Leaders and emotional intelligence: A view from those who follow

Abstract

Boyatzis and Goleman state that Emotional Intelligence (EI) “is an important predictor of success.” In their book Primal Leadership, they refer to “the leadership competencies of emotional intelligence: how leaders handle themselves and their relationships.” The leadership exercises reported here examined the practices of effective and ineffective leaders as identified by individuals who have worked under such leaders (ie, followers/subordinates). We sought to ascertain to what extent these practices are related to EI. The 2-year data from these leadership exercises show the strong relationships between perceived leadership effectiveness and emotionally intelligent leadership practices as observed by leaders' followers. For example, whether considering the practices that made effective leaders effective or the practices that ineffective leaders needed to adopt or significantly improve upon (in the eyes of subordinates), these practices were almost exclusively related to EI. These findings are supported in the EI literature, as is the strength of subordinates' assessments in predicting leadership effectiveness.