Social Intelligence and Leadership - Coursework Example

Social intelligence is the ability to get along with other people’s emotions or feelings and compel them to cooperate in a given task. It is a combination of basic understanding of people- a kind of strategic social awareness- and a set of several skills for interacting successfully with them (Albrecht, 2006). It can be high or low. Those with high social intelligence are believed to have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, exceptional leadership skills and cause people to feel valued, capable, loved, respected and appreciated. Those with low social intelligence, on the other hand, cause others to feel inadequate, lack confidence, angry, frustrated or guilty. A leader who possesses these strong skills finds it easy to deal with the daily challenges faced in his or her workplace. Those with low social intelligence are anti-magnetic. This leaves us with the old expression that a magnetic personality may be reasonably accurate. You will find that this leader is capable of managing his behavior and relationships more effectively. According to Goleman (1996), effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of both emotional and social skills. It is hard for any leader to lead without possessing strong social intelligence skills. Yes, they may have the best training in the world, and they may have smart ideas have the ability to make good choices and act with force, have a sharp mind but still won’t make great leaders. It is said that ninety percent of top performance have high social intelligence; fifty-eight percent of one’s job performance is, as a result, of being socially intelligent, and people with high emotional quotient make $ 29,000 more every year than their low emotional quotient counterparts. This is evident; therefore, that this skill has a positive impact on one’s career as it helps a person become a better leader in today’s stressful working environment. Employees need to work together and share responsibilities equally so that things run smoothly in every organizational set-up and a leader’s role in all this is to understand and connect with the people they have been appointed to lead so that work is carried out fairly and honestly. Thus possess excellent or good interpersonal skills as it is very vital (Goleman, 2013). There is no employee who likes their leaders to every time tell them what to do or have complete power over them. Such a leader, Albrecht (2006) describes him or her as toxic. He makes his employees feel like they do not belong anywhere, inadequate and frightened. A leader who possesses social intelligence should be ready to listen to the values held by individuals within the organization then work hand-in-hand to incorporate those values into goals. Social intelligence reduces conflict, create collaboration, replace unreasonable beliefs and enable people to work together so as to achieve common goals. According to Gardner (2000), his social intelligence model, demonstrates that there are five distinct primal dimensions of human competencies that depend largely on experience and common sense. These dimensions include situational awareness, presence, authenticity, clarity and compassion. People who are aware of their situations have the ability to read them and interpret such behaviors in terms of their probable thoughts, emotional states and ability to communicate. One’s appearance, on the other hand, posture, quality of voice and movements and a lot of others can be evaluated to give a person’s impression. Authenticity, on the other hand, is when a person picks up various signals from another person’s behavior that lead them to judge us honest, genuine, authentic, open or ethical. People who can explain himself illuminate ideas, and express views are judged as a straight-forward person and clear. Moreover, Goleman's (1996) emotional intelligence model illustrates the four dimensions of emotional intelligence that create leadership competencies. These dimensions include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. People who are self-aware are honest with themselves and others, understand their values, goals and dreams and trust their intuition. Those who can manage themselves, on the other hand, are transparent and display integrity and trustworthiness. Social awareness particularly empathy is the number one driver for a leader to sense others emotions, understand their attitude and take an interest in their concern thus maintaining their relationship with employees. A leader who is, therefore, self-confident, transparent, optimistic, organizational aware, an inspiration, bond builder, influence, collaborator and who encourages teamwork, has a high emotional intelligence and is competent enough and can also make an excellent coach. Seeing that emotional intelligence and leadership go hand-in-hand, there are others who argue that emotional intelligence is not that essential for leadership. McCrimmon (2009) argues in his journal article that a leader who lacks in-born skills and knowledge is capable of managing his or her emotions and interact with people effectively and surprisingly enough, such a leader can be found at the bottom of the organizational chart. He begged to differ how Goleman (1996) said that it was accepted wisdom that leaders must be emotional intelligent so as to be effective and argued that in fact it was harmful as it blocked certain people from showing leadership skills that otherwise might be great and very important. Leaders should not only be senior executives or chief executive officers in mind as these theorists place them or those who in one way, or another have an impact on us or have authority over others. Instead, they should be seen as those people who have the ability to generate profitable goods in a social perspective. In conclusion, therefore, I can say that understanding the influential role of social intelligence sets the best primal leader apart from the rest (Goleman, 2013). But then again leadership should not be concentrated too much on those of higher ranks as anybody can be his or her own leader. We, therefore, need leaders who articulate a positive vision of development and progress and also those who invite people to grow as individuals and as a society. References Albrecht, K. (2006). Social intelligence: The new science of success. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass Gardner, H. (2000). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: BasicBooks. Goleman, D. (1996). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London: Bloomsbury Goleman, D. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence, with a new preface by. S.l.: Harvard Bus Review Press. McCrimmon, M. (2009). Why emotional intelligence is not essential for leadership. Ivey Business Journal, 73(1), 5-12. Read More