Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Emotional_intelligence

According to Coleman, Emotional Intelligence is a term that refers to a group of personal and social skills, such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill. He also says that Emotional Intelligence is one of the most important aspects to succeed in any aspect of life. In this way, researches have been showing that Emotional Intelligence is an important factor to be a good leader. The reason for this is explained by that people who are more aware about their emotions and its impact in the others are more effective leaders.  Those leaders are able to evaluate each situation and apply the Leadership style that most fits to the moment, rather than be extract to one style that suits better with their personality.

 

Auto evaluating our Emotional Intelligence is a difficult task, considering the 4 characteristics mentioned before: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skill, in my opinion those skills you can be born with, but certainly could be improved by the time and experience.

 

In my case, I would say that my strengthens are: self-management and social skill.  An example that shows this is that I have lived in 4 different countries, where I have worked in two of them. I succeed to adapt and improve my professional career and academic qualifications. I had to change and learn to live in a different environment with new values. There were many times that was difficult changing habits and understand that despite some similarities the organizational culture was different.  I’ve worked in the same company in those two different countries, and even with the same rules and organizational structure, the daily life was very dissimilar. The relationship with superiors, staff and team workers were completely distinct and in the begging I usually listened until I was confident enough to give opinions or teach others. In addition those experiences were essential to have new approaches in moments of crises and construct strong connections with my team.

 

On the other hand, my weakness is self-awareness ability.  In this set I believe that the weakest characteristic is the “accurate self assessment”, which means a “realistic evaluation of your strengths and limitations” (Harvard Business Review- Leadership that Get Results, 2000, p. 55). I usually expect more from my self, and I have difficulty to recognize my limitations in many areas of my live. In the work environment I expect always do it better and faster, in academic environment I always want a better grade than I had, and in sports I usually focus on my errors and weakness, instead of recognize my best abilities.