Style of Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

The role of leaders in the present-day service-oriented organizations entails inspiring and motivating subordinates, promoting positive work-related attitudes, and developing a feel of both importance and involvement in and with subordinates. The aforementioned modern leadership tasks place novel demands on programs designed to teach people requisite skills and transform them into leaders. There are also increased demands on companies engaged in choosing leaders, to identify key leadership skills in the candidate pool. Consequently, researchers have focused on examining the fundamental characteristics and performance of successful leaders who effectively assume the mentioned modern leadership responsibilities, to determine leadership training and selection conditions for recruiting and developing efficient corporate leaders. Emotional intelligence, defined as a collection of skills, partly indicating an individual's effectiveness in tackling personal as well as others' emotions, is one of the variables (that have recently become popular) identified as a prospective fundamental leadership trait (Palmer et al. 2001). This paper aims at analyzing whether or not emotional intelligence (EI) in leaders influences their preference for diverse means of integrating their leadership behaviors/actions (Li et al. 2016).

Scholars in the field hypothesize that leaders' effective handling of emotions can influence how they address subordinates' needs, successfully motivate subordinates, and ensure they "feel good'' at the workplace. It is believed that key modern-day leadership abilities rely partly on EI-linked skills and emotional grasp. The precise way and extent of EI's contribution to sound leadership is as yet unknown. In spite of the considerable interest currently taken in finding an association between successful corporate leadership and EI, not many researchers have studied the association comprehensively (Palmer et al. 2001).

Emotional Intelligence influences numerous approaches to leadership, especially the transactional and transformational leadership approach. The latter approach, wherein leaders inspire coworkers and subordinates to take a novel perspective to their routine tasks, needs more attention, as it is regarded as most closely linked to EI. Meanwhile, the transactional approach to leadership entails performance-linked employee censure or rewards (Quader, 2011). Research has also determined links between EI characteristics and transformational leadership; transformational leadership is relatively less related to social intelligence, while its link with cognitive intelligence is the weakest. Leaders govern whether or not the corporate ladder leans on the correct wall. Leadership charisma and associated emotional aspects are typically regarded as a criterion for transformational leaders (Quader, 2011). In fact, a number of research scholars claim that transformational managers display the EI sub-elements of compassion, self-awareness, self-assurance, and inspiration (Quader, 2011).

One research evaluated EI using a revised Trait Meta Mood Scale (a multiple-factor leadership skills questionnaire) among 43 corporate managers. Study authors identified efficient managers as those displaying transformational, and not transactional, approaches to leadership. EI appeared to be linked to numerous transformational leadership elements, indicating its potential importance in ensuring effective company management. EI can, explain the particular ways efficient leaders observe and react to those in their charge, and ensure they feel at their jobs. Individuals who believed they stimulated and encouraged employees to strive to accomplish shared goals (i.e., inspirational motivation) claimed they carefully studied and managed their own as well as others' emotions. Likewise, individuals in leadership posts who reported being highly attentive to employees' developmental requirements and accomplishments also claimed they tended to scrutinize and handle personal and others' emotions (Palmer et al. 2001).

Superior EI levels are assumed to be more vital than intelligence quotients in ensuring efficient leadership. Moreover, apparent overlaps in literature have given rise to the hypotheses that EI might be related to a transformational leadership approach (for instance, the 'individualized consideration' element, 'inspiration', motivational skills, etc. which prove vital to a transformational leadership approach) (Van, 2012). Leaders' emotion -monitoring and -management capacity is linked closely to transformational leaders' individualized consideration element. Individual consideration is used to describe individuals who take careful notice of employees' development requirements and accomplishments. Current outcomes indicate that a fundamental competency might be the capacity of monitoring personal as well as others' emotions. Moreover, inspirational motivation also seems to rely on leaders' emotion management capacity (Palmer et al. 2001).

The remarkably sound link of transactional leadership and the following EI facets -- emotional mentoring, self-awareness, and self-motivation -- has served to challenge EI's established link with transformational leadership, underscoring the fact that a transactional approach remains a contemporary, sound, reliable and persistent approach that is much more telling about individual personalities as compared to simple practical task accomplishment (Quader, 2011). An appreciable positive relationship exists between transactional leadership's contingent reward aspect and leaders' capacity of monitoring their own, and others', emotions (Palmer et al. 2001).

This paper analyzed whether or not a specific leadership approach is most greatly impacted by emotional intelligence, and if yes, to what extent (Quader, 2011). Study findings taken as a whole indicate that EI in terms of corporate leaders' capacity of supervising and handling personal as well as others' emotions may prove to be a fundamental transformational leadership trait. Understanding the exact relationship between successful leadership and emotional intelligence can have a number of implications for manager search companies and HR personnel, especially when it comes to choosing and developing corporate leaders. EI has garnered immense, progressive popularity as a leadership efficiency measure, and as an instrument to cultivate sound leadership skills. In spite of this recognition, not many scholars have empirically studied and corroborated its effectiveness, thereby necessitating additional research (Palmer et al. 2001).

References

Palmer, B., Walls, M., Burgess, Z., & Stough, C. (2001). Emotional intelligence and effective leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(1), 5-10.

Quader, M. S. (2011). Leadership style and emotional intelligence: A gender comparison. Annamalai International Journal of Business Studies & Research, 3 (1), 1 -- 23.

Van Genderen, E. (2012). Relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style: A comparative- gender study. Review of International Comparative Management 13(2) 73, 224-236

Zhidong Li, Bindu Gupta, Mark Loon, & Gian Casimir. (2016). Combinative aspects of leadership style and emotional intelligence. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(1), 107 -- 125. doi:10.1108/LODJ-04-2014-0082