Leadership- Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

Another way of assessing the impact of traits on leadership is through the

concept of emotional intelligence, which emerged in the 1990s as an impor-

tant area of study in psychology. It has been widely studied by researchers,

and has captured the attention of many practitioners (Caruso & Wolfe, 2004;

Goleman, 1995, 1998; Mayer & Salovey, 1995, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, &

Caruso, 2000; Shankman & Allen, 2008).

As the two words suggest, emotional intelligence has to do with our

emotions (affective domain) and thinking (cognitive domain), and the

interplay between the two. Whereas intelligence is concerned with our

ability to learn information and apply it to life tasks, emotional intelligence

is concerned with our ability to understand emotions and apply this under-

standing 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 effectively

manage emotions within oneself and in relationships with others (Mayer,

Salovey, & Caruso, 2000).

There are different ways to measure emotional intelligence. One scale

is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT;

Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). The MSCEIT measures emotional

intelligence as a set of mental abilities, including the abilities to perceive,

facilitate, understand, and manage emotion.

Goleman (1995, 1998) takes a broader approach to emotional intel-

ligence, suggesting that it consists of a set of personal and social compe-

tencies. Personal competence consists of self-awareness, confidence,

self-regulation, conscientiousness, and motivation. Social competence

consists of empathy and social skills such as communication and conflict

management.

Shankman and Allen (2008) developed a practice-oriented model of

emotionally intelligent leadership, which suggests that leaders must be

conscious of three fundamental facets of leadership: context, self, and oth-

ers. In the model, emotionally intelligent leaders are defined by 21

capacities to which a leader should pay attention, including group savvy,

optimism, initiative, and teamwork.

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