The Marine Corps places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of leadership. Many of what is focused on are based on the 14 leadership traits that are taught to all Marines, officer and enlisted, in their initial training to become a Marine. These leadership traits are remembered through a ditty JJ DID TIE BUCKLE: Justice, Judgement, Dependability, Initiative, Decisiveness, Tact, Integrity, Enthusiasm, Bearing, Unselfishness, Courage, Knowledge, Loyalty, and Endurance. Along with traits, there are 11 Leadership Principles that are taught to all Marines. Some that stand out are: 1) be technically and tactically proficient, 2) ensure that the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished 3) seek responsibility and take responsibility and 4) make sound and timely decision. As an organization in which the overall mission that we are all sworn to, is to defend the constitution of the United States of America, the leadership traits and leadership principles make absolute sense. However, I believe leaders in the Marine Corps could benefit from having a better understanding of emotional intelligence and incorporating it into their leadership with their junior Marines.
Northouse (2016) describes emotional intelligence as “the ability to perceive and express emotions, to use emotions to facilitate thinking, to understand and reason with emotions, and to effectively manage emotions within oneself and in relationships with others” (pg. 28). As described above a lot of the Marine Corps leadership is very skill and trait based. If you know your job, are good at your job and possess the leadership traits, then you are often perceived as a good leader, these things, however, do not necessarily mean you are an effective leader. I learned early through my development as a leader that there were moments that I had to have an emotional aspect when dealing with Marines and have found this to be even more the case as I currently work with a lot of civilians who aren’t necessarily used to working for or with Marines. I have a fellow officer that I work with who, I would say lacks in emotional intelligence and it has a negative effect on quite a few employees. He is unable to hide his anger or frustration in his facial expressions, and the tone to which he speaks to people comes off as being somewhat abrasive. The lesson discusses the implications of emotional intelligence and how if this aspect is ignored it will ultimately impact their ability to lead or influence a group (PSU WC, 2019, L.2). Just this week, while working with a young employee, tasked to brief the Commanding Officer (CO), the negative effect of a leader lacking emotional intelligence was made evident.
I had been working with this employee in preparing her information to be discussed for several days, and when she gave the first pre-brief to myself and my fellow officer, it did not go smoothly. You could see the frustration and annoyance in his face and gestures which immediately reflected in her as she was clearly upset. Each pre-brief got worse from there, and my fellow officer became even more visibly annoyed, and this eventually led to her breaking down into tears. I ended up waiting for everyone to leave the room and had to talk her down and get her to a point of being comfortable and trying to develop some confidence in her ability to give the brief. I worked with her the rest of the day and went in early the morning of the brief and had her give one last pre-brief to me and she nailed it as was the case for the final brief to the CO. In talking to her she specifically mentioned that the officer that I work with makes her incredibly nervous and when he provided feedback it was in a manner or tone that was not well received. In perspective, his inability to effectively communicate with this employee, he failed her in helping her accomplish the goal of giving the brief to the CO (PSU WC, 2019, L.2).
Emotional intelligence is not discussed in the Marine Corps. Marines try very hard to maintain a tough exterior, which is not always for the betterment of subordinates or themselves. I learned early in having many Marines under my supervision, that the way I communicate with them is crucial. Not all Marines learn this and not only does it often times result in a lack of communication between leaders and subordinates, but overall negatively affects the accomplishment of the mission. By emphasizing emotional intelligence and teaching leaders to incorporate this into their leadership style, the Marine Corps will only enhance the leaders they are making and create a productive work environment increasing mission accomplishment.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). Lesson 2: Trait Approach. PSYCH485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved May 28, 2019, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1985970/modules/items/26589427
djg5679 says
Often times the importance of emotional intelligence is underrated in favor of a more technical skill set. For lower level positions a high technical skill level is indeed important. However, the more responsibility a worker has, or the more they interact with other workers, the more important emotional intelligence becomes. Emotional intelligence is necessary for an organization to run smoothly, and without it an organization may run into a myriad of problems.
Emotional intelligence is often a hard skill to master. The story you told a perfect example of how hard it can be. The CO from your story seemed to lacked a significant amount of emotional intelligence and it had a great effect on those under his command. However, if you’re at or near the top of the command chain, I don’t think it is uncommon to have leaders beneath you who seem to have more emotional intelligence than you do. I think this is often times because they are closer to people. The lower on the command chain someone is the more approachable they seem to be. So a leader at the top may actually have high emotional intelligence, but it may not come across because people may be nervous around him. Of course, an exceptional leader will overcome that barrier, but as is, I don’t think it’s uncommon for a leader to make those under him nervous.
I think it is especially important for a leader to have high emotional intelligence when they want those beneath them to be especially close, like in the military or even a sports team. This past summer I got the opportunity to work at the Saints NFL training camp. So, I got to see the coaching style of Sean Payton up close. Several times I got to witness Coach engage in situations where he had to apply emotional intelligence to bring the team closer together. One of the best ways he did this is by maneuvering his assistant coaches to be more effective in handling smaller/simpler situations. He figured out a part of Contingency theory that many leaders never understand. Contingency “theory is advantageous because it does not require that people be effective in all situations. So often leaders in organizations feel the need to be all things to all people” (Northouse, 2007, p117). By delegating responsibilities to leaders under him he was able to open himself up to achieve a higher level of emotional intelligence with everyone in the organization.
So emotional intelligence is often an underrated skill to have in leaders. It can be make or break in running an organization smoothly. However, even if the man at the top seems to have low emotional intelligence, if he has competent leaders below him with high emotional intelligence an organization can still function properly.
Northouse, Peter Guy. Contingency Theory. Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks. SAGE. 2007. 1452203407. p117
Terry Chavez says
Shawna,
I appreciate your perspective and experience with emotional intelligence and how it is applied in the military. I also know, from experience, how important it is to exercise emotional intelligence from both a leader and follower position.
When we don’t have control over our emotions, we don’t have control over our responses to stressful or unfavorable circumstances and this can damage the leader/follower relationship (as you so described in your example). What stood out to me from Leadership Theory and Practice was Northouse stated that part of emotional intelligence is “understanding and reasoning with emotions” (Northouse, 2016 p. 28). I find this to be the hardest part of applying emotional intelligence because emotions are quite irrational and reactive at times and that is certainly hard to reason with.
Like you, I do think that emotional intelligence can be developed and improved with practice. For me, when I am feeling like I am about to “react” I try to slow down my thinking, and not to respond right away. This allows me to fully process my emotions and to control the reaction. Northouse suggests that leaders should be conscious of three things to aid in emotional intelligence; context, self and others (Northouse, 2016). I think this approach would help anyone trying to develop their emotional intelligence. If we take a moment to consider these three things before reacting, we can avoid responses and reactions that may damage the leader/follower relationship. There is great value in being cognizant of our own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Sometimes this can be a painful thing to develop because you need to be very self-aware of your own emotions and how you manage them, and you may not like the truth in it. In fact, “Emotional intelligence works more like a construct, a comprehensive model that is used to understand how cognition and emotions impact both personal and interpersonal behaviors.” (Mulle, 2016, p. 8). I can bet that no one has ever discussed with the commanding officer in your example, his lacking emotional intelligence, and having never really been challenged to develop it he may not respond well to the person that offers him that feedback!
One thing I did come across was that military personnel could widely benefit from a more formal approach to emotional intelligence training. In fact, many service men and women are often placed in countries and cultures that do not share the same language and norms. However, emotions can be detected by tone, body language and expressions. If soldiers were trained in how to assess and manage these types of cues they may be able to build stronger relations and minimize poor decisions when put in these types of situations (Oden, Lohani, Mccoy, Crutchfield, & Rivers, 2015).
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Mulle, K. (2016). Emotional intelligence training. Alexandria, VA: ATD Press.
Oden, K. B., Lohani, M., Mccoy, M., Crutchfield, J., & Rivers, S. (2015). Embedding Emotional Intelligence into Military Training Contexts. Procedia Manufacturing, 3, 4052-4059. doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.976