In the 2020s, change and uncertainty underline the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) in leadership. Rapid developments in tech, markets, geopolitics, and financial instability demand cool heads, agile responses, effective teamwork – and the EI to hold it all together. Research shows that EI in leadership inspires stronger behaviours, engagement, and business results. What is emotional intelligence in leadership and how can it be developed?
What is emotional intelligence in leadership?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise, understand and manage emotions, both in yourself and other people. In practice, this means leaders aren’t afraid to take feedback or change their mind. By detecting nuances in emotional reactions, leaders are better able to influence actions, decisions, and performance.
Leaders skilled in EI recognise that smooth efficiency and routine depend on untidy human realities ticking away behind the scenes. Like the hands of a clock, routine relies on mechanisms hidden from view. Every team is a complex network of emotional needs that can be hard to see and difficult to understand. However, it’s important that leaders know how to maintain motivation and manage tension. Efficiency depends on human skills – EI keeps both ticking over.
Emotional intelligence skills for leaders
Emotional intelligence was first explained in 1990 by social psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer though became more widely known through the work of clinical psychologist Daniel Goleman. In his 1998 article What makes a leader? Goleman discussed his analysis of ‘competency models’ – personality assessments used by companies to find and fast-track potential leaders.
Analysing competency models at 188 companies (including Lucent Technologies, British Airways, and Credit Suisse), Goleman grouped personal attributes into three categories: technical skills (eg accounting), cognitive abilities (such as analytical reasoning), and evidence of EI (eg the ability to work with others.) Individuals were extensively interviewed and tested, and Goleman looked at this data too.
Discovering what he described as “dramatic results”, Goleman explained that “when I calculated the ratio of technical skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as the others for jobs at all levels.”
Goleman also noted that the “higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more emotional intelligence capabilities showed up as the reason for his or her effectiveness.”
For Goleman, there are five core components of emotional intelligence:
Self-awareness – The ability to recognise and understand your moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effect on others.
Self-regulation – The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, along with the propensity to suspend judgment – to think before acting.
Motivation – A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money or status, along with a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
Empathy (also social awareness) – The ability to understand the emotional make-up of other people, together with skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions.
Social skill (also relationship management) – Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, for example finding common ground and building rapport.
Organisational psychologist Tasha Eurich found that although 95% of people think they’re self-aware, only 10 to 15% actually are. Eurich also noted that un-self-aware colleagues can cut a team’s chances of success in half. True self-awareness is an honest understanding of your emotions and their effect on you and your team’s performance.
The importance of emotional intelligence in leadership
Emotional intelligence in leadership is particularly important in our changing times. In a prolonged period of change and uncertainty, an inflexible mindset will quickly run into trouble. Leaders need an agile approach to needs, both their own and other people’s, to cope with the fallout of a global pandemic, new technologies, financial instability, geopolitical tensions, widespread disengagement, and evolving company cultures.
In 2023, an in-depth analysis of 104 peer-reviewed articles on emotional intelligence focused on leadership. The authors noted that “in today’s brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible (BANI) environment, emotional intelligence, leadership, and work teams have changed significantly.”
The authors found that emotional intelligence “serves as a prerequisite for becoming more resilient”, allowing individuals to deal with stressful situations and make effective decisions.
Examples of emotional intelligence in leadership
The authors of the 2023 analysis of peer-reviewed papers looked at the impact of emotional intelligence on different types of leadership, such as:
Transformational
Transformational leaders successfully bring about change by using EI skills such as encouraging interpersonal communication and team collaboration. Transformational leadership, as a phrase, sums up the relationship between improvement, emotional intelligence, effectiveness, performance, and team commitment.
Emergence
Small groups which don’t have a formal leader sometimes come to be led by someone who emerges as a natural contender. Emotional intelligence is associated with leadership in this form more than cognitive intelligence, personality traits, or gender. In the original paper that inspired this observation, the skill most consistently associated with leadership emergence was the ability to understand emotions.
Resonant
Resonant leadership seeks to build an environment of trust and respect within a team. Leaders who are open to feedback, and aware of their own emotional state, can better connect with those around them (similar to guitar strings or a singer resonating with an object that’s in close proximity.) Nurses working under resonant leadership were found to have less emotional exhaustion and better teamwork than nurses working for dissonant leaders.
Why do leaders need emotional intelligence?
Since the work of Salovey, Mayer and Goleman, it has come to be widely accepted that leaders need emotional intelligence if they are to get the most from their people, especially in the grip of change and uncertainty.
Business strategist Dr Bilal Zaghmout analysed the leadership style of 150 managers and staff in 30 companies in the UK, comparing their answers to their company’s performance. He found that a 10% increase in a manager’s emotional intelligence score was associated with a 7% increase in overall business performance, including profitability.
According to Dr Zaghmout, “Managers with high emotional intelligence were better at resolving conflicts, fostering teamwork, and maintaining high morale among employees. This in turn led to increased employee engagement, lower turnover rates, and improved overall productivity.”
Companies whose managers have high emotional intelligence “are more productive, better able to innovate and have happier customers, which leads to a higher income”, Dr Zaghmout said. Meanwhile, other analysis suggests that teams with less emotional intelligence are prone to more relationship conflict, of deeper intensity, than teams with stronger EI.
How to improve emotional intelligence in leadership
Despite discrepancies in the academic literature regarding defining and measuring emotional intelligence, EI is consistently regarded as a significant tool in effective leadership.
For us at Working Voices, there are two approaches to developing EI in leadership. The first is an emotional intelligence training course that focuses on EI alone. This approaches the subject from the perspective of leaders and their clients, with the aim of building stronger working relationships.
We also look at emotional intelligence from a broader context, focusing not just on leaders but on company culture. Our Team Engagement curriculum supports companies seeking to improve EI in the workplace by adopting it as part of their culture. A culture of trust, respect, psychological safety, and belonging helps to grow collaboration, productivity, and revenue.
In the 2020s, uncertainty overshadows businesses everywhere. Geopolitics and market reactions can’t be easily predicted. Some things that can be controlled however, such as using EI to build engagement and resilience, can make a critical difference. In preparing for an uncertain future, these skills are a good place to start.
