One more time ... why Emotional Intelligence is important for Leadership

We had Dominic Murphy who is lead partner for KKR to talk with our MBA students last week. Dominic is a superbly clear communicator and his way of thinking about business and how to create value would serve as a useful précis for what the whole MBA should be about.

But what caught my attention was his response to what he actually is doing during the deal discovery phase and then in subsequent management. He made various references to understanding the "chemistry" between investors and management team. This discussion of chemistry was a great lead into the next day’s “Career Navigator" workshop on Emotional Intelligence and Leadership.

In preparing for this I noticed that when I describe the "emotional" or "social intelligence" competencies proposed by Goleman I often move quickly to the rather prosaic behavioural indicators. These are useful descriptions but if you array them all out then it is no wonder that critics will often claim that Goleman's definition of EI is too generic to be useful.

I tried to find what the "emotional" element in each of the competencies actually is. Of course, this is not hard for the ones with that label (for example, "emotional awareness", "emotional self control"). But what is the emotional content in the others? I found thinking about this for the other competencies very instructive and helpful to understanding how to use the "chemistry" of our feelings and the "chemistry of our relationships".

Here's a quick run-down of some of the elements for attributes where the "emotional content" might not be so obvious:

Achievement: core construct is desire to excel or beat standards; emotional content is where this desire is located; in people who are intensely achievement focused it is not an intellectual striving but much more at the centre of themselves. This is why there is a "efficacy" and "achievement" often go together.

Adaptability: core construct; to understand the emotional content it is better to think of the definition that comes from ecology, namely the ability to cope with unexpected disturbances in the environment.

Organizational Awareness: the core concept is around understanding the power relationships in an organization or group. This is often seen as a very rational and analytical act but it is enhanced by a particular emotional component I would call "organization empathy". The meaning of the power relations comes to life by "feeling" what it is like in an organization or group.

Influence: core construct is ability to convince others often to change or move in a particular direction; the emotional element is doing this synchronously. As social psychologists Reicher, Haslam and Platow put forward leadership is the "ability to shape what followers actually want to do, not the act of enforcing compliance using rewards and punishments".

This is important because I feel that many organisations use competency models in a very one dimensional way. I've observed CEOs of large Fortune 50 companies themselves write their own company's competency model. Rather than being descriptions of what underlies real performance that should drive selection they are used to communicate the behaviours senior management would ideally like to see. These are more often completely disconnected from any strategic intent and more related to prejudices and biases of the CEO.

But leadership is a relational activity. In other words, you cannot be a leader unless you are involved with other people. Therefore, the core behaviours that describe behaviour need to deal with how we relate to people and the emotional content that drives these relationships. That's why emotional intelligence is important.

Goleman, Daniel. Social intelligence: the new science of human relationships. New York: Bantam Bools, 2006.

Reicher, S, S A Haslam, and M Platow. “The New Psychology of Leadership.” Scientific American Mind, August/September 2007: 22-29.