Great Leadership Works Through the Emotions

Great leadership works through the emotions (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2004, Chapter 1).

Per Livingston (2003), what managers or leaders believe about themselves influences what they believe about their subordinates, what they expect of them, and how they treat them. This suggests that self-evaluation or introspection is crucial for a leaders’ success.

Outstanding leaders tend to know themselves well, they understand their proclivities, weaknesses, and strengths (Watts, 2012). This ability is one of the components of emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman (2004) calls Self-Awareness.

Once this deeper understanding of “self” (Watts, 2012) is established, leaders can maneuver themselves out of the prison of their negative emotions and even channel them in useful ways, another component of emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman (2004) calls Self-Regulation.

Once we take into consideration that managers communicate or project their expectations through their behaviors (Livingston, 2003), we can see that in the example of a manager with an inflated ego, a lack of self-awareness, he projects problems and issues onto the team, not taking responsibility for the situation (Watts, 2012), creating a demoralizing and stressful work environment, demonstrating how a lack of emotional intelligence can create a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

In contrast, when a leader can self-evaluate, and realize that there are multiple ways of perceiving a situation (Goleman, 2004), his behavior will change. Thus, communicating a different message to the people he manages or works with.

Per Livingston (2003), superior managers are constantly able to create high performance expectations that their subordinates fulfill. He attributed this to the great confidence managers have in their own ability to develop the talents of their subordinates. This confidence is the result of truthful self-awareness which leads to clear introspection and emotional maturity that leads to good judgement, which is the essence of leadership (Watts, 2012).

However, it can be further attributed to a cognizance of empathy and social skills, both components of emotional intelligence as per Daniel Goleman (2004). The first being the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and treating them accordingly and the latter the proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, finding common ground and building rapport.

The key to turning expectations into reality (motivation) is for the executive to understand his subordinates’ strengths and create an environment to allow those strengths to manifest (Clifton and Nelson, 1992, cited in Watts, 2012, p.8).

It follows than, that emotional intelligence is crucial for an effective use of the Pygmalion effect.

References:

Goleman, D. (2004). What Makes a Leader?. Harvard Business Review, 82(1), pp.82-91. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com [Accessed 3 Jan. 2017].

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A. (2004). Primal leadership. 1st ed. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Livingston, J. (2003). Pygmalion in Management. Harvard Business Review, 81 (1), pp. 97-106.

Watts, G. (2012). The power of introspection for executive development. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 15(3), pp.149-157.