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...
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…
