Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Healthcare Leadership

This article discusses the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) in healthcare leadership and its components such as self-awareness, self-regulation, internal motivation, empathy, and social skills. It explains how leaders with strong EI can drive innovation and change in healthcare organizations. The article also provides tips for developing EI in leaders.

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Emotional Intelligence is elaborated in the form of the ability to recognize and handle
one’s emotions and the emotions of others. The world has become advanced due to the adaption
of the latest technology which increases the directly or indirectly competition. This kind of
activity or initiative increases stress, anxiety, and challenges. Emotional intelligence can be
considered as the tool which helps in reducing the stress, empathize with others, the power to
think calmly and relieve stress. The emotional intelligence of the leader can have an extensive
effect over their relationships, in what way they would manage their teams and interact with
individuals in the workplace. According to Riggio & Reichard, (2008), the role of the leadership
in the growth of the company keeps huge importance and the leadership not limited up to IQ and
technical skills, in fact, these are entrance level needs for executive positions. It has been
analyzed that 58% of all success in jobs are known for by emotional intelligence which shows
the massive importance of the emotional intelligence in the workplace (Cavazotte, Moreno &
Hickmann, 2012).
There are major five components of emotional intelligence which play a crucial role in
making a successful leader. These are self-awareness, self-regulation, internal motivation,
empathy, and social skills. A leader should have the self-awareness skills to understand their
emotions in the current moment, not weeks later when comprehension dawns why they behaved
in a specific way. The main aim of the leader is to see the emotions and their roles in affecting
others in the environment. They are able to understand the communicable nature of emotions and
ready to handle theirs in a constructive and inspiring way (Brackett, Rivers & Salovey, 2011).
There are many people who have different understanding and point of view towards the
emotional intelligence, they think that IQ is important for the leadership but Emotional
intelligence is more important than IQ because it is a better predictor of quality of relationships,

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success and entire happiness. It has been found that the self-awareness leaders have the definite
image of their strengths and weaknesses. This skill permits them to be attentive of how they are
apparent by others.
With respect to the self-regulation, it has been found that the leader who has knowledge
about how to complete the self-regulations can identify and channel emotions like anger or rage.
Indecisions do not lead to inaction and it is referred to as the channeled into constructive action
that outcomes in confidence. Fear is the factor that bound people to do something different and
increase the hesitation in accomplishing the task. It is vital for the leaders to have the self
regaulation power because it allows them to control their emotions while developing a decisions
to specific situations. Leaders with self-regulations can attack verbally to others in order to
handle the tough situation of the company (Harms & Credé, 2010).
Self-motivation is another aspect of the emotional intelligence which shows that the
leader with self-motivation can do work tirelessly toward their aims and they do not require
outsider appreciation to activate their drive. They set high standards not only for their teams but
also for themselves. This feature of emotional intelligence in a leader can enthusiasm others as
well in increasing productivity. It has been analyzed that their optimism is contagious (Harms &
Credé, 2010). Motivation is considered as the passion that moves beyond their material of money
and status. It has been found that this is regarding fundamentally driven by an aim of depth
understanding that might not last. The capacity towards accomplishing the aim of the company is
more in motivated leaders and their attitude is positive towards the performance of the work.
Empathy is another factor of the emotional intelligence which can be considered as the
ability to maintain the team in an effective manner by developing better understanding their

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drivers and emotions. This help in developing the leadership role and it has been analyzed that
around 90% of communication includes that which is implicit like body language and tone of
voice and they answered to these hints along with the spoken words (Wang & Huang, 2009). The
leader with empathy skills has the ability to understand the concern of their team member so that
the team member feels that they are a valuable part of their organization. The leader with
empathy has the ability to develop the loyal and engaged team members. In the context of the
social skills, it has been found that it is the skills that entail persuasiveness, building networks,
team building, and building rapport. It needs honest and direct communication and leads to the
capability to motivate. The leader who is having social skills has the ability to exhibit ease with
conflict resolution. This kind of leaders trains their followers in order to assist them to the next
level in their current one and they complement their followers in order to do good work (Hess &
Bacigalupo, 2013).
To get a better understanding regarding the basic fundamentals of emotional intelligence,
leaders need to manage, inspires and motivates the people so that they can move ahead in the
company for getting a better understanding. It is necessary for the manager to control their
emotions. Social skills are related to communication skills, conflict resolution along with those
forging firm relationships with others (Furnham, 2012). Leaders who are having strong social
skill are good at handling amendments and set an illustration to others in their behavior. There
are five characteristics such as confidence, regulating owns expectation, charisma, confidence
and the handling of relationships. These are fallen under the sign of emotional intelligence.
There is an example of Amazon that found itself in the crosshairs of The New York
Times, subsequent the publishing of a huge critique regarding its exact standards of the
employee and unkind working environment. Jeff Bezos is the CEO of the Amazon and he was

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able to use the chance to turn the criticism around, by declaring amendments within the company
and addressing the issues that had been raised. The leader of Amazon was quite good and rather
fighting the claims, he leaned in and was able to provide the changes to the employees and the
customers as they desired. There is another example of the overall emotional intelligence in the
leadership which comes from Larry Page and Sergey Brin, these are the founders of Google.
Google has become the largest organization in the entire world and it is the only organization
that has the environment of a spunky start-up. Due to emotional intelligence, it has been found
that the culture of the company becomes change radically as per the desire of the employees as
Google is able to retain their playful culture of the company. The success behind Google’s
strategic initiates is related to the emotional intelligence of their executive team (TEC, 2018).
It has been analyzed that the role of the leader in a healthcare organization is huge as they need
to fulfill various roles simultaneously, entailing developer, change agent and inspirer. In the role
of the inspirer, it is the duty of the leader in healthcare to make commitments of time and wealth
for the advancements for the goals of the healthcare to induce stakeholders. It has been noted by
Hur, van den Berg & Wilderom, (2011), that non-profit leader should focus on making decisions
by applying an effective leadership style for the purpose of sustaining the climate of hope among
their stakeholders. Effective and appropriate decisions on leadership style will help out to
successful interactions, motivating stakeholders to invest their emotional energy in a subsequent
try. Hence, decision-making ability keeps huge importance in the emotional intelligence factors
as they lead the leader in the success path.
It is required for the leaders of today’s healthcare to develop the emotional intelligence in
their leadership skills and for this, they need to acknowledge the importance and the value of the

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emotional intelligence. It has been found that EI is not commonly a feature or characteristic that
is evaluated in job applicants.
Figure 1: Emotional Intelligence
Source: (TEC, 2018)
There are some steps which should be followed by the leader to develop EI in which to
increase the self-awareness, leaders need to keep a journal in which they can write down their
thoughts which would help out to amplify the self-awareness. However, leaders have a plenty of
responsibility and work burden but it is necessary for developing the emotional intelligence to
keep calm and manage the situation without getting angry and irritate (Rockstuhl, Seiler, Ang,
Van Dyne & Annen, 2011). In the context of the self-regulation, leaders need to know their
values, hold themselves accountable and practicing being calm. Make a commitment to admit the
mistakes and to face the results no matter what kind of they are. It is necessary for getting
success in the organization to be self-motivated because it would help them to work consistently
until they reach their goals. Motivated leaders tend to deal with the condition with an optimistic
manner, no matter what issues are they facing. For every kind of business, strong intrinsic

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motivation can be considered as the competitive benefits. It has been found that the highly
motivated leaders have knowledge regarding the fundamentals to accomplishing those
motivations. This kind of knowledge facilitates them to make positive decisions in their
communications and bonding with others (Cavazotte, Moreno & Hickmann, 2012).
With respect to the empathy, it is vital for the leader to put you in someone else’s
situation as it would help to improve the empathy factor of emotional intelligence. Apart from
that, it is required for the manager to put attention to body language because learning to read
body language is the actual factor of the leadership role. Emotional intelligence is not just the
part of the learning; it is the process which comes out with experience such as communicating
with others, give respect to other’s feeling, helping them to understand their concerns etc.
The role of the social skills in emotional intelligence is huge and it is crucial for the
leaders to develop them adequately. It can be developed by nurturing behave of resolving the
conflict situations which represents that leader must have enough knowledge regarding resolving
the issues between team members and customers. Along with that, the role of the communication
skills is also great in the development of the social skills as it facilitates to express or to convince
someone regarding the situation. Furthermore, leaders should appraise others for their
achievement which would increase their confidence.
It has been found that there are many leaders are facing worrying situations and the
leaders who do not have a strong emotional intelligence are unable to manage their own
emotions. It represents that the existence of the emotional intelligence in the leader is necessary
it helps in driving innovation and change in the organization. In the context of bringing change in
the organization, emotional intelligence can be considered as the concept that helps in collecting

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and implementing knowledge from emotions of other for the aim of attaining the desired results.
The innovation in the organization could be done in an effective manner if the leader of the
organization has strong emotional intelligence. The components of emotional intelligence make
him free from the stressful situation by which he can contribute to making changes in the
organization. By keeping him in other situation can amplify the importance of others in the
organization and the involvement of a number of people in decision-making approach can give
the number of ideas to the leader regarding the innovation (Dickson, 2018).
With amendment happening all around us, it is necessary for the leader to be aware of his
emotional responses to be ready to help others. With respect to professional intelligence, EQ is
considered as an intelligence tool that provides with awareness to other’s answers. Along with
that EQ is able to recharge and keep away from undue stress. There are some ways of EQ which
are considered as the major tool in change management. These are mitigated stress, amplify
learning agility, make better decisions, promote employee recognition and recover from adverse
situations (Tähtinen & Blois, 2011).
EQ facilitates a deal with stress though allowing leaders to identify and take ameliorative
action so that the action could not transform into a chronic situation. Along with that EQ
facilitates in lowering the defensiveness and negativity that chunks the ability to adapt and
innovate. Stress is the common issue which is undervalued. However, EQ cannot change entire
workplace dynamics but it can be helped out to temper reactions and develop a balanced point of
view regarding the self-worth which is come from different kind of approaches, like
volunteering, family and creative detections. EQ allows for required viewpoint, giving a huge
lens on issues and opportunities in order to better expertise informed decisions (Vos, 2018).

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It can be concluded that “Emotional Intelligence” is one of the up-and-coming topics that
shows much assure in the organizational area and is commendable of additional study. The
leaders who are having strong emotional intelligence can surely assess their powers in making
comparisons to others in the company. This essay has elaborated the all components of EQ in a
depth way so that the better understanding about EQ could be made. It has been found from
above analysis that leader with strong EQ can drive innovation and good changes within the
organization. The success of the organization is dependent on the team or staff and they can do
work with more enthusiasm if they have a leader who has strong EQ.

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