Showing Emotional Intelligence

Another important skill for a leader is being able to show emotional intelligence. Although emotional intelligence emerged as a concept less than 25 years ago, it has captivated the interests of many scholars and practitioners of leadership. Emotional intelligence is concerned with a person’s ability to understand their own and others’ emotions, and then to apply this understanding to life’s tasks. Specifically, emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and to manage emotions effectively within oneself and in relationships with others.

The underlying premise of research on emotional intelligence is that people who are sensitive to their own emotions and the impact their emotions have on others will be more effective leaders. Since showing emotional intelligence is positively related to effective leadership, what should a leader do to enhance their emotional skills? Unlike personality traits, which remain fairly stable over time, emotional intelligence is a skill that can be developed.

First, leaders need to work on becoming aware of their own emotions, taking their emotional pulse, and identifying their feelings as they happen. Whether it is mad, glad, sad, or scared, a leader needs to assess constantly how they are is feeling and what is causing those feelings. Each of these core emotional states can range from low to high in intensity. For example, are you feeling content or thrilled?

Anxious or terrified? Paying attention to your emotional states and being precise in how you articulate them can affect how you interact with others. For example, a supervisor high in emotional intelligence would monitor their emotional state before delivering feedback to an employee during a performance review in order to ensure the message “sent” was the message “received.” A supervisor with less developed emotional intelligence, who might be in a tired or irritated mood, may inadvertently convey a more negative message than intended regarding the objective criteria on which the worker is being evaluated, and cause the worker unnecessary anxiety.