Research Paper: Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Styles -

Research Paper By Elena Kaplun
(Entrepreneur Coach, SWITZERLAND)

Leaders Should Get Results – turning bold objectives into reality

Leadership coaching is an area that especially in the corporate world a major area for focus and development. Hence, leading institutions worldwide provide leadership training and coaching as part of the executive development program. Also, research is being conducted in this area of expertise to develop a deeper understanding of what effective leadership entails. One point that everybody seems to agree on is that leadership is about getting results.

In The Effective Executive (p. 71), Peter Drucker argued that:

The effective executive makes strength productive. He knows that one cannot build on weakness. To achieve results, one has to use all the available strengths – the strengths of associates, the strengths of the superior, and one’s strengths. These strengths are true opportunities. To make strength productive is the unique purpose of the organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant. Its task is to use the strength of each man as a building block for joint performance.” “So if you want to be effective, and if you want to become effective in an efficient way, learn what your strengths are, build on them and craft your job (and most of your roles) so that they are called upon most of the time.” (Whatsbestnext.com, 2014)

A recent “research by the consulting firm Hay/McBer, which draws on a random sample of 3,871 executives selected from a database of more than 20,000 executives worldwide, takes much of the mystery out of effective leadership. The research found six distinct leadership styles, each springing from different components of emotional intelligence.” (Goleman, 2000)

In March-April 2000, the Harvard Business Review had published a revolutionizing article on Leadership styles, called Leadership That Gets Results by Daniel Goleman. “New research suggests that the most effective executives use a collection of distinct leadership styles – each in the right measure, at just the right time. Such flexibility is tough to put into action, but it pays off in performance. And better yet, it can be learned.” (Goleman, 2000)

This is a major approach to how leadership development can be approached in a coaching space for continuous development, especially since the study has based its outcomes on executive coaching. “Many managers mistakenly assume that leadership style is a function of personality rather than strategic choice. Instead of choosing the one style that suits their temperament, they should ask which style best addresses the demands of a particular situation.” (Goleman, 2000). Therefore, emotional intelligence is the base for leadership development. It is essential to investigate EI further before looking at its application in the leadership styles framework.

From the above publications can be concluded that building awareness of strengths – our own and others as well as adopting behaviors according to circumstances through leadership styles form a solid base for successful leadership. A whole paper could be written on finding strengths and the relevant resources but the objective here is to build a link between strengths and leadership style since we will find certain leadership styles come easier to us than others.

Emotional Intelligence

“Leadership Research has shown that the most successful leaders have strengths in the following emotional intelligence competencies: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. There are six basic styles of leadership; each makes use of the key components of emotional intelligence in different combinations. The best leaders don’t know just one style of leadership— they’re skilled at several, and have the flexibility to switch between styles as the circumstances dictate.” (Goleman, 2000)

In both his book Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1995) and Working with Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1998), Goleman gives a very detailed overview of emotional intelligence and the six competencies. Let’s look deeper into each of the six competencies and what they entail to identify the coaching development around them, as per Goleman.

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Social Awareness

Social Skill

Leadership Styles

Leadership is about getting things done – it’s about delivering results to pre-defined objectives. Leaders are not alone, they operate in teams and rely on people around them. Leadership styles have been identified as a major tool to help leaders deliver on those results and be respected by their peers. But every situation is different and versatile so how do you act in all situations according to the circumstances? Maybe the golf pro’s can give us some advice. “Throughout a game, the pro picks and chooses clubs based on the demands of the shot. Sometimes he has to ponder his selection, but usually, it is automatic.

The pro senses the challenge ahead, swiftly pulls out the right tool, and elegantly puts it to work.” The same applies to the way high profile leaders make their decisions – based on the given circumstance they adapt a particular leadership style. Leadership styles have also a very strong influence on the corporate climate, which can be either positive and negative. Building awareness around one’s style might lead to a realization of why the climate is the way it is in a particular environment. The six leadership styles, like the golf clubs, a leader would choose from are coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pace-setting, and coaching style. Let’s look at each of them closer.

The coercive style. This “Do what I say” approach can be very effective in a turnaround situation, a natural disaster, or when working with problem employees. But in most situations, coercive leadership inhibits the organization’s flexibility and dampens employees’ motivation.
The authoritative style. An authoritative leader takes a “Come with me” approach: she states the overall goal but gives people the freedom to choose their means of achieving it. This style works especially well when a business is adrift. It is less effective when the leader is working with a team of experts who are more experienced than he is.

The affiliative style. The hallmark of the affiliative leader is a “People come first” attitude. This style is particularly useful for building team harmony or increasing morale. But its exclusive focus on praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. Also, affiliative leaders rarely offer advice, which often leaves employees in a quandary.

The democratic style. This style’s impact on organizational climate is not as high as you might imagine. By giving workers a voice in decisions, democratic leaders build organizational flexibility and responsibility and help generate fresh ideas. But sometimes the price is endless meetings and confused employees who feel leaderless.

The pacesetting style. A leader who sets high-performance standards and exemplifies them himself has a very positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. But other employees tend to feel overwhelmed by such a leader’s demands for excellence—and to resent his tendency to take over a situation.

The coaching style. This style focuses more on personal development than on immediate work-related tasks. It works well when employees are already aware of their weaknesses and want to improve, but not when they are resistant to changing their ways.

_{(Source: HBR Goleman, March-April 2000)}

The more styles a leader has mastered, the better. In particular, being able to switch among the authoritative, affiliative, democratic, and coaching styles as conditions dictate creates the best organizational climate and optimizes business performance.” (Goleman, 2014)

Some of the styles above will come more naturally to us and some rather more challenging. Therefore, the next step is to look at the coaching application of both emotional intelligence and leadership as well as their strong connection with strengths.

Based on the coaching model on leadership, self-awareness, and skills, the coaching approach will follow through the process illustrated below. The details will be adjusted to the specific development of emotional intelligence and leadership styles.

_{(Source: International Young Leaders Club, Coaching Model, 2014)}

How to increase Emotional Intelligence?

Stage 1: Exploration and Awareness (Where do I want to go?)

At this stage is important to conduct 360-degree feedback of the client to understand how he rates himself in areas of self-control, empathy, and others. The Center for Creative Leadership has a list of available, certified 360- feedback resources such as

The coach would identify the best option based on the client’s needs and the feedback data desired. Often the client may show resistance since he would overrate him on particular skills. It takes a very subtle approach from the coach to demonstrate how those weaknesses are tied to his inability to display leadership styles dependent on those competencies. Making such a connection is essential. The reason: improving emotional intelligence isn’t done on a weekend or during a seminar—it takes diligent practice on the job, over several months. If people do not see the value of the change, they will not make that effort.” (Goleman, 2000). At this stage, the client should arrive at a stage where he feels the need to improve and develop on these competencies. To empower the client, it will be helpful to make a connection to strengths that have been identified during that feedback – like someone was rated very highly on his communication skills. In the development stage that strengths in communication can be used as a base for other areas of change.

Stage 2: Development and Growth (How do I get there?)

The realization of the specific areas of improvement and the commitment to improving on those is the base for a development plan that the coach will put in place with the client. The development plan should focus on action points for development in the six areas of EI, namely self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. At this stage, some self-awareness should be present based on the first stage of exploration and awareness. Now the coach with the client will select areas for development based on the outcomes of the conversation through a list of open-ended questions and incorporate the answers into SMART development objectives.

Questions that link exploration with clear actions for the development plan can be as followed. The client should give a situational answer with descriptions upon which the coach will be able to draw together with the client the level of each of the competencies. The development plan will reflect on the current level based on each client. If there were situations that the client has never been exposed to, the coach would suggest as part of the development, to explore such situations and observe the behaviors.