Leadership is an essential art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. It’s a capacity to bring vision into reality and not all people in the world has the inborn capacity to achieve it. Leadership qualities are partly inherited but the best part is leader’s can be made with efficient training and also by developing the risk taking abilities and hence the key ingredient is again working on their emotional intelligence and enhancing it. There have been phenomenal leaders in the past with extra ordinary vision and courage to perform like Martin Luther King , the Great Mahatma Gandhi, Ashoka and the list goes on. Over the years the focus from the traditional styles of leadership of being either an autocratic or a benevolent or a laissez faire leader has shifted to being an emotional intelligent leader. A leader who can negotiates through his emotions and understands the emotions of other and create a bridge between their thought process to come to a fruitful conclusion.
There are predominantly six styles of emotionally intelligent leader like,
The Visionary Leader:
The Visionary Leader moves people towards a shared vision, telling them where to go but not how to get there thus motivating them to struggle forwards. They openly share information, hence giving knowledge power to others. They can fail when trying to motivate more experienced experts or peers.This style is best when a new direction is needed.Overall, it has a very strong impact on the climate.
The Coaching Leader:
The Coaching Leader connects wants to organizational goals, holding long conversations that reach beyond the workplace, helping people find strengths and weaknesses and tying these to career aspirations and actions. They are good at delegating challenging assignments, demonstrating faith that demands justification and which leads to high levels of loyalty.It is best used when individuals need to build longterm capabilities.It has a highly positive impact on the climate.
The Affiliative Leader:
The Affiliative Leader creates people connections and thus harmony within the organization. It is a very collaborative style which focuses on emotional needs over work needs. When done badly, it avoids emotionally distressing situations such as negative feedback. Done well, it is often used alongside visionary leadership. It is best used for healing rifts and getting through stressful situations. It also has a positive impact on climate.
The Democratic Leader:
The Democratic Leader acts to value inputs and commitment via participation, listening to both the bad and the good news.When done badly, it looks like lots of listening but very little effective action.It is best used when simple inputs are needed. It has a positive impact on climate.
The Pace-setting Leader:
The Pace-setting Leader builds challenge and exciting goals for people, expecting excellence and often exemplifying it themselves. They identify poor performers and demand more of them. If necessary, they will roll up their sleeves and rescue the situation themselves.They tend to be low on guidance, expecting people to know what to do. They get short term results but over the long term this style can lead to exhaustion and decline.It is best used for results from a motivated and competent team.
The Commanding Leader:
The Commanding Leader soothes fears and gives clear directions by his or her powerful stance, commanding and expecting full compliance . They need emotional self control for success and can seem cold and distant.This approach is best in times of crisis when you need unquestioned rapid action and with problem employees who do not respond to other methods. So how do one develop himself to become an emotionally intelligent leader????
Developing this 10 essential skills may definitely help one transform into an emotionally intelligent leader and succeed in all his endeavours. What emotionally intelligent leaders do is,
They’re willing to delay gratification
They can tolerate conflict
They focus …focus and only focus
They’re judiciously courageous
They’re in control of their egos
They’re never satisfied and keep on upgrading
They recognize when things are broken and fix them
They’re marketable or likeable
They neutralize toxic people
They Bring all their expertise together
Emotionally intelligent leaders have the unique quality of Understanding emotions of others, managing emotions of self and others, having self control, express and recognize emotions and finally utilise emotions in decisions. Thus it might be seen that 85% -90% of the difference between a good leader and excellent leader is due to differences in their Emotional Intelligence .So the need of the hour is to strive towards upgrading your emotional literacy, understand the ABCs of emotion and eventually become a leader to reckon with.
