It is always refreshing to re-read some classics and in business writings Daniel Goleman's original article on What Makes a Leader in HBR is one of the such articles. It was originally published in 1998 and still demands compulsory reading for anyone looking forward to becoming a leader or recruiting one. The author, based on extensive research, points out that the old model of IQ and technical skills heavy requirement of leadership is now replaced with Emotional Intelligence (EI) heavy model where EI has become twice as more important than IQ and technical skills.
In my experience most of the people are aware of the term EI but associate it mostly with empathy or friendliness. Whereas, Daniel has listed five skill sets that combined makes for EI. Three of skills are related with self: self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation and two are related with others: empathy and social skills.
In my opinion very rightly self-awareness and self-regulation have occupied the slot number one and two respectively but I doubt if they have received the corresponding importance by the hopeful leaders or leadership assessors.
Another very important point that the author brings out is the key characteristics of motivation, as he emphasizes that motivation based on external factors such as salary or status is not what makes effective leaders but in contrast motivation by deeply embedded desire to seek learning and challenges are required for effective leadership.
Empathy is probably well understood, at least intellectually. However, social skills are most often mistaken only for large number of acquaintances. Whereas, according to the author social skill is friendliness with purpose which includes moving people in the direction you desire. And for this one has to be aware of the self, coming to full circle.
05/04/2011
