Emotional intelligence creates a new type of leader

To find out the relationship between "charismatic leadership" and job utility, our consultant Jet Magsaysay interviewed Daniel Goleman, an emotional intelligence guru who has conducted extensive empirical research on leadership. In this interview, Gorman explains his new findings about the nature of leadership.

Your work on emotional intelligence is unique, but leadership is hardly a unique topic. What motivated you to study leadership?

I started by looking at how emotional intelligence works at work. I scoured a lot of data and found that the top 10% of people in any field excel because of their emotional intelligence, which is their self-motivation, perseverance, adaptability, flexibility, emotional self-control, mobility Emotional competence, social awareness, persuasion and collaboration.

In other words, the difference between high performers and mediocre performers has nothing to do with their skills or IQ. At that level, the skill level of most people is in the same range. But emotional intelligence—how you manage yourself, how you handle your relationships with those around you—plays a key role. In poring over the data, I found that emotional intelligence is twice as important as cognitive or technical ability, regardless of the job type. More interestingly, the higher up you are in the company, the more important emotional intelligence is. So for top leaders, nine times out of ten, the difference between the great and the mediocre is their emotional intelligence.

You wrote at the beginning of The New Leader: The leader's primary job is to make his people feel good. Some might say that a leader's primary job should be to achieve performance through employees. What is your answer to this?

When I say "feeling good", I mean feeling ideal. In order to achieve the best working state, everyone has an ideal state of mind. In a sense, leadership is the art of getting work done flawlessly through the power of others. How well a person can do a good job depends on whether he is in an ideal state. Don't get bored, don't be overly anxious, don't feel depressed. So the leader's job is to help people get into and stay in that optimal state. I don't just mean helping employees feel good, I mean helping them get into their best work.

In China, leadership is mostly based on the character of the leader. Leadership is widely believed to be charismatic leadership—that is, having the strong, charismatic character that everyone admires. What do you think of "charm"?

I don't use the word "charm" in my book. It is not a key concept necessary for successful leadership. In the Chinese cultural context, charisma has played a key role in achieving leadership in the past. For a long time, a rigid hierarchy and organizational structure dominated Chinese culture, but this is no longer the case at world-class companies, including those in China. A leader is a good leader not because everyone is loyal to him, or because he has an aura of power, but because he has the ability to lead and achieve remarkable results. If you can't, you risk losing your job.

As the rules of the global economy are integrated into China, the concept of leadership in China is also changing. Those Chinese working in multinational corporations, and Chinese companies that need to compete in the global economy, are changing the concept of leadership. Moreover, as the global economy gradually becomes integrated, more and more companies in China will change their concept of leadership. Returnees, who expect to see world-class leadership in the workplace, are also changing the concept of leadership in China. And world-class leadership has nothing to do with charisma.

Since charisma is not the key factor, what should leaders pay attention to?

Build emotional resonance - Optimism and positivity unlock a person's fullest potential.

Resonance doesn't just come from a leader's happy emotions or positive words, but from behavior that encompasses six leadership styles (see "Boosting Team Emotional Intelligence to Build Empathy," in our March 2003 issue). Among them, four leadership styles, namely visionary, coaching, cooperative and democratic, create resonance for improving work performance. The remaining leadership and command styles can play a role in some specific situations, but they should be used with caution in practical applications. as well.

So, while someone might use what you call the charismatic leadership style, it's the other styles that really work. There are people who you wouldn't call a charismatic leader who have an empathic leadership style. The problem with charismatic leaders is that they don't necessarily have all the leadership tools in their toolbox, so it's a good idea to study these six leadership styles and discuss which ones work and how great leaders function. Take advantage of them and apply four or more of these six main leadership styles to demonstrate your leadership. That's what the research data shows.

If someone were to practice a certain empathic leadership style, wouldn't that be in danger of turning into a personality cult?

The empathic style refers to leaders who help followers achieve and stay at their best. If the subordinate is very loyal to the leader and doesn't care whether he can lead the company to achieve success or not, it becomes the case of the leader's charisma. In this way, the company is disconnected from reality. What the company actually needs to do is to create value, occupy the market, and achieve profitability and growth.

If a company ignores these realities and accepts any leader unconditionally, it will surely be in trouble in the future. There are many examples in the United States, such as Enron, which had a charismatic leader who instructed his subordinates to lie and used deceptive accounting to create the illusion that leadership still worked. It is very important for the company to adhere to the principles of openness and transparency, and to have a leader who values these principles.

Is empathic leadership the opposite of rational, institution-based leadership?

I think the two are interleaved.

A wise leader is most effective when he focuses on both of these required leadership styles. In other words, the two leadership styles are not mutually exclusive. The best leaders tend to be both. The emotional resonance leadership style can mobilize the enthusiasm of everyone to pursue achievements and complete tasks.

In your book "The New Type of Leader," you refer to "CEO disease," which means "when subordinates shut down important (and often bad) information, the information vacuum". Are charismatic leaders more prone to this disease?

Yes, charismatic leaders are more prone to "CEO disease." One of the symptoms of "CEO disease" is that your subordinates are afraid to give you bad news. Whether the bad news is about company performance or about the performance of the leaders themselves. The data we have in hand shows that senior leaders are less likely than the rest of the company to receive critical information, even if it is too late. This is bad for leaders because it can mean you are making decisions without the required information.

How can this malady be prevented or avoided?

As a leader, you must take all information seriously, especially important information that sounds bad at the time. You have to do it publicly, as always. It's natural for subordinates to be afraid to tell their leader bad news, because most leaders take anger at the person who told him bad news. A wise leader creates a culture of openness and candor in the company, where employees understand that they can pass on any potentially important information—even bad news—to the leader.

Do your data show that leadership is manifested differently in different cultures? For example, how does the empathic leadership style perform differently in Japanese companies compared to Chinese or American companies?

The presentation is different, but the underlying style remains the same. Maybe it looks different in China, Germany, Brazil or the US, but the basic leadership dynamics are the same, especially in multinational corporations that operate across cultures. There are many studies in this area, such as the study done at PepsiCo. The company has regional leaders in its business regions in Asia, Europe, and the Americas, and the researchers examined the different leaders for their ability to achieve their job goals. If leaders in a certain area have high emotional intelligence, the performance of this area will be 15%-20% higher than that of other areas; if the leaders of a certain area have low EQ, the performance of this area will be higher than that of other areas. below average. Put this data together and you'll see how dramatically a leader's emotional intelligence capabilities can make a difference to a company's bottom line. Interestingly, the differences in Asia, in China, are the same as in the United States.

Let me give another example. There was once a global study of Johnson & Johnson. The company's CEO, Ralph Larsen, realized that J&J needed more and more leaders to be successful. In fact, he saw developing leaders as the company's most important task at the time. His research team set out to examine 358 mid-level managers considered to be the most promising, fast-growing, and promising, carefully selected from around the world, representing the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia. Johnson & Johnson compared this group of managers to another group of underperforming managers to assess their emotional intelligence credentials. The researchers found that a high-performing group of managers displayed all emotional intelligence qualifications, while a low-performing group of managers displayed only a few emotional intelligence qualifications. Emotional intelligence competencies were equally identified no matter where in the world, suggesting that these competencies work in any area of the company's business.

Is there any difference in leadership in service companies compared to production companies?

Our data shows that emotional intelligence is important in all walks of life, but with different qualification requirements. Certain specific emotional intelligence qualifications that play a key role vary across industries. For example, in a service-focused company, customer service qualifications may come first, while in production-oriented companies, collaboration and teamwork qualifications are the most important. However, the dynamics of leadership, especially senior leadership, are roughly the same regardless of industry.

Are leadership styles relevant to the stage of the company? For example, is a young company more receptive to a certain leadership style?

You need to be very entrepreneurial and driven by a strong results orientation in the early stages of your company. A relatively mature enterprise needs visionary people, and people with strong internal drive are no longer the most effective leaders at this stage.

Many people who have read articles on "emotional intelligence" must have misunderstood the concept of "emotional intelligence". What do you think might be the most common misconception?

There is a misconception that "emotional intelligence" means being friendly and "being a good person". In fact, "emotional intelligence" is not "being a good person", but being a person who is effective, including situations in which people are treated harshly in pursuit of effectiveness. Such leaders know when to be tough on whom and for what reason, for how long, and to what extent. People who just keep their faces straight at all times don't have emotional intelligence. The best leaders use any or all of the six empathic leadership styles as needed, while the worst leaders use only one or two. As a leader, you must be adaptable and flexible.

Now that we've talked about misconceptions about leadership, I'm going to clarify some things in passing. I'm not saying strategy, skill level, or cognitive abilities don't matter, they do. I mean, at a particular level, especially among senior leaders in a company, emotional intelligence is more important when it comes to deciding who is the most effective leader.

You mean that emotional intelligence isn't about creating a vision or organizing people to achieve that vision, it's about how people do these things?

Yes. I'll give you an example. At the BBC, management made the decision to dissolve a department. The first senior manager delivered the message to the department's 200 employees in a disrespectful, arrogant way. They were outraged, not only by the decision, but also by the manager who delivered the news.

The next day, another senior manager spoke with the employees. He took a different approach. He spoke from the heart about the importance of journalism, and he reminded these employees that no one chose journalism to make a fortune or seek stability. He inspired these journalists with a passion and dedication to their profession. Finally, he wished them the best of luck in their careers. When the senior manager finished speaking, the employees cheered.

This example shows that the tone, tone of voice used by the two leaders when delivering a message is completely different. One is to put yourself on the opposite side of the team, and the other is to integrate yourself into the team and encourage these employees. Great leaders inspire our highest potential. They direct our emotions in the right direction.

These emotional intelligence qualifications are like a toolbox, from which you need the most appropriate tools to deal with a particular situation, right?

Yes, that's it.

Translated by Liu Yanqun.