Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Most people have their own concept about leadership. Some people said that the leader must be someone who has a position in public services, could be government or private sectors. Actually, everyone is a leader, at least for himself. Just a simple example, every morning you decide, either you want to continue your sleep, or wake up and chase your dreams. You decide, what kind of dress you will wear today. Simply said, you are a leader. 

But if we talking about an organization, leadership become more important because it involves many factors, such as professional knowledge and character. In many situations, leaders have to make tough decisions. Especially when he/she faces difficult to implement those decisions in public. One of the reason why it becomes difficult, is because it would be give impact to others life itself. This is a challenge, and not easy to satisfy everyone at all. And somehow, the leaders have to take those risks. Some decisions he/she makes might be againts his/her emotions. 

Transformational Leadership

The role of transformational leadership is considered the most suitable of the many existing leadership models. The concept of transformational leadership was first coined by James McGregor Burns in 1978, and there is much empirical research on versions of the theory formulated by Bass (1995) than any other version. According to Burns in Given, "transformational leadership can be seen when leaders and followers make each other to advance to higher levels of moral and motivation. The essence of this theory is that followers feel trust, admiration, loyalty and respect for leaders and they are motivated to do more than was originally expected of them.

Bass in Husaini Usman said, transformational leadership is a leader who has a vision going forward and is able to identify changes in the environment and be able to transform these changes into the organization; pioneering change and motivating and inspiring individual employees to be creative and innovative, and to build solid teamwork; bring about changes in work ethic and management performance; dare and be responsible for leading and controlling the organization.

Yukl in Husaini Usman concluded that the essence of transformational leadership is to empower followers to perform effectively by building commitment to new values, developing their skills and beliefs, creating a conducive climate for the development of innovation and creativity.

The essence of transformational leadership is sharing of power by involving subordinates together to make changes. In formulating change, a humane transformational approach is usually used, where a participatory work environment with a collegial management model that is full of openness and decisions is taken together. 

According to Husaini Usman himself, transformational leadership is leadership that is capable of creating fundamental changes and is based on religious values, systems and culture to create innovation and creativity of followers in order to achieve the vision that has been set.

 

Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to understand, control, and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened. While other researchers claim that the characteristics of emotional intelligence are innate. From research that has been carried out for many years describes that emotional intelligence has an important role in determining one's leadership and performance.

Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer have been leading researchers on emotional intelligence. In their article entitled "Emotional Intelligence", they define that "emotional intelligence as part of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor oneself with other people's feelings and emotions". So emotional intelligence has important values in contributing to the perfection of mindset.

 

Salovey and Mayer proposed a model that identified four different levels of emotional intelligence, including emotional perception, the ability to reason using emotions, the ability to understand emotion, and the ability to manage emotions.

• Perceiving emotions: The first step in understanding emotions is to perceive them accurately. In many cases, this might involve understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions.
• Reasoning with emotions: The next step involves using emotions to promote thinking and cognitive activity. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention.
• Understanding emotions: The emotions that we perceive can carry a wide variety of meanings. If someone is expressing angry emotions, the observer must interpret the cause of the person's anger and what it could mean. For example, if your boss is acting angry, it might mean that he is dissatisfied with your work, or it could be because he got a speeding ticket on his way to work that morning or that he's been fighting with his wife.
• Managing emotions: The ability to manage emotions effectively is a crucial part of emotional intelligence and the highest level. Regulating emotions, responding appropriately, and responding to the emotions of others are all important aspect of emotional management.

Those soft skills mentioned above is very important for the leaders in any organization. The leaders should have the ability to manage their emotions. If they can do that, It will contribute positive impacts to improve their follower self-satisfaction, morale, and motivation, and for sure will get better results and increase organization effectiveness. The emotional state of a leader can affect a team, group, and organization. For example, if a leader has positive emotions such as smiling, then those positive emotions will rub off on his members.

Some researches and studies about negative emotions, said that negative emotions spread more easily than positive emotions because in general, positive emotions are less influenced by others.  Clearly said, it's very important that the leader should be realize how importance to maintaining emotions is. It's not only maintaining their own emotions but also helping others in managing negative emotions into positive one.

Many evidences has shown that there is a relationship between a person's mood and various aspects of performance, such as teamwork, creativity, decision making, and task performance.

Negative moods can drain energy and prevent people from doing their best. Meanwhile, the presence of positive emotions which is a decrease in negative emotions such as sadness, anger, anxiety, and fear can enable individuals to do the best they can.

Be a good leader with a good emotional intelligence.

"Leadership is character in action"

James Hunter

References:

Goleman, D. (2004). Emotional Intelligence : Emotional Intelligence Why Is EI More Important Than IQ, Jakarta: PT. Gramedia.

Goleman, D. (2005). Working With Emotional Intelligence: Emotional Intelligence U ntuk Achieve Peak Performance, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama.

Guzzo, RA and Noonan, KA, 1994, Human Resource practices as communication and psychological contracts, Human Resource Management , Fall.

Michael Armstrong, 2003, Strategic Resource Management. PT. Bhuana Ilmu Populer, Jakarta

Stephen P. Robbins, 2007, Organizational Behavior. PT. Index, Jakarta

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339410861_Transformational_Leadership_and_Emotional_Intelligence