Emotional Intelligence and its Impact on Leadership Effectiveness

Running head: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Emotional intelligence...............................................................................................................2
Factors affecting emotional intelligence....................................................................................3
Self-Awareness......................................................................................................................4
Self-Regulation......................................................................................................................4
Motivation..............................................................................................................................4
Empathy.................................................................................................................................5
Social Skills............................................................................................................................5
Relationship of the factors to leadership effectiveness..............................................................6
Emotional intelligence and its inculcation.................................................................................6
Analysis to find out whether a person has emotional intelligence or not..................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE2
Introduction
As opined by Andrei et al. (2016), an important aspect of the contemporary business
enterprises is the fact that the workforce within these enterprises had become much more
diversified than that of the earlier times because of the effects of widespread globalisation or
internationalisation. Miao, Humphrey and Qian (2017) are of the viewpoint that the different
employees or the workers who are a part of the business enterprises have diverse emotional
needs or requirements on the effective fulfilment of which their performance or productivity
greatly depends. More importantly, the managers or the leaders are required to not only
understand the emotions or the emotional needs of the individuals within the spectrum of the
workplace but at the same time try to fulfil them as well (Killgore et al., 2017). It is precisely
here that the construct of emotional intelligence becomes an important for the contemporary
managers or the leaders since it helps the leaders to effectively understand the emotions or
the emotional requirements of the individuals and thereby utilise them in an adequate manner
for the enhancement of their performance. The aim of this report is to analyse the concept of
emotional intelligence, the factors which affect it and its related aspects.
Emotional intelligence
Di Fabio and Kenny (2016) have articulated the viewpoint that the entity of emotional
intelligence can be defined as the ability of the individual to understand their own emotions
and also those of the other individuals and use the same for the purpose of guiding their own
behaviour and that of the others. On the other hand, Fernández-Berrocal and Extremera
(2016) have suggested that the entity of emotional intelligence refers to the ability of the
individuals to handle different interpersonal relationships emphatically as well as judiciously.
In this regard, it needs to be said that the term ‘emotional intelligence’ was introduced for the
very first time in the year 1964 by Michael Beldoch in one his articles however at the same

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE3
time it needs to be said that the credit for popularising the concerned term go to Daniel
Goleman who wrote a book on the concept under discussion here in 1995 of the same name
(Rezvani et al., 2016). More importantly, the prominence that the concept under discussion
here holds in the present times becomes apparent from the fact that numerous research-works
like the ones of Konstantinos V. Petrides (2001), Peter Salovey and John Mayer (2004) and
others that has been performed in the concerned field over the years (Lee & Chelladurai,
2016). As a matter of fact, over the years it had been seen that the attribute of emotional
intelligence had become one of the most important character traits that the leaders or the
managers are required to possess for the purpose of effectively handling their followers or
respective teams (Mathew & Gupta, 2015). In this context, mention needs to be made of
Richard Branson, the founder of the enterprise Virgin Group, who over the years had been
able to gain a substantial amount of success as well as manage his different employees in an
effective manner through the usage of the concept under discussion here (Baczyńska &
Thornton III, 2017). On the other hand, recent researches have clearly revealed the fact that
the people with higher emotional intelligence are not only being able to understand the
emotions of other people but at the same time work with them in an effective manner (Van
der Linden et al., 2017). In addition to this, it is seen that the people with emotional
intelligence have a better mental health, have higher general intelligence, display effective
leadership skills, are being able to perform better at their jobs and others (Laborde, Dosseville
& Allen, 2016).
Factors affecting emotional intelligence
Joseph et al. (2015) are of the viewpoint that there are various factors which affect the
attribute of emotional intelligence and the most important ones among them are self-
awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills and others. It is pertinent to