The ability of any leader to accomplish challenging tasks is directly related to their level of emotional intelligence. This paper provides an overview of those four components, and argues that social awareness is the most critical of all. Each of these components of EI are also profiled across the spectrum of manager to leader approaches to development.
Role of a Manager
The Four Components of Emotional Intelligence:
Implications for Managing in the 21st Century
The most effective leaders are able to transform their organizations by defining a compelling vision that is challenging yet attainable. Implicit in the skill sets of exceptional leaders is Emotional Intelligence (EI) including the ability to understand complex situations, emotions of subordinates and peers, and coordinate them to ensure successful outcomes and accomplishments. The four components of EI are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management (Chopra, Kanji, 2010). As more organizations face perennial time shortages, EI is a critical skill set for keeping groups, departments and divisions all working together towards a common goal. The intent of this analysis is to define each of these four components of EI and build a convincing argument as to which is the best one overall given the resource and time demands many organizations face in the 21st century.
Analysis of the Four Components of Emotional Intelligence
The first of the four components of EI is self-awareness. This is the capacity of a person, and in the case of an organization, a leader, to be able to gain self-perspective and realize how their actions, attitudes, decisions and strategies impact those around them. Self-awareness is particularly challenging in a very fast-paced business as the time considerations overtake the opportunity to reflect on how effective each interchange or interaction is (Groves, McEnrue, Shen, 2008). Self-awareness is also an essential element of any manager aspiring to become a leader, as being self-aware can help them to continually improve and gain mastery of this aspect of EI. The greater the level of self-awareness in a leader, the more attuned they are to their surroundings, and the quicker they develop foundations of trust with subordinates, peers and superiors as well. Self-awareness is an innate skill set in the best leaders, and can be quickly learned by managers committed to becoming more transformational in their leadership style (Chopra, Kanji, 2010). Of the four aspects of EI, this is the one that is the hardest to immediately see in a leader yet it is the most powerful over the long-term. It is instrumental for creating trust over time across an organization.
The second of the four EI components is self-management. This is more visible than the first attribute as there is often evidence of a leader who has this attribute. Self-management refers to the ability to hold back anger, even after a major mistake on the part of subordinates, departments or company-wide. It is the ability to respond to stressful situations not reacts to them; and there is a very big differences in each. A manager with low self-management will often react in anger, yelling and showing their emotions quickly. A leader with strong EI skills responds in a way to ensure consistency of leadership over time (Groves, McEnrue, Shen, 2008). Often the most visible aspect of a manager vs. A leader in any organization is how they choose tor respond to stressful situations. The best leaders have the ability to consistently show self-management, earning admiration of their peers and subordinate, and trust over time as well.
The third EI component is social awareness. This is also very visible in the best transformational leaders, as it is exemplified by their corporate to departmental awareness, commitment to service and deep level of empathy for others. It is highly visible in the best leaders when they and their teams are under stress. Those leaders with exceptional social awareness take immediate responsibility for working to improve the morale of groups, are highly focused on the power dynamics and emotional climate of their organizations, and strive through communication to improve these critical aspects of their company's culture. The best transformational leaders have an innate sense of social awareness and often consider others' needs more important than their own (Groves, McEnrue, Shen, 2008).
The fourth component of EI is relationship management. This is a critical skill set for leaders who often interact in cross-functional teams and often need the assistance of a wide group of professionals to get tasks done. This also relates to how well a leader creates trust-based bonds across an enterprise and how much time they invest in building alliances with other leaders to ensure the smooth functioning of the organization as a whole (Groves, McEnrue, Shen, 2008).
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