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Is Emotional Intelligence Beneficial for Effective Leadership?

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There are many different definitions of what emotional intelligence is and exactly which components should be included to comprise it. The most basic model of emotional intelligence is the "four branch model" described by John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1997. The key concepts included in the four branch model are: "emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional meanings, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote both better emotion and thought (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).” The scientific definition of emotional intelligence, according to John Mayer, Peter Caruso and Peter Salovey is that "emotional intelligence refers to …show more content…

Goleman refers to relationship management as “inspirational leadership (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002).” After studying both the "four branch model" and Goleman's writings, one of the characteristics of emotional intelligence as I understand it is the ability to manage feelings and handle stress. Instead of those feelings and stress becoming a hindrance, the emotionally intelligent individual knows how to use them. The emotionally intelligent leader makes these traits work for them, not only to better relate to staff members, but to guide them and motivate them in order to better do their job and to obtain the goals of the organization. As an example, in the book Primal Leadership Daniel Goleman relates a story of a company that was personally affected by the tragedy of 9/11 (Goleman, et al., 2002). This financial company had family members, friends and coworkers taken away by this event. Instead of internalizing what he was feeling the leader called a meeting with his staff to discuss what they were all going through. They discussed how they wanted to do something about the tragedy to help contribute. So it was decided that they would donate the profits of one days' trading to a fund for the victims of 9/11. On average one day's trading was between five-hundred thousand and one million dollars. The people from this company were so inspired by their leader

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