Exploring the Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

This essay explores the critical role of emotional intelligence in authentic leadership, emphasizing its importance in understanding, managing, and effectively using emotions to foster strong relationships, navigate workplace complexities, and motivate others. It highlights that authentic leaders are self-aware, acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrate transparency. The essay delves into the four key components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, illustrating how each contributes to effective leadership. Examples from companies like Marks and Spencer and Amazon are used to demonstrate the impact of emotional intelligence on organizational success and employee well-being, especially during challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay concludes that emotional intelligence is essential for leaders to inspire, manage conflicts, and connect with their teams on a deeper level, ultimately driving improved productivity and profitability.

Emotional intelligence
is an important
prerequisite of
authentic leadership

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Emotional intelligence is an important prerequisite of authentic leadership.........................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
Online...................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Emotional intelligence is the process that depict the ability to understand, manage and also
having the effective use of own emotions within the positive manner in terms of relieving the
stress, empathise with others, communicate effectively, defuse conflict and overcome challenges.
It is helpful to develop the strong relationship, succeed at the work and school and also achieve
their own personal and professional goals. Further, emotional intelligence is also useful in terms
of connecting with the feelings, make informed decisions, turn intentions into actions regarding
what matters the most (Böck & Lange, (2018)). High emotional intelligence helps in directing
the social complexities of the workplace and motivate others in their career. The uncontrolled
emotions and stress leads to impact the mental health so; it is important for an employee to have
healthy mental condition to perform their assigned task efficiently. The following essay leads to
cover the importance about the prerequisite of authentic leadership with suitable examples.
MAIN BODY
Emotional intelligence is an important prerequisite of authentic leadership
According to the perspective of Kruse, (2013), Authentic leaders are the one who are self-
actualised and also aware of their strengths, limitations and emotions. They also represent their
real side to their followers and do not act as one way within the private and public and also do
not hide their mistakes and weaknesses due to the fear of looking weak. These leaders also
realise that being self-actualised in an endless path that never get complete. Emotional
intelligence is essential within the leadership as the most effective leaders are all same the
critical manner as they all have the high degree regarding the knowing factors of emotional
intelligence. According to the various researchers, emotional intelligence is the strongest
predictor of the overall performance and the employees with high emotional intelligence are

likely to stay calm, composed, under pressure, respond to the co-workers with empathy and
resolve conflict effectively.
According to Dollard, (2018), there are several leadership skills that are used in workplace,
school, classrooms, politics and also in the families. Here, people who take initiatives, have
proper vision, can effectively strategize, plan and achieve goals are considered as the good
leader. Emotional intelligence of the ability of leaders in which they accurately perceive the
emotions in terms of understanding their signals in which emotions send about the suitable
relationships (Marson, (2019)). Emotional intelligence is the factor which is helpful for the
leaders as they are able to opt the changing circumstances at their workplace and their own roles.
Emotional intelligence enables the individual to become more adaptable within the society and
also make effective sense. By considering the example of Marks and Spencer, the employees
need proper guidance and direction of leader after the global pandemic of COVID-19 as after
this pandemic most of the employees left their workplace or downsized and new ones need
proper guidance. Here, the leader of Marks and Spencer need to aware about few things,
understanding and also manage the prominent emotions by which they can help to direct their
workforce in the ever changing environment and also become the successful leader.
Emotional intelligence is the key leadership skills for those leaders who are effective and
also master in terms of managing their relationship in positive manner. Being a leader of the
team where people are having effective and important relationship with each other is important
in terms of performing with full potential (Nguyen, (2018)). Further, to move towards the
position of authentic leader only emotional intelligence is not enough, an individual must have
professional knowledge and experience in terms of taking the leadership role at their high degree
and also more effective to become successful. Hence, emotions are flux and adaptability is the

key to being an outstanding leader. By considering the example of Amazon, Andy Jassy (the
leader) is the one who set the tone of an organisation and if he lacks emotional intelligence then
it could have more far-reaching consequences that results in the lower employee involvement
and the high turnover rate. In regard of this, the emotional intelligence is essential for having
authentic leadership post and to understand it clearly four components of emotional intelligence
are discussed in the clear manner:
Self-awareness: It is the core factor and component as it depicts the overall ability to not
only consider the strengths and weaknesses but also recognise the emotions and also undertake
the effect on the overall team’s performance and an individual as well. According to Eurich,
(2019), around 95% of the people think that they are self-aware and only 5-10% are actually
aware about the real thing as it leads to develop the issue among the employees. Further, working
with the colleagues who are not self-aware seems like to divide the organisation within various
units and it lead to enhance the stress and decreased motivation (Awabdeh, (2020)). In terms of
bringing out the best from the others, then an individual need to first bring out best in them in
which they are able to become self-aware. The easy and effective way to access the self-
awareness is by considering the 360-degree feedback method for the overall evaluation of the
performance of other employees and also matches it against the opinions of the direct reports,
peers and bosses.
Self-management: It depict the overall ability to manage the emotions specifically in the
stressful situation and also leads to maintain the positive condition despite from the setbacks. If,
the have the shortage of self-management also tends to react and have the harder time in terms of
keeping their impulses in the check. Further, in terms of being more automatic, the leaders need

to tune with emotional intelligence. Here, it is essential to remember, breathe, collect few things
and consider effective things in order to manage the effective emotions.
Social awareness: It is essential to understand and manage the own emotions and also need
to consider proper description of the overall ability to recognise others and their emotions by
considering the dynamics in their overall play and consider the development of organisation. In
this, the leaders are the one who are having social awareness practice empathy and also strive to
understand their overall feelings and perspectives of their colleagues that makes them enable to
communicate and collaborate more effective with their peers (Gimbert & Molina, (2021)).
Therefore, the leaders of every organisation must be able to communicate with empathy and
effectively support the team regarding the proper improvement of the individual’s performance.
Relationship management: It refers to the effective ability to impact, mentor others, coach
and resolve conflicts with their potential and efficiency. Most of the leaders prefer to neglect the
conflict and it is also essential for them to effectively address the issues that occur and consider
the unaddressed conflict that leads to waste the time of an organisation and generate other
unproductive activities in terms of draining the morale and other resources.
Internalised moral perspective depicts the suitable degree to which the leader set the suitable
standards for the moral and consider the ethical conduct and also let them effective guide the
prominent decisions and actions against the external pressures like group, societal pressures and
organisational. Hence, the emotional intelligence and authentic leadership both depends on the
effective foundation of emotional self-awareness and to effectively manage others, they need to
effectively understand the suitable values, strengths and weaknesses (Ford, Ford & Polin,
(2021)). It leads to create the proper clarify regarding the purpose and let them speak clearly
about their vision. Besides from this, self-awareness tends to make things easier in terms of

developing the emotional balance. For this, the authentic leadership depict the suitable features
with the help of transparency as it is essential to balance the openness with self-control. It
represents the stressful situations that are inevitable occur and the overall ability to remain calm
and clear headed which is critical for everyone to look forward for the leader considering the
crises for the proper solution. Further, the stressful situation is inevitable among the life of
employees so, it is important for them to have authentic and focused leaders who can guide and
direct them in critical conditions (Alonderiene & Pilkiene, (2020)). These leaders are empathic
as they have the ability to sense feelings of others and how they tend to consider few things.
For instance, undertaking the listening factor, leaders of Tesco are the one who tends to
welcome opposing viewpoints and also give them fair consideration infuse the leadership with
proper authenticity. Self-awareness is the factor that leads to feed the moral factors and adhere to
the positive ethical foundation in terms of making the decision more moral and mature. The
discussed domains of emotional intelligence are closely corresponding in terms of prevailing to
the authentic leadership (Turner, (2019)). Further the authentic leadership and emotional
intelligence tends to confirm that their theories are significantly positively related to the
authentic leadership factors. The leaders are more comfortable in terms of being vulnerable that
undertake treating other with proper compassion and also being accountable for their actions.
They also tend to share their overall viewpoint honestly and also motivate the productive
discussion on their team as they lead to foster the overall environment in terms of supporting the
suitable learning, mentorship and growth. In regard of this, it has been analysed that emotional
intelligence is important for the authentic leadership in which leaders are the one who leads to
face fresh challenges as running the organisation and leading a team is never been an easy task
(Magill, (2020)). For this, leadership position was asked in terms of turning creative factors to

save the jobs and preserve the health factors of people in an urgent manner. Further, it has been
analysed that there is no doubt that the leadership will be one of the most heavily tested skills
throughout the global pandemic.
This pandemic saw that employees to move towards the remote working or the hybrid mix
which is virtual work or office based. There researchers represent that four out of three
employees appreciated the increased flexibility and autonomy and around 75% of them wanted
them to persist (Da Fonseca, (2020)). After the newly directed flexible working environment at
the time of worrying about the wellbeing, the employees also look for the leaders. Like, 74% of
the employees want their manager to prove their leadership style by focusing over the empathy
and the supportive attitude. Further, the 70% of the respondents are right regarding the support
available for their mental wellbeing which is essential to their working life.
Therefore, it has been summarised that the high emotional intelligence represents the ability
to easily develop relationship, possess the personal integrity and also have excellent
communication skills among the positive traits. Hence, it is easy to imagine that how some
attributes tend to resonate the specific things in the midst of the uncertainty of global pandemic
(Duffey, (2018)). The emotional intelligent leaders are like to effectively manage their
relationship within the crisis as well by inspiring others and managing conflict as it is easier for
the leaders to connect on the deeper level through emotional intelligence.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been summarised that emotional intelligence depict the
ability to understand things. The emotionally intelligent leadership leads to bring several benefits
to the business bottom line and also connected regarding the improved productivity, profitability
and also reduce employee attrition. The emotional intelligent leaders need to prove that they

have the core features that are required to help employees in terms of opting and also thrive the
amidst uncertainty.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Böck, V., & Lange, M. (2018). Leadership in Digitalisation: Employees' Perception of Effective
Leadership in Digitalisation.
Marson, N. (2019). Leading by Coaching: How to deliver impactful change one conversation at
a time. Springer.
Nguyen, U. P. (2018). Toward the affective process of collaborative leadership: a
phenomenological study in managing the complex educational change.
Awabdeh, E. (2020). Measuring the Effect of an Emotional Health Discipleship Course (EHDC)
on Emerging Christian Leaders in the ECA Church in Damascus After Eight Years of
War. Nyack College, Alliance Theological Seminary.
Gimbert, B. G & Molina, C. E. (2021). Social Emotional Learning in Schools: The Importance
of Educator Competence. Journal of Research on Leadership Education,
19427751211014920.
Ford, J., Ford, L., & Polin, B. (2021). Leadership in the implementation of change: Functions,
sources, and requisite variety. Journal of Change Management, 21(1), 87-119.
Alonderiene, R., & Pilkiene, M. (2020). Educational Leadership and Job Satisfaction. In Oxford
Research Encyclopedia of Education.
Turner, P. (2019). A Model for Health Sector Leadership. In Leadership in Healthcare (pp. 109-
142). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Da Fonseca, S. (2020). The impact of self-awareness on effective leadership outcomes in South
Africa (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
Duffey, C. N. (2018). Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Perceived Workplace Incivility:
Examining the Moderating Role of Organizational Commitment Among Technology
Specialists (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).
Magill, I. C. (2020). Developing mindful leaders: a scoping review of the role of mindfulness in
leadership development (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University (South-Africa)).

Online
What Is Authentic Leadership? 2013. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/05/12/what-is-authentic-leadership/?
sh=50ca8e7fdef7>./
Emotional Intelligence Is Key to Successful Leadership. 2018. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.gottman.com/blog/emotional-intelligence-key-successful-leadership/>./
WHY EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IS IMPORTANT IN LEADERSHIP. 2019. [Online]
Available through: <https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotional-intelligence-in-
leadership>./