Reflection: What makes a leader
What Makes a Leader?
By Daniel Goleman
REFLECTION PAPER
When asked to identify certain traits for leaders, many would state answers such as intelligence, superb technical skills and traits that fall within that range of topic. However great leaders have a different kind of intelligence that makes them all alike but different from the majority and that is, emotional intelligence or the ability to understand and manage our emotions and those around us. In today’s workplace or organizations, it has become a highly important factor for success, influencing productivity, efficiency and team collaboration. There are four main skills of emotional intelligence which are: self-awareness, the ability to perceive our emotions and understand our tendencies to act in certain ways in given situations, motivation, or being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement, empathy, the ability to understand the emotions of other people and lastly, social skill, or managing relationships to move people in desired directions. Every individual possesses different levels of emotional intelligence but in order for them to become effective leaders, they’ll need a high level of emotional intelligence. The good news is that we can learn to increase our emotional intelligence and the only way we could do that is if we’d actually have the will to. Higher emotional intelligence helps us to be stronger internal motivators, we can reduce procrastination, increase self-confidence and improve our ability to focus on a goal. It allows us to create better networks or support, overcome setbacks and persevere with a more resilient outlook. It also paves a way to build stronger bonds with others in the workplace, relate with them in a positive manner and motivate them. These relationships mean a great deal for leaders as it can either make or break them. An effective leader can recognize what the needs of his people are, so that can be met in a way that encourages higher performance and
By Daniel Goleman
REFLECTION PAPER
When asked to identify certain traits for leaders, many would state answers such as intelligence, superb technical skills and traits that fall within that range of topic. However great leaders have a different kind of intelligence that makes them all alike but different from the majority and that is, emotional intelligence or the ability to understand and manage our emotions and those around us. In today’s workplace or organizations, it has become a highly important factor for success, influencing productivity, efficiency and team collaboration. There are four main skills of emotional intelligence which are: self-awareness, the ability to perceive our emotions and understand our tendencies to act in certain ways in given situations, motivation, or being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement, empathy, the ability to understand the emotions of other people and lastly, social skill, or managing relationships to move people in desired directions. Every individual possesses different levels of emotional intelligence but in order for them to become effective leaders, they’ll need a high level of emotional intelligence. The good news is that we can learn to increase our emotional intelligence and the only way we could do that is if we’d actually have the will to. Higher emotional intelligence helps us to be stronger internal motivators, we can reduce procrastination, increase self-confidence and improve our ability to focus on a goal. It allows us to create better networks or support, overcome setbacks and persevere with a more resilient outlook. It also paves a way to build stronger bonds with others in the workplace, relate with them in a positive manner and motivate them. These relationships mean a great deal for leaders as it can either make or break them. An effective leader can recognize what the needs of his people are, so that can be met in a way that encourages higher performance and