Credibilit Studer's Chapter Summary

As part of this critical assignment, it is a requirement that I reflect on my own experience as a Leader where I have demonstrated a high level of emotional intelligence, as well use theories to demonstrate my learning’s.

Organizational success is dependent on several interior and exterior factors. While exterior factors are important, the internal workings of an organization are vital. Specifically, empowered employees and effective communication contribute indefinitely to accomplishing common goals within the company. The foundation of successful high performing teams is through effective leadership. Without effective leadership, company morale and productivity can decline causing, the company to fall into a downward spiral. Therefore, to pursue and maintain a career as a leader in financial management, I will need to empower employees and effectively communicate the goals of the organization.

A leader is a person who sets direction and influences others to accomplish the goals (Borkowski, 2015). It is the responsibility of the supervisor to set the direction by helping and motivating staff members see what lies ahead and face those challenges. Emotional intelligence is one of the important trait that helps leaders to work with people effectively. “Emotional intelligence involves assessing one’s own feelings, as well as feelings of others, then using those assessments to guide personal thought and action” (Borkowski, 2015, p. 239).

Leadership is a complex process by which a person sets direction and influences others to achieve their goals (Borkowski, 2015). It is the responsibility of the supervisor to set the direction by helping and motivating staff members to see what lies ahead and face those challenges. Emotional intelligence is one of the important traits that helps leaders work with people effectively. “Emotional intelligence involves assessing one’s own feelings, as well as feelings of others, then using those assessments to guide personal thought and action” (Borkowski, 2015, p. 239).

Empathy was also noted to be an important aspect, without it the leaders would not be able to demonstrate consideration to the individuals(Harms, 2010). Other important attributes to a transformational leader includes showing self-confidence, emotional intelligence theses are all correlated with being a strong and successful leader (Harms, 2010; Hutchinson, 2013). Some important effects of transformational leadership is increased commitment to the organisation, improved staff health with lower numbers of staff with anxiety, stress and emotional exhaustion. Within the work environment reports of better role clarity and less conflict and uncertainty were evident as well as an increased productivity rate(Cummings, 2010). Transformational leadership works on the assumption that the workers become more motivated when they are encouraged to engage with their own governance and work environment, it works throughout the ranks but especially on lower ranked employees due to the shared government that transformational leaders are empowering them to do(Donogue,

Jean Watson created an evidence-based theory, Theory of Human Caring/Caring Science, which concentrates on being heart centered and genuinely present in the moment with the work we do and the people we work with. “A Caritas Practitioner (Caritas, from the Latin, means to cherish, appreciate) functions from a caring consciousness that permeates from their soul and can be felt by the recipient” (McDowell & Williams, 2017, p. 1). In my experience organizations with leaders who genuinely care more about the people than they do about the cost-effectiveness or production have a greater sense of commitment and enthusiasm within the employees. Caring leadership creates a want-to environment “In other words, we can create a culture where employees "want to" come to work, want to work hard, and want to produce quality work; or we create a culture where employees "have to" go to work, are coerced to do their work, and are disengaged and bitter” (Pickard, 2014, p. 3). To create a caring environment requires conscious effort, it doesn’t create itself. The leader must remember to make their employees feel appreciated in a sincere and noticeable way. I believe employee who feels appreciated will be excited for new challenges and do more than is expected on a

Organizations large and small are facing situations that are coming from an area called emotional intelligence. The leadership in the organization has to have ability and understanding to handle issues that may

Communication is another practice important to this leader. Leadership communications consists of those messages from a leader that are rooted in the values and culture of an organization and are important to key stakeholders like employees, customers, strategic partners, shareholders, and the media. He sees the importance of not only top to bottom communication but also bottom up communication. He also communicates directly with the community. He does this so there is a free flow of ideas no matter where they may come from. To get feedback from employee he does Employee Satisfaction Surveys. Wherever the employees say improvement is needed he get input from his department head about how to improve whatever needs improving. An issue we were having was with customers knowing about programs before the employees did. To fix that situation he had the public relations department seen all employees the company’s next day media announcements.

Effective leaders are all around us. Effective leaders lead by example, walk the walk and talk the talk, and are able to provide their team with the tools they need to be effective and successful. They support their team in making decisions, but not make the decisions for them. Leaders can also provide feedback and coaching when necessary. Most leaders rely on their team around them to reach the goals they set out, both for the leader and for the team. Working with great leaders is a dream come true for most people. Effective leaders make work better and more exciting. One of the most important aspects of being a great leader is caring for those individuals that

For the most part, incredible leaders know how their leadership style impacts their followers, and this knowledge makes them great leaders. Genuinely incredible leaders recognize, comprehend and deal with their feelings, as well as knowing what they can do with individuals in an exceptionally engaging manner. Motivating and inspiring others is paramount to effective leadership (Kotter, 2012). In addition to having this enthusiastic insight, it is crucial for leaders to understand the importance of having compassion, self-awareness, and respect to communicating effectively with the individuals that they lead. Leaders that understand and connect with their employees on an emotional level are seen as authentic and lead with the heart, these traits are

Organization’s today do all they can to improve their performance with an ever-changing environment. Therefore, having strong leadership is needed when addressing change. Organizational leaders need to have a well developed vocabulary to help improve performance during organizational change. Leadership has the ability to create a vision and encourage others to achieve the vision for the organization. Therefore, organizational leaders must identify the need for change and communicate it throughout the organization. However, leadership is only one piece of the equation, without involving the employees the vision of the organization will not be achieved. In order for leaders to achieve new initiatives they must actively involve employees that are most affected by the change through every process to help maintain and improve performance. Therefore, communication, human motivation, engagement, and recognition are the driving focuses for positive change and performance improvement.

Employees need their boss/role model too be able to set and lead by example. By building

Understand strengths and weaknesses. If a leader can understand their emotions, they can identify the impact on the team and themselves.

Effective management and leadership of employees are crucial to the accomplishment of targets at various work places. It allows the managers of different companies to capitalize on the strengths and an ability of the employees to contribute towards the achievement of the set goals and objectives of the enterprise. Thus, successful leadership and employee management is capable of promoting employee motivation, engagement, retention, and development (Carter, 2008).

Being able to Develop: A leader develops his employees by rewarding them. They give them more responsibilities, giving them a sense of “worth”.