MD4042 Essay: Emotional Leadership as a Driving Force for Success

This essay delves into the crucial role of emotional leadership in fostering organizational success. It examines the concept of emotional leadership, highlighting its significance in motivating employees and achieving organizational goals. The essay explores various leadership styles, including transformational leadership, and provides real-world examples of leaders like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, analyzing their approaches and the outcomes they achieved. It discusses the importance of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and social skills in effective leadership, while also addressing potential drawbacks, such as the risk of irrational decisions. The analysis covers key aspects like teamwork, decision-making, and the influence of leaders on their followers, supported by academic research. It also touches upon the impact of cultural hegemony and the evolving nature of leadership in different contexts, emphasizing the need for leaders to adapt and respond to changes effectively. The essay also includes an analysis of how emotional leadership can foster a cohesive work environment and improve employee creativity and comprehension, all while emphasizing the importance of social skills and self-management for the leaders.

MD4042 LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
ASSESSMENT TWO – INDIVIDUAL ESSAY
“EMOTIONAL LEADERSHIP IS A NECESSARY DRIVING FORCE FOR
ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS”
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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main Body..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
It is attributed that an organisation can only accomplish success and achieves greater heights
with the only inevitable factor of effective leadership within the organisation. It can be
regarded that collaboration is one of the most influential aspects that help employees to carry
out their responsibilities with much efficacy. Regardless of the size, Zhang et al. (2018)
observed that teamwork could be essentially contributively towards the success of an
organisation. However, it is the leader who supports the team members by offering them able
support and ensuring harmony and unity among the team members, thus motivating them
towards the organisational objectives collaboratively. Meanwhile, Loerakker and van Winden
(2017) noted that effective leadership could also extract the best outcomes from the skills and
talents present among the team members. Kraus (2017) often observed that the leaders play
an imperial role when employees face challenging situations by taking the right and wise
decision and even taking responsibility for any risks that may come across. In this, the leaders
can also support minimising the work pressure. Anyhow, Kraus (2017) revealed that
emotional leadership could bring about influential outcomes by encouraging and motivating
the employees emotionally and thereby attaining the goals easily. A good leader can be
characterised by the ability to persuade the employees to perform their tasks and
responsibilities efficiently by taking on with the right emotions. However, in contrasts to this,
if a leader within organisational contexts does not behave positively, the results would be
drastically negative. However, the following report is intended to examine the relevance of
emotional leadership within an organisational context and thus assessing its role in enhancing
the organisational outcomes.
Main Body
As per the viewpoints of Ahmed and Lodhi (2021), it is pointed out that leader has a
significant role for the success of an organisation as they are mainly involved in stating and
accomplishing the objectives in the best possible way by moulding the employees in
accordance to these objectives However as the leader is the person who leads and directs their
team members, it is expected that these leaders showcase an ideal attitude and behaviour for
the entire team. It is to be assured that leaders maintain the close relationship among the team
members making the communication open and smooth.
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Some of the traits that are considered to be present in leaders are intelligence, quick learning
abilities, persuasion, confidence and the ability to physically and mentally aid the employees.
Although official responsibilities are not assigned to the leaders, it is noted that the leaders
are required to work on influencing the employees. Zhang et al. (2018) pinpointed that
hegemony is a crucial perspective within leadership contexts. However, it can be regarded
that hegemony is a political framework that can be associated with the power or supremacy
of a partial ideology among the people or within a country. However, the cultural hegemony
comes into existence when leaders become capable of influencing people based on their
philosophies and concepts. Anyhow, Zhang et al. (2018) opined that people are influenced by
others on the basis of certain aspects that can mould their perspectives and viewpoints.
Regarding this, the concepts and ideologies influence the society, which is followed
unknowingly within cultural perspectives of hegemony. This can be related to the approach
followed by political parties wherein the followers are unknowingly led by these leaders with
their ideologies. The actions and viewpoints of the people who lead others are confined to
these particular ideologies that they believe in. As the thoughts and actions of an individual
are highly influenced by the interests and opinions of their society, it can be regarded that the
hegemony perspectives of the leadership are eminently vital.
Furthermore, the time has found to create an exceptional change in the way people perceive
the power and societal presence of leadership contexts which attributes leadership as a
metamorphic concept. This can be significantly related to the way the Chinese Government
or authoritarian structure is consistently being changing. As the power priorities were
distributed among the social class of the nation, the strength of the communist part of China
within the country was observed to make drastic changes (Yun and Kim, 2019). Thus the
Chinese democracy itself serves to be a good example where the leadership brought about a
change in its firm from extreme autocracy to emotional perspective with time. However, this
factor can be realised to be a political view of the leadership structure rather than an
organisational one.
Scrutinising through the introduction of "Brighter future" concepts and thus alleviates issues
associated with poverty and rather developing plans and policies to uplift and enhance the
lifestyle of the Chinese citizens itself can showcase the efficacies of this leadership structure.
However, when comparing the present state of the nation with these targets, emphasis on the
need of the country to make many effective initiatives to achieve these goals. Thus Issah
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(2018) pointed out that constant development can be demonstrated through effective
leadership and prompt responsiveness to the constructive changes.
Taking into consideration of the theoretical perspective of emotional leadership, it can be
comprehended that the different factors like teamwork management, decisions making and
implementation efficiencies can be supportive. However, Dust et al. (2018) commented that
the emotional leadership could be significantly influential on the followers due to its trait to
encompass on the vision and efficiency in executing the planned strategies. Additionally,
trust can also be noted to be a significantly important factor that can be in turn reversely
affected by adverse actions. However, the impulsive nature of leaders can deter the decision
making responsibilities of the leaders that can, in turn, be one of the contradictory elements
of emotional leadership. In the same way, there are chances that the employee structures of
companies are affected when the emotional leader employ critical thinking based on their
intuitions.
Moreover, the emotional leader can play roles to enhance the creative and comprehension
levels of the employees along with persuading them to accomplish tasks in a cohesive manner
with the ability of the leadership style to manage self-awareness. In the same way, the
followers of emotional leaders can seek motivation and arbitration from them, which will, in
turn, assist the followers in draining internal motivation from their leaders. Therefore to
become role models and maintain ideal characteristic to their followers, most often, the
emotional leaders are anticipated to demonstrate situational social skills. However, the theory
of emotional intelligence is associated with social and self-perceptions even though
complying with regulations and recognition is essential. Conversely, the different types of
leadership, such as autocratic leadership, give emphasis to authority, and the democratic
nature is entirely converse to this, giving emphasis to equality among the followers. Although
the fundamental concepts of these leadership styles are varied, the relevance that these styles
offer to manage self awareness still remains relevant. Regardless of the leadership style
followed by leaders, emotional intelligence is a focuses that can, in turn, support gaining a
balanced support to and fro the followers. However, the transformational style of leadership
that is featured top encompass on a transactional style, values the systems and organisational
structure postulates its core competency as self-motivation. Transformational leaders are
found to mentor and direct their followers accurately by innovatively bring about
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transformation even in the organisational structure that would eventually be aiding for the
organisation and the employees to accomplish success.
Although Maqbool et al. (2017) accustomed that the emotional leadership is much more
effective within organisational contexts, Kim and Kim (2017) also observed that the most
effective method to manage the contemporary business development is by the utilisation of a
strategic leadership. However, this is extremely contradictory to the massive advantages
gained by Jeff Bezos through his leadership and directions towards success. Jeff Bezos was
noted to have undergone an emotional style of leadership which enabled him to create his
own empire at Amazon, giving enough emphasis to offering self awareness and self-
motivation to his employees. Majeed et al. (2017) stated that the company leader could
display being the best eCommerce player in the global market within few years of its
establishment by the callous practices that were employed to manage the employees.
However, as per the reports of Loerakker and van Winden (2017), it can be regarded that the
transformational style of leadership is exemplarily involved in pointing out a supportive
nature of charismatic vision within an organisational scenario. However, in regard to
analysing the emotional style of leadership deployed by Bezos within the workplace, the
relevance of self management and social skills can be essentially explored. Bowers et al.
(2017) stated through the theory of emotional intelligence that social skills are extremely
important to influence followers and to build a bond among the people, thus showcasing
collaboration. This can be related to the way Bezos handled the employees at Amazon by
creating close bonds with them and thus influencing their commitment towards and draw
efficiency for the operational management practices. However, at the same time, various
issues were observed to have occurred within the organisational context of Amazon that
points out the inefficacy of emotional leadership.
Another example associated with the success story of exploiting the emotional approach
towards leading employees can be observed in the case of Tesla, which was led by Elon
Musk. Musk followed to scrutinise the self awareness of the operations through the
leadership style. Moreover, analysing through the different factors that paved the way
towards the success of the Tesla, it can be regarded the exemplary focus towards the visions
was itself standing out from other factors. However, simultaneously, Krisnanda and Surya
(2019) revealed that Musk demonstrated traits of transformational leadership by emphasising
a sustainable method for running the business.
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Further, Yun and Kim (2019) pointed out that an integrated approach of self management
with social awareness can be observed when evaluating the leadership style practised by the
leader. It can be regarded that the employees will showcase complying with regulatory and
social norms by linking the leadership with trustworthiness and consciousness.
McClellan et al. (2017) commented that Elon Musk has been able to bring about outstanding
success through the venture, Tesla, by integrating the ideas of the employees and their
creativity as well thus account the product development to be an entirely team-based plan.
Thus can be linked to the achievement of the company through focussing on social awareness
and sales management aspects of leading followers. At the same time, Dust et al. (2018)
regarded that emotional leaders are to maintain an enhanced vision to collaborate with their
employees towards a common cause or change. This can be critically assessed regarding the
emotional leadership style of Elon Musk.
Thus the positive aspects that can be derived from the use of emotional leadership within
organisational scenario are discussed through the real-world examples of prominent leaders
in the market. However, the increased alignment towards the emotional approach of leading
employees has also been found to have created issues within the organisations as a greater
focus on emotions can result in irrational decisions. Personal accountability can be noted to
be a relevant factor within emotional leadership; however whose failure can result in drastic
negative impacts, as suggested by Khan et al. (2020). The dictator style of leading people can
be remarked to be the most ineffective way of influencing people, wherein Adolph Hitler
could be realised as the most hatred leader commanding others. However, the emotional
pattern of leadership is not only advantageous of managing employees effectively, rather it is
also accounted with the aligning towards the societal values by the leaders. Thus Bowers et
al. (2017) regarded that the theory of emotional intelligence can enable leaders to produce
higher productivity by improving the leadership capability through integration of social and
regulatory compliances.
A good example that accounts for the issues arising as part of neglecting emotional
intelligence to lead by Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP of the oil and gas industry, can be
related to the accident that occurred as per the Deep Water Horizon. On account of the
disregarding and ineffective consideration provided to the practical safety management
towards the employees and the society has led to the accident. The inefficacy of accounting to
social awareness and self-management capabilities of leadership can be evident in the way
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Tony Hayward directed the company, which in turn put the company into enormous financial
destructions and reputational damage, thus creating adverse impacts on the success of the
company (Mullen et al.. 2019).
According to the viewpoints of McClellan et al. (2017), social awareness is regarded as one
vital aspect to be considered for effective leadership as a business can only develop and attain
success through emphasising on team welfare and management. However, Bill Gates has
signified social awareness contributing to never inimitable success of the company along with
carrying out activities intended to achieve social well-being across the world. Bill Gates has
also showcased transformational traits of leadership, thus integrating with the emotional style
of leading people and attaining employee management and success.
Thus through the different examples, Krisnanda and Surya (2019) regarded that the effective
management of an organisation is critically associated with emotional intelligence. However,
the sole exploitation of the emotional approach of leading people is not observed to be much
effective as there are possibilities for some negative consequences. However, Ahmed and
Lodhi (2021) revealed that the integrated approach of combining the emotional and
transformational style of leadership could draw several significant benefits for the
organisation. This would not only be benefitting from managing the employees rather to
consider the external factors to operate the business much efficiently.
Conclusion
Through analysing the emotional and transformational leadership traits, it can be observed
that these styles are explicitly beneficial to persuade the employees towards achieving the
vision and goal of the organisation. Through sharing positive aspects with the employees, a
leader can enhance the commitment and dedication of the employees towards contributing for
the success of the organisation. However, through the present style, an emotional approach of
influencing employees can also be advantageous for the leaders to boost the confidence of
their employees. However, it can also be, in certain circumstances, negatively impacting as
leaders take impulsive decisions that may ultimately go wrong. Thus it can be pointed out
that although emotional leadership can supportive for organisations, a carefully and attentive
implementation is required.
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