps them understand and communicate with each other, a leader can help all teams function as one unit working toward the same ultimate goal.
Consideration:
Leaders have to work with many different personalities and teams that have a variety of different tasks, motivations, and responsibilities. In order to effectively deal with all of them, a leader must be considerate of the position that others are in.
Focus on Others
One method is to not overemphasize personal goals. It is a basic human characteristic to concentrate on your own needs, but truly great leaders learn to focus on others. The goals of a leader are achieved when the people they are in charge of are successful, so they must take the focus off of themselves and instead examine the problems and breakdowns others are experiencing. Focusing on the team will have the lasting results that come from true leaders. “True leadership is about making other people better as a result of your presence— and making sure your impact endures in your absence.” (Morris, Ely, & Frei, 2011, p. 160)
Put Persona Aside
Another area that holds back a leader’s ability to be considerate is being too caught up in their reputation. Managers create a persona as they move up in an organization, but if when they become a leader they are too caught up in maintaining their persona they’ll lose some of their effectiveness. The leader has a choice between maintaining an image or making a real impact. To make an impact they shouldn’t act like they know everything and should ask questions of others. An insight from a volleyball coach perfectly described how putting reputation aside and being more human with employees helps, “If you want people to care what you think, first make it clear that you care what they think.” (Morris et al., 2011, p. 162)
Understand conflict
It helps when a manager humanizes themselves to the employees, and it is also important to humanize those that they conflict with. “Distorting other people is a common response to conflict, but it carries significant leadership costs.” (Morris et al., 2011, p. 162) This mentality only causes more conflict and good leaders will learn to recognize that others are just people doing their job and that they could probably be allies or at least find a way to coexist.
Motivation:
Goal Setting:
Some may assume that setting a goal is simple, like “try harder” or “do your best,” but the Goal Setting Theory explains it is much more complex. According to the theory, a goal is aimed for a specific quality level to be reached within a set time period (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 170). The five principles of goal setting strongly structure the way goals should be created. To motivate, goals must have: clarity, a challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity. When creating goals based on clarity, goals must be well defined and measurable with a time frame.
Challenge
Goals also need to be challenging. As noted by psychologist Daniel Gilbert, “people are happiest when they’re appropriately challenged—when they’re trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach” (Morse, 2012, p.85). .If goals are not attainable, then individuals may become discouraged if they find out that they do not have a great chance of success. If an individual feels that their goal is both challenging and attainable, the commitment will be there. Typically speaking; the harder the goal is, the more commitment is involved.
Feedback
Feedback is another import principal of the goal setting theory. Feedback provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal difficulty, and gain recognition. This is important because this keeps the individual on task, makes minor tweaks, and creates positivity during the process of accomplishing a goal.
SMART Goals
S-M-A-R-T goals are a great way to make sure that your goals are clear and concise. SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, results based, and time sensitive (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 175). An example of a S-M-A-R-T goal could exemplify as “Increase my grade by 3 percentage points, 3 weeks before finals, to get a 92% in Business Administration 330” This goal is specified by increasing the grade 3 percentage points; measurable by increasing to a 92% in the class; achievable because it is a grade that an individual is able to get; results based as you will be able to see the results; and time sensitive because it includes when action is going to take place.
Reward:
Managers have a choice in the type of motivational tactics that they use. They can threaten and punish those that don’t meet standards or they can recognize and reward those that do good work. So which will be more effective? An interview with psychologist Daniel Gilbert reveals the scientific findings. Gilbert states, “Psychologists have studied reward and punishment for a century, and the bottom line is perfectly clear: Reward works better” (Morse, 2012, p.85).
Raises and Promotions
The most obvious form of reward is a raise or promotion. Leaders need to be very fair when using these methods to reward employees. The reason to be cautious is explained by the Equity Theory of motivation. This theory holds that people keep a mental ledger of inputs and outcomes and use that ledger to constantly compare themselves with others (Colquitt et al., 2012, p. 185). While these rewards are definitely effective, they can cause jealousy between coworkers and should only be used when appropriate. Since a company has a limited amount of promotions it can give, what are some others ways that leaders can reward workers?
Recognition
The simplest form of reward is recognition. The desire to be acknowledged is a basic human characteristic and leaders that can play off of those feelings might be able to give the emotional cue that pushes an employee to make the extra step. These are quick and inexpensive things that can add a lot of value. Leaders can use meetings as a forum to recognize strong performers in front of their peers. Other tactics can be simpler like an email acknowledging someone’s good work and saying thank you. Recognizing an employee will let them know that their hard work has not gone unnoticed which encourages them to work that hard again. It also creates an atmosphere where everyone is competing to do their best to gain that recognition.