5 Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence in Good Leadership

Technical skills are crucial in being successful in a job. However, if you aspire to be a great leader in your workplace, you will have to consider possessing an emotional element. This emotional element plays a pivotal role in differentiating good and great leaders. It helps you to effectively coach team members, manage stress in the workplace, deliver feedback positively and collaborate with other individuals.

This emotional element is known as Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

What is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

Emotional Intelligence is defined as the ability to comprehend and manage your own emotions while being able to distinguish and influence the emotions of individuals around you.

The prominence of emotional intelligence in leadership was highlighted more than a decade ago whereby Daniel Goleman, a psychologist who propagated Emotional Intelligence quoted ““The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but…they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions.” In his interview with the Harvard Business Review (Landry, 2019).

Emotional Intelligence is now an essential skill that is highly sought after. Emotional Intelligence is said to be a strong predictor of the performance of an individual in the workplace. Employees with high emotional intelligence are said to be calmer under pressure, resolve conflicts effectively and responds to their co-workers with empathy that promotes healthy communication in the workplace.

Emotional Intelligence can be divided into 5 categories. In this article, we will briefly introduce these 5 categories of emotional intelligence (Future Talent Learning, 2021).

5 Categories of Emotional Intelligence:-

1. Self-Awareness: As a leader, you should always be aware of how you feel. You should be able to recognise how your emotions could affect those around you in the workplace. The aim of an individual with high self-awareness is to ensure their ego and personal traits work for the advantage of the workforce and organization.
2. Self-regulation: As a leader, it is important for you to self-regulate your thoughts and emotions. This enables you to stay in control, not take out your emotions on your employees. You would uphold your organizations ethics and take accountability for all actions.
3. Motivation: The root of motivation is the understanding of “What” you want to do and “Why” you want to do it. Being able to grasp the “why” often involves self-reflection which is where high Emotional Intelligence is required. Leaders who are motivated have high work standards and work towards their goals in a consistent manner. They also have the ability to understand their employees better and will be able to motivate the employees to find their own “what” and “why” for working to the best of their ability.
4. Empathy: A leader with empathy will be able to put themselves in other’s shoes. They would have the ability to develop their team, challenge stereotypes, deliver positive criticism wisely and be a good listeners. A leader with empathy would be able to help their team to navigate through difficult situations.
5. Social skills: A leader is commonly described as being a sociable person who possesses good social skills. They have the ability to make an emotional connection through communication. Leaders with good social skills will be able to deliver unpleasant news and celebrate good news in a manner that would allow employees to constantly feel that there are opportunities for improvement. Leaders with good social skills could easily resolve conflicts and manage change.

Leaders establish quality, feeling and attitude in an organization. If they lack emotional intelligence, it could lead to low employee engagement and a high turnover rate. On the contrary, if they have high emotional Intelligence, they could benefit their entire organization as a whole by contributing to employee satisfaction and engagement to revenue and profit.

As an HR consulting organization, we at Alchemy Resources pay huge importance and have implemented these practices in our own workplace. We have conducted training programmes for employees as well as managers. At ARSB, we have designed our training intervention strategies using the given methods and have executed our training programme using Learning Management System (LMS) through both synchronous and asynchronous. Contact us at enquiries@alchemyconsultancy.asia to find out how we may work together to conduct a training programme to improve performances and achieve your company’s goals.

References:

1. Landry, L. (2019). Why Emotional Intelligence Is Important In Leadership. Harvard Business School Online. Retrieved from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotional-intelligence-in-leadership
2. Future Talent Learning. (2021). What are the top 5 characteristics of emotional intelligence in good leadership? Retrieved from https://www.futuretalentlearning.com/en/future-talent-learning-blog/what-are-the-top-5-characteristics-of-emotional-intelligence-in-good-leadership