Emotional Intelligence

A critical leadership competency

‘Emotional Intelligence’ became widely known leadership term when Daniel Goleman published his book of the same name in 1995¹.

Goleman was the first researcher to apply this concept to business leadership.  He examined the qualities and traits of leaders at over 200 large, global companies and published his findings in his 1998 Harvard Business Review article: ‘What Makes A Leader?’ ²

In his research, Goleman analysed the relationship between outstanding performance (defined by measurable business results) and emotional intelligence.  He tried to understand what separated successful leaders from ‘truly effective leaders’.

Goleman’s research found a clear link between an organisation’s business results and emotional intelligence, and showed:

• That while traditional leadership qualities, e.g. intelligence, technical skills, determination, vision etc. were essential ‘entry-tickets’ to successful leadership, the most effective leaders also displayed a high degree of emotional intelligence
• Emotional intelligence i.e. the ability to work well with others and effectively lead change was twice as important in determining outstanding performance as technical skills and cognitive abilities (analytical reasoning)
• This difference became more pronounced the higher up in the organisation people were – in senior leaders emotional intelligence accounted for 90% of the difference in the profiles of outstanding vs. average performers.

Goleman also references David McClelland’s 1996 research at a global food and beverage company.  McClelland found that when senior managers had a ‘critical mass of emotional intelligence capabilities’, their divisions beat annual earnings targets by 20%, and those without them under-performed by about the same amount.3

What is emotional intelligence?

In 1998 Goleman defined Emotional Intelligence as a group of 5 skills that enables ‘the best leaders to maximise their own and their followers’ performance’.  These skills were:

Personal Competencies:

1.      Self Awareness:Knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and impact on others

2.      Self Regulation:  Controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses or moods

3.      Motivation:driven to achieve for its own sake

Social Competencies:

4.      Empathy:  Understand other people’s emotions

5.      Social Skill:building rapport with others to move them in desired directions

4 dimensions

In 2000, Goleman used the results of statistical analyses conducted by Richard Boyatzis to refine his model into a ‘Framework of Emotional Competencies’.⁴

This Framework reduced the 5 EI skills from his earlier work into 4 Dimensions and 20 EI competencies.

Goleman joined with Boyatzis and Rhee⁵ to assess these 20 EI competencies in almost 600 corporate managers and professionals and engineering, management and social work graduate students.  This extensive study provided empirical support for this new Framework.

The 4 domains are: 

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness and
• Relationship Management.

Each domain comprises a number of EI competencies, and there are 20 in total.  These 20 EI competencies are set out in the presentation below.

Join and learn how you can develop your emotional intelligence and leadership competencies.

References:

¹Goleman, D., (1995) Emotional Intelligence, Bantam

²Goleman, D., (1998), ‘What Makes A Leader?’ Harvard Business Review Press

³McClelland, D. C., (1998) ‘Identifying Competencies With Behavioural-Event Interviews’, Psychological Science, 9(5), 331-340

⁴Cherniss, C. (Editor), Goleman, D. (Editor) (2001) ‘The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select For, Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups, and Organizations’ San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

⁵Boyatzis, R., Goleman, D., & Rhee, K. (2000). ‘Clustering Competence in Emotional Intelligence: Insights From The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI)’, Handbook Of Emotional Intelligence.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.