The Significance of Emotional Intelligence in Contemporary Leadership

Executive Summary

The study focuses on leadership style of the corporate leaders in the recent era globalisation to manage diverse team members. The discussion of having emotional intelligence in a leader will be represented through evaluating the advantages and disadvantage of emotional intelligence. The major advantages of emotional intelligence are such as understanding own emotion and also others perspectives, enhancing workplace cooperation, developing strong team and continuously influence them to work proficiently to meet their job responsibilities as well as responding to criticism, developing good strategic planning, problem solving activities, and creating good corporate culture at the workplace with flexibility, harmony and freedom to work, managing transparency and accountability as well as ensure ethical practices. It would be advantageous for the corporate leaders to improve emotional intelligence for motivating the team members and develop strong team work at the workplace for achieving future success.

Introduction

In the today’s contemporary leadership style, the leaders focus on developing emotional intelligence in order to enhance understanding and lead the employees towards achieving the future success. A contemporary leader utilises personal influence to develop and inspire the people for achieving the organisational goal by making differences in the community (Golensky and Hager, 2020). In the recent era of digitalisation, the leaders try to be innovative and continuous motivate the employees for meeting the corporate aim of the business so that it would be possible to secure future sustainable development. Emotional intelligence is hereby playing a crucial, role for influencing others at the workplace and leading them towards achieving success by continuous cooperation and collaboration.

Advantages of emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the capability of the individuals to recognise their emotion and those of others at the workplace to manage the workplace appropriately. The major components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management social skill, empathy and motivation, through which the corporate leaders can manage the workers and achieve future success cooperatively. Hence, having emotional intelligence in the leadership qualities is advantageous for the leader to understand own emotion and also others perspectives in order to manage the employees (Lone and Lone, 2018). Developing understanding among the team members and enhancing workplace cooperation are also other benefits of having emotional intelligence in the leader. Emotional intelligence also helps the leader to acknowledge the personal preferences of the workers and also guide them continuously to work efficiently and achieve future success. Empathy and motivational activities further provide a scope to develop strong team in the organisation, where the leader can meet the expectations of the workers and continuously influence them to work proficiently to meet their job responsibilities and contribute positively in the company (Willis, Clarke and O'Connor, 2017).

Responding to criticism at the workplace is very quick, if the leader has emotional intelligence, as the leader is able to understand the existing issues, resistance to change and internal conflicts. It is helpful for the leaders to develop good strategic planning for handling the staff and creating values for them in long run, so that they can work efficiently (Willis, Clarke and O'Connor, 2017). Problem solving activities become smooth and effective at the workplace and the workplace also become flexible for the workers to work cooperatively. Emotional intelligence is advantageous for the leaders to create good corporate culture at the workplace with flexibility, harmony and freedom to work, managing transparency and accountability as well as ensure ethical practices in order to lead the employees successfully. Responding to difficult people and understanding others needs and preferences are also possible, which further help the leader to develop partnership working practice at the workplace and run the business innovatively (Lone and Lone, 2018). Providing monetary and non-monetary rewards to the employees, decreased occupational stress, work life balance, reduced staff turnover, improved decision making practice and maximise team performance are also other benefits of having emotional intelligence in a leader (Golensky and Hager, 2020). Team collaboration, continuous innovation, encouraging employee’s creativity, increased personal wellbeing and improved decisions making practice are effective for the organisations to maximise the overall performance and meet the corporate gaol of the organisations.

Disadvantages of emotional intelligence

In the recent years, it becomes difficult for the contemporary leaders to work with diverse team members across the globe. In such context, without emotional intelligence, the leaders cannot understand the perception and preferences of the employees at the workplace that further raise issues related to misunderstanding and mistrust. Without having emotional intelligence, the leaders fail to develop strong corporate relationship with the workers, due to misunderstanding and mistrust among the members (Lee, 2019). It also hampers the organisational overall, performance where the employees are not willing to perform efficiently with their full potential due to misunderstanding and lack of motivation at the workplace. The leaders also fail to support and guide the employees during change which raises the issues of internal conflicts and resistance to change (Chen and Guo, 2020). Without having emotional intelligence, the personal needs and preferences of the employees as well as their expectations cannot be met at the workplace, where the staff members become less interested and feel demotivated to work with others and contribute in the workplace efficiently. The organisational corporate goal cannot be achieved and there is lack of innovation and creativity which hamper smooth working activities (Chen and Guo, 2020). The corporate culture and organisational structure are also not maintained well without having emotional intelligence in a leader. These are the major disadvantages of not having emotional intelligence in a leader, for which the leaders fail to manage the diverse team members and maximise the organisational aim.

Conclusion

It is hereby essential for the leader to have emotional intelligence in order to understand the perspectives of the members at the workplace and create good decision for leading the team towards achieving future success. Without having emotional intelligence, there are several issues such as internal conflicts, misunderstanding, mistrust and resistance to change which further deteriorates the organisational performance. The contemporary leaders in the recent era of globalisation must focus on developing emotional intelligence to lead diverse team and continuously motivate them to performance better.

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Reference List

Chen, J. and Guo, W., 2020. Emotional intelligence can make a difference: The impact of principals’ emotional intelligence on teaching strategy mediated by instructional leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 48(1), pp.82-105.

Golensky, M. and Hager, M., 2020. Strategic leadership and management in nonprofit organizations: Theory and practice. London: Oxford University Press.

Lee, Y.H., 2019. Emotional intelligence, servant leadership, and development goal orientation in athletic directors. Sport management review, 22(3), pp.395-406.

Lone, M.A. and Lone, A.H., 2018. Does emotional intelligence predict leadership effectiveness? An exploration in non-Western context. South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management, 5(1), pp.28-39.

Willis, S., Clarke, S. and O'Connor, E., 2017. Contextualizing leadership: Transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active in safety‐critical contexts. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 90(3), pp.281-305.