Emotionally intelligent leaders are able to own their mistakes and maintain empathy when their team members make them. Self-awareness and the ability to apologize are vital elements of good leadership, as is a willingness to accept the genuine apologies of others.
Emotional intelligence in leadership is comprised of empathy, social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation.
“Martin Luther King, Jr. will always be regarded as a leader who exhibited high levels of emotional intelligence. He was a spokesperson for many who at the time did not have a voice, and he even lost his life for it. He put others before himself, which demonstrates his empathetic character.”
To be effective, leaders must have a solid understanding of how their emotions and actions affect the people around them. The better a leader relates to and works with others, the more successful he or she will be. Take the time to work on self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Emotionally intelligent leaders do five things differently. They proofread for emotions, are selective with vulnerability, understand emotional tendencies, know their team, and emphasize the benefits of feedback.
Goleman's EQ theory comprises five core components: empathy, effective communication or social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation. It doesn't take much to familiarize yourself with the skills that make up EQ.
The Six Emotional Leadership Styles
Four of these styles (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, and Democratic) promote harmony and positive outcomes. However, the other two (Commanding and Pacesetting) may create tension and you should only use them in specific circumstances.
Emotional Intelligent Leadership (EIL) promotes an intentional focus on three facets: consciousness of self, consciousness of others, and consciousness of context.
You're confident about what you contribute and where you need help from others. You're also in tune with your emotions. For example, you're able to identify when situations are triggering a negative response in you, and you can take preventative measures to avoid unhelpful, unhealthy reactions.
According to Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, there are six emotional leadership styles – Authoritative, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, and Coercive. Each style has a different effect on the emotions of the people that you're leading.
Not being emotionally intelligent hinders collaboration within the organisation. When a leader doesn't have a handle on their own emotions and reacts inappropriately, most of their employees tend to feel nervous about contributing their ideas and suggestions, for fear of how the leader will respond.
Emotionally intelligent leaders are aware of their impact on others. They are conscious of how their emotional state is highly influential on their team's decision-making, cognition and performance. They use their capacity to selectively generate emotions to energize their team or to inspire confidence.
For example, demonstrating positive emotions such as happiness or satisfaction can signal that leaders acknowledge solid progress toward goals. Those signals influence how followers think about their work, which can benefit their work together.
To kick start developing your emotional intelligence begin with your consciousness, compassion and your ability to create connections, including with yourself; the 3Cs.
But while emotional intelligence has been shown to be critical to success as a leader, it's not a skill that is necessarily built or developed while working your way up the corporate ladder, said Perry. “When you start off and you're not a leader, your job is to do your job well,” Perry said.
Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
Social skills are the emotional intelligence skills to properly manage one's and others' emotions, to connect, interact and work with the others. If empathy is outward driven to the others, social skills are inward driven and focus on how to interact with and leverage the others to reach our goals.
Each domain contains twelve competencies: emotional self-awareness, emotional self-control, adaptability, achievement orientation, positive outlook, empathy, organisational awareness, influence, coaching and mentoring, conflict management, teamwork, and inspirational leadership.
Eric Barker encourages us to follow the 4 R's rule: Realize, Recognize, Refine, Regulate (and yes, in this case the order is important). 1) Realize: Self-awareness. Having a deep and clear understanding of one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives.
You see, emotionally intelligent people value accountability. They're accountable for their actions, emotions, and decisions, and accept the consequences that come with them. They can reflect on their part of the argument, own their role, and accept when they're wrong.