Goleman (1998) proposed that emotional intelligence is a crucial characteristic of effective leaders. Emotional intelligence is the product of two primary skills: personal and social competence.

• Personal competence focuses on the individual’s capacity for self-awareness and self-management.
• Social competence focuses on the individual’s behavior related to social awareness and relationship management.

Illuminating cognitive functions

The emotional intelligence framework emphasizes the cognitive functions at work to help leaders develop emotional intelligence. The physical pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain at the spinal cord. Senses enter through the spinal cord and must travel to the frontal lobe before the individual can think rationally about the experience. However, on its way to the frontal lobe, the experience must first pass through the limbic system, a primitive part of the brain that governs the stress response and triggers emotions. Emotional intelligence requires effective communication between the rational and emotional centers of the brain, so the individual can take a measured response to stimulus rather than simply react.

Building pathways

Developing emotional intelligence means the individual strengthens the neural pathways to rational thought by pausing long enough to allow sensory data to pass through the limbic system to the frontal lobe. Pausing long enough to think allows the leader to develop more effective ways of responding to a stimulus; to learn how to respond rather than react (Bradberry & Greaves, 2005). Comparing the performance among people in senior leadership positions, Goleman found that 90% of the differences between star performers and average performers are due to “emotional intelligence factors rather than cognitive abilities” (5).

Teaching adults to be grownups

A prolific consulting industry has emerged from emotional intelligence theory as coaches attempt to teach executives how to be grownups using a cognitive framework that updates the admonitions of folk wisdom to stop and count to 10 before doing anything rash. However, some scholars argue that emotional intelligence theory has “major conceptual, psychometric, and applied problems to be overcome before it can be considered a genuine, scientifically validated construct with real-life practical significance” (Matthews, Roberts, & Zeidner, 2004).

Further, a research study conducted by Talent Smart (2006), a consulting group that specializes in emotional intelligence coaching, found that mid-level managers tend to test high in emotional intelligence but that emotional intelligence drops significantly as a person moves up the leadership ladder. CEO’s tested as having the lowest emotional intelligence. In other words, although Goleman (1998) could be correct in asserting that emotional intelligence is a characteristic of influential leaders in an ideal world, the Talent Smart findings imply that emotional intelligence could be a detriment to successful leadership.

###