Because I believe that leaders social intelligence is a important factor in their success, I always focus in observe their demeanor and behaviors. Using Social intelligence, a good leader can always understand followers behaviors and substantially develop good skills to deal with different situations (Northouse, 2016). I have previously worked with other highly capable leaders, and currently I work for the CEO of the William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia.
One interesting feature in this experience is that the CEO is a young female with lots of experience in law and trust funds. At first, I was very impressed with her abilities to deal with stigma. As we all know, women are usually considered weaker leaders than men, just because feminine traits contribute for a more flexible personality. As Northouse (2012) describes, some researchers have found that masculinity is a strong trait for leadership. I personally disagree at this point, and would affirm that women can have strong personality traits that can bring a huge set of contributions to their and their followers successes.
In this specific case, I found out that women can also be as strong as men when it comes to be a leader. It is definitely true that even the best leaders may not fit into a universal set of situations (PSU, WC, Psych 485, lesson 1). However, this CEO has proved to me that leadership is based on a large set of skills, which includes the social intelligence. I may have bias on this affirmation now, but I believe women can have stronger indications of social intelligence, since they also are prone to be more understandable and nurturing. We would need to develop a hypothesis to prove this, but for now is a concept I believe in.
The only down side I see in a leadership career for a female is that their personal life has to be kept aside from their careers, as it has great impact on how women usually function. Nowadays, is possible to have inverted family responsibilities between partners, and a female leader may have a lot of support from her husband. However, there are still many life outcomes that will impact a leadership career because those are sorely depending in a female figure in a family.
I have asked my boss how much of a impact her career has over her personal life, and I was not surprised when she admitted that is very challenging because there are many things she would rather be involved on raising her kids, however she has to keep a certain moderation of involvement because she has a lot of professional duties. It may cause some exhaustion time to time, but she seems to be happy with her professional achievements. I still observe carefully in a regular basis. Her personality traits are definitely a great indication of a type of leader she is, and it is the driven force behind her success as leader.
Graciella Maria De Souza says
Hi Robert
Thank you for the reply. I believe you brought up a very good point about women’s leadership skills being related to a greater social intelligence just because they have nurturing and understandable qualities. Considering that Northouse (2016) actually defines emotional intelligence as “an ability to express emotions”, which means a strong leader will definitely need to correspond to certain behaviors exchanges in order to demonstrate emotional intelligence.
It is always important to actually take in consideration the whole group of traits and strengths present in a leader personality (WC, Psych 485, lesson 2). Those implications are crucial for a effective leadership.
Overall, as many traits a leader pursues, the bigger is the possibility for success in his/her leadership. Self confidence, determination, integrity and sociability will all be contributor factor and a support for the leaders’ emotional intelligence, because all these traits are major components of leadership (Northouse, 2016).
I know the comparison of sexes between leaders can be a very delicate discussion, as we both understand that men and women can have different set of traits and still achieve success in leadership. So in this class, we definitely will understand, from a professional point standard how these differences can be strong or weak leadership contributors (WC, Psych 490, lesson 2).
Thanks for the great comment, is always good to share interesting opinions and knowledge in this subject.
Graciella Souza
Thanks
Robert J Holzer says
Hi Graciella,
I enjoyed reading your blog about social intelligence. Social intelligence is definitely an important factor in the success of leaders along with emotional intelligence. Northouse (2016) defines emotional intelligence as “the ability to perceive and express emotions”. This ties in nicely to social intelligence and goes hand and hand with it.
I agree with you that women can also have strong personality traits, they can even have the trait of masculinity. I think that it is all in the perception of what society thinks women would be and how they should act, that people think they are weaker leaders. A woman’s social intelligence can help her adapt her leadership styles to her target audience at the time, like your leader. Your right that the best leaders do not fit into a universal set of situations, rather leaders need to have social intelligence and emotional intelligence so they can adapt to different situations and use situational leadership to lead their followers.
I think that you probably are biased about women leaders having greater social intelligence just because they are known to be more nurturing and understandable. But, this is understandable given your experience with your current leader who appears to have superior social intelligence and may other major leadership traits. I think that social intelligence, even though it is considered a trait, can be developed in people. Take the example in the lesson commentary about a boss putting a smile on his face and cutting the meeting short on a Friday afternoon when he walked in to the meeting to see employees who looked dejected (PSU WC, 2016). The boss could have been taught that putting on a smile will trigger a smile in others because of the fact that humans are programmed to smile back when another person smiles at them (PSU WC, 2016).
Thanks,
Bob
Reference:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Penn State World Campus (2016). PSYCH 485: Leadership in Work Settings. Lesson 2: Trait Approach. Retrieved from: https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1803831/modules/items/21139787