The Implications of Impact on Emotional Intelligence for Successful Leadership

The implications of impact on Emotional intelligence for successful leadership

Word Count:  1,427 words

Recent developments in effective leadership have heightened the need for emotional intelligence which can be measured by ‘non-cognitive capability, competencies, and skills’ that deal with threats under pressure (Bar-On 1997, 2000:14 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008). According to a definition asserted by Salovey and Mayer (1990:189 cited in Schlaerth et al. 2013:127), emotional intelligence is a type of ability to recognise and monitor emotion between oneself and others, and helping attendants to stimulate their initial or potential ability. This idea has been widely popularised by Goleman (1995 cited in Schlaerth et al. 2013; Cartwright and Pappas 2008). It can be accepted that emotional intelligence plays an inevitable role for successful leadership in all organisations (Goleman 1998 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008; Seibert et al. 2001 cited in Schlaerth et al. 2013), but a much debated question is whether emotional intelligence is one of critical element for effective leadership. Thus, this essay will argue that it has not yet clearly been proven that EI is the most important factor for successful leadership through the analysis of work performance, cultural differences, and gender stereotypes.

On the question of the importance of emotional intelligence, it is merely a substitute for predictive performance of employees or leaders in the workplace. Jordan et al. (2002 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008) examined 44 Australian work teams for nine weeks regarding the relationship between EI and performance. They found that although they had varying EI scores at the initial stage, they were close to a similar level of performance after nine weeks. This may be because that depends on the ability of each individual. If there are a higher number of emotionally talented workers within a team, it may lead to more ‘quickly’ well-organised and effective work performance than workers with lower levels of emotional intelligence, resulting in poor strategies and collaboration with colleagues. On the other hand, in particular, service sectors which deal with customer or client satisfaction such as customer service departments or insurance companies can have positive outcomes with emotionally intelligent behaviour, leading to the improvement of service quality and a team’s performance in this field (Rice 1999 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008). Furthermore, Dulewicz and Higgs (1998 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008) found that when comparing work performance with ‘cognitive and EI competencies’ measured by ‘career advancement’, emotionally intelligent individuals (36%) are much higher achievement than IQ (27%). However, there is weak support to fulfil the relationship between EI effectiveness and workers because there was a limitation to the extent of participants’ scope that were only taken part in intelligently talented people.  In addition, a recent study performed by Downey et al. (2006 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008) suggests that some EI components may be intersectioned partly with ‘the measure of intuition’ provided by Allinson and Hayes (1996 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008). Thus, even though some evidence may show that emotional intelligence plays a significant role to improve employees’ abilities to cope with either customers or clients in certain business fields (Dube and Morgan 1998 cited in Cartwright and Pappas 2008), they may use other alternative tools to solve problems and enhance individual performance in the workplace (Cartwright and Pappas 2008). Similarly, Storey (2016:10) mentions that leadership with ‘inspiration, vision, and creativity’ may emphasise ‘management’ for maintaining systems or operations in the workplace.

Another significant consideration is cultural differences. Global leaders or managers may focus not on emotional intelligence but appropriate leadership style instead because applicable leadership can make their subordinates more motivated to achieve targeted goals (Adler 2002 cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009). Also, expatriate leaders or managers can be influenced by national cultures (Hofstede 1997; Adler 2002 cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009). Teams with cultural similarity have been seen as far more profitable and less risky to expand the size of business than those who are from entirely different cultural backgrounds (Javidan and House 2002, cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009). One example to support that suggestion is KPMG, one of the leading consulting companies, which shows that when having mergers and acquisitions between US and UK companies, they have more positive successful achievements (45%) than the average rate (Gupta et al., 2002 cited in  Reilly and Karounos 2009). In addition, without an understanding of cultural dimensions, global leaders or managers may draw drastic conflicts between workers of different cultural backgrounds. For example, Indian workers can prefer a ‘more directive’ and ‘task-oriented’ style of leadership compared with the more participant-oriented style favored by US managers (Ilangovan et al., 2007 cited in Reiley and Karounos 2009). On the other hand, Goleman (1995; 1998 cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009) asserts that emotional intelligence is the most important trait for leadership compared with other attributes such as technical skill or cognitive abilities. This is in agreement with the survey from Reiley and Karounos (2009), which is based on four different cultural clusters such as Anglo, Southern Asia, Latin Europe, and Eastern with mid to upper level of international sales managers as 1.0 mean (scale of 1 –5, 1 being very important and 5 being the least important). However, all components of EI are not the same value as important as one of significant factors, but social skills are only valid for individual leadership attributes (Reilly and Karounos 2009). Social skills lead to the high degree of skill or expertise to manage common works and harmonised relationships between workers with different cultural backgrounds (Goleman 1998, cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009). Therefore, the priority of effective leaders in different cultural environments requires them to accustom him/herself to the complexity of cultural relationships (Hofstede 1997 cited in Reilly and Karounos 2009).