Leadership

PSYCH 485 blog

The Bridge Between Authenticity, Transformational Leadership, and Small Group Interaction

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We have all been lead, by one means or another, through some form of task.

Think back. Find a situation that ended well, success, or even a profound moment in your life where someone helped you through a hardship, to get a new job, or purely stands out as an amazing leader.

Now. Briefly think of two or three key qualities that person had. Strengths that enabled them to be a good leader, someone that you counted on, followed, and lead you to success. Some might be: perseverance, tenacity, clarity, good communicator, effectiveness, approachable, genuine, honesty, and perhaps, authenticity.

A person who is authentic, as we typically define it without a dictionary, is someone who is purely honest, that means well, and can be trusted. This, in academia, typically falls within interpersonal relationship between leader and follower (PSU, 2014; Eagly, 2005). Researchers have also explained who they think authentic leaders are, “as persons who have achieved high levels of authenticity in that they know who they are, what they believe and value, and they act upon those values and beliefs while transparently interacting with others. (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004, p. 802). As such, it is obvious that this type of leadership is foundational to many other types of leadership; namely transformational—in that it may be detrimental to establish authenticity before being able to foster motivation, long tern outlooks, and invigorate follower dreams.

Without argument it is fairly obvious how troublesome failed authenticity can be. A quick look at the news on any given day will expose no lack of CEO scandals, illegal activities, cheating, and abuses of power. However, fostering authenticity while being a transformational leader is not unheard of, the two theories differ in outlook. As such, some forms of leadership may marginalize ethics and legal activities for short-term success and economic profit (like abuses of power and influence). Conversely, authentic leaders may not harness such long-term viability ideals as transformational leaders (Avolio et al., 2004). To these degrees, maintaining long-term organizational success is hinged upon avoiding such negative activity. Mixing such qualities of authentic leadership and transformational leadership stands to optimize long-term organizational success (Avolio et al., 2004). It is also worth stating that authentic leadership is often viewed as an over-arching concept throughout all positive outcome leadership styles (Avolio & Gardner, 2005).

In my experience, a transformational leader can be very quickly undermined by a lack of authenticity. This is typically observed by those leaders that act very clearly (though often masked) upon their own accord, disregarding the needs and success of their followers, and often marginalize all other positive areas of group work for the overall outcome of the mission or task. More specifically, this typically occurs in aviation by a leader who is willing to marginalize his crew’s needs, both personal and professional, by only trying to optimize his own perceived success to higher leadership. This is done by pushing the crew to work faster or skip steps that would otherwise aid crew member’s needs, to arrive at a destination earlier than expected. This does make the leader look better, however, it often marginalizes needs while the flight could have been accomplished on time while meeting the crew’s needs. This is also evident in other tasks where the intentions of the leader are perceived to be inauthentic and self centered. This is typically done by making subordinates or crewmembers work longer hours to accomplish a goal that will only make the leader look better to higher leadership. Though this form of leadership marginalizes crew and subordinate success, needs, and ideals, it supports organizational goals. Ultimately this, at least in my experience, is the number one detriment to maintaining moral as a unit or crew. Without an authentic leader who is honest in their intentions, moral suffers. In such, such inauthentic positioning or displays are often lied about, hid, or attempted to be masked by such leaders—which further predicates their motives to subordinates and only makes the matter worse. Additionally, in aviation, authentic leadership has been proven to be foundational in fostering a safety climate within high risk jobs (Morten, Eid, Mearns, & Larsson, 2013). Which identifies that any diversion from full trust and honesty within high risk jobs trends faster towards risk (Wong & Giallonardo, 2013).

In sum, I posit that positive outcomes of any type of leadership can be undermined by a lack of authenticity—especially transformational. Though authenticity is mainly seen in the news of higher ranking officials or leaders, authenticity is paramount for small group leadership and efficiency and organizational moral. Like previously stated, authenticity is an over-arching concept throughout all leadership types and has significant influence in every faction of organizational structure and operation (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). As such, within my experience, authenticity is paramount in high risk jobs where trust and honesty are key components to risk aversion and success. To bring this all around, without authenticity, in both small groups and complete organizations, the long-term viability of organizations is at risk and the fostering of organizational moral is lost by diminished trust within small groups—which ultimately does not support long-term organizational sustainment.

 

Written by: Morgan L. DeBusk-Lane

 

References

 

Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly 16, 315-338.

Avolio, B. J., Gardner, W. L., Walumbwa, F. O., Luthans, F., & May, D. R. (2004). Unlocking the mask: A look at the process by which authentic leaders impact follower attitudes and behaviors. The Leadership Quarterly, 15(6), 801-823. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2004.09.003

Eagly, A. H. (2005). Achieving relational authenticity in leadership: Does gender matter? The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 459-474. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.03.007

Morten, B. N., Eid, J., Mearns, K., & Larsson, G. (2013). Authentic leadership and its relationship with risk perception and safety climate. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 34(4), 308-325. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-07-2011-0065

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). PSYCH 485 Lesson 12: Authentic Leadership. Retrieved November 17th, 2014 from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/12_lesson/printlesson.html

Wong, C. A., & Giallonardo, L. M. (2013). Authentic leadership and nurse-assessed adverse patient outcomes. Journal of Nursing Management, 21(5), 740-752. doi:10.1111/jonm.12075

Transformational Leadership – A Look at Hierarchy

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The concept of a transformational leader—one who instigates growth and motivation for the betterment of their followers—makes it extremely popular to any company or organization trying to improve their employee population and subsequently their product or sales (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Burns, 1978; PSU, 2014). Additionally, the growing utilization of teams in organizations highlights the advent of research that points to transformational leadership as a defining link between team mental models (everyone on the same page) and team efficacy (Ayoko & Chua, 2014). This concept greatly supports the idea that transformational leadership is foundational, in both utilization and development, of stronger teams and employee populations. As such, understanding within organizations where and at what hierarchical degree transformational leadership can be exploited is paramount to developmental initiatives and company efficacy as a whole. Additionally, a strong argument can be made that transformational leadership stands to increase the performance of teams (Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, & Spangler, 2004).

Throughout the past couple decades the use of teams has become significantly more popular and used in organizations (Shuffler, DiazGranados, & Salas, 2011). As with most things that appear to be good, the optimization, exploitation, design, and development of teams has been recognized as vital to creating effective teams (Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2010). Logically, the placement and use of teams is predominantly (by quantity) found in the lower half of organizations, however, teams are found throughout all levels of organizations (llgen, 1999; PSU, 2014). In such, and through the popularity and output ability of transformational lead teams, the use of such concepts is at the forefront of many leadership developmental initiatives (Dionne et al., 2004). As transformational leadership fosters both social and task cohesion, it also has been described as providing a sense of purpose and family (Bass & Avolio, 1993). Unfortunately, and extremely interesting, there exists very clear differences between team effectiveness, performance, and learning (Raes, 2013). As effectiveness is generally thought to be outcomes, performance (depending upon who judges such) is thought to be during work and not exactly related to outcomes, and learning is the ability to progress towards either better performance or effectiveness (Raes, 2013).

So, how do companies utilize such training and how effective is it?

Based upon the foundational concepts of transformational leadership, the inherent use of social cohesion, interaction, intrapersonal relations, and fostering of psychological safety, demonstrates that transformational leadership training for teams is greatly beneficial to effectiveness, growth, and the subsequent ability to learn as a team (Raes, 2013). This effect is also highlighted by research that indicates leaders who teach with a social understanding of the importance of fostering psychological safety—team members who feel accepted, respected, and free to express—greatly contributes to team effectiveness, cohesion, and performance (Edmondson, Bohmer, Pisano, 2001). Collectively, these studies mirror many of transformational leaderships inherent traits that can be utilized to best lead teams.

In my experience as a middle to upper level manager within the military, the training of transformational leadership characteristics was minimal. Though a team may be proven to be more effective through the use and function of transformational leadership characteristics, I would posit that this is limited by function of power and influence. The presence, and more specifically the use, of power and influence in the military are markedly different than civilian organizations. This is due in large part by consequential parameters that back orders and directives from superiors—often referred to as “coercive power” (French & Raven, 1959).

However, my experience in small team crews in aviation differs greatly than within macroscopic military hierarchy. The concept of transformational leadership mimics that of Crew Resource Management’s (CRM) function. In short, CRM is based upon 7 critical skills: decision making, adaptability/flexibility, mission analysis, communication, leadership, assertiveness, and situational awareness (Helmreich, Merrit,, & Wilhelm, 1999). Of these components, the efficacy of any one of them is greatly reliant upon the ability of leadership to foster such aspects of teams as psychological safety, cohesion, and performance. I have personally been apart of numerous crews that greatly focus upon such concepts and, in my experience, the outcome was vastly different than crews that did not focus on such. To this degree, I would argue that such research stands to support the use and function of transformational leadership in aviation and within teams ubiquitously. This stands to demonstrate that transformational leadership should be utilized both in general organizational settings, where a majority of teams is in the lower half of the organization, and towards the top level managerial team settings where teams often exists as a conglomeration of different department heads and from different areas requiring specific autonomy apart from common team settings.

In conclusion, the use of transformational leadership continues to be proven by research as a very effective means to lead (Ayoko & Chua, 2014; Bandura, 1986) Additionally, such means of effective transformational leadership initiatives in relation to the efficacy of team learning has been proven to be crucial to overall team effectiveness (Decuyper, Dochy, & Van den Bossche, 2010). Ultimately, the nurturing of transformational leader characteristics in team settings is important to the development, performance, learning, and effectiveness of the entire organization and suggests that developmental initiatives should be universally present and not just subjected to a majority of teams.

 

Written by Morgan L. DeBusk-Lane

 

References

Ayoko, O. B., & Chua, E. L. (2014). The importance of transformational leadership behaviors in team mental model similarity, team efficacy, and intra-team conflict. Group & Organization Management, 39(5), 504-531. doi:10.1177/1059601114550080

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive view. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership: A response to critiques. In M. M. Chemers (Ed.), Leadership theory and research: Perspectives and directions. New York: Academic Press.

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (Eds.). (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Cannon-Bowers J.A., & Bowers C. (2010). Team development and functioning. In Zedeck S. (Ed.), APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 597–650).Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Decuyper, S., Dochy, F., & Van den Bossche, P. (2010). Grasping the dynamic complexity of team learning: An integrative model for effective team learning in organizations. Educational Research Review, 5(2), 111–133.

Dionne, S. D., Yammarino, F. J., Atwater, L. E., & Spangler, W. D. (2004). Transformational leadership and team performance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17(2), 177-193. doi:10.1108/09534810410530601

Edmondson, A., Bohmer, R., & Pisano, G. (2001). Speeding up team learning. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

French, J., & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies of Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

Helmreich, R. L., Merritt, A. C., & Wilhelm, J. A. (1999). The evolution of crew resource management training in commercial aviation. The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 9(1), 19-32. doi:10.1207/s15327108ijap0901_2

Ilgen, D. R. (1999). Teams embedded in organizations: Some implications. American Psychologist, 54(2), 129-139. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.54.2.129

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). PSYCH 485 Lesson 10: Transformational Leadership. Retrieved November 5th, 2014 from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/10_lesson/printlesson.html

Raes, E., Decuyper, S., Lismont, B., Van den Bossche, P., Kyndt, E., Demeyere, S., & Dochy, F. (2013). Facilitating team learning through transformational leadership. Instructional Science, 41(2), 287-305. doi:10.1007/s11251-012-9228-3

Shuffler, M. L., DiazGranados, D., & Salas, E. (2011). There’s a science for that: Team development interventions in organizations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(6), 365-372. doi:10.1177/0963721411422054

Team Leadership in Aviation

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c130j

“There is no aircraft in aviation history — either developed or under development — that can match the flexibility, versatility and relevance of the C-130 Hercules. In continuous production longer than any other military aircraft, the C-130 has earned a reputation as a workhorse ready for any mission, anywhere, anytime.

With more than one million hours of flying combat, humanitarian, special operations, aerial refueling, firefighting, and search and rescue missions around the world, the C-130J stands ready for its next mission and for whatever the future holds.” – Lockheed Martin (C-130J Super Hercules, 2014).

 

Within the distinct military history of the C-130 the proven concept of crewmember teamwork has positioned itself as a defining element to its renowned success. From the Pilot-in-charge to the Flight Engineer, the concept of crew specific tasks, duties, and knowledge exemplifies the essence of a team and, though unique in itself, follows aged typical gradation seen in team development

By definition, teams collaborate towards a collective goal, must rely upon each other, and work interdependently (PSU, 2014; Sol Tree, 2009). Additionally, within a team, each individual contributes specific knowledge or completes particular tasks that must be collectively used to proceed closer to goal accomplishment (PSU, 2014). Such actions are vital to the efficacy of teams. This also makes the formation of teams unique in that the ability to communicate, both on a professional and personal level, ultimately determines the ability to interdependently utilize each member’s specificity most effectively. Such interference is not only displayed as communicational, but as bad leadership, personality conflicts, and slower than normal integration times that ultimately contribute to adverse team progression and effectiveness (Utley, Brown, & Benfield, 2009).

The aircrew set up on C-130s exemplifies a team. Each job has extreme complication, technicality, and requirements for knowledge that are only known and contributed by that one position. Each crewmember must individually contribute to the particular mission at hand—as no mission may be completed without such individual participation. This information, though contributed by specific crewmembers is utilized by each other crew positions to collectively drive towards mission accomplishment. This collective contribution utilizes explicit interpersonal communication and cooperation that drives the team, or crew, towards mission completion. The Pilot, Copilot, Flight Engineer, and Loadmaster must each interact, contribute, and function both independently and interdependently to sustain safe and effective flight.

Further, Tuckman’s four stages of team development—forming-storming-norming- and performing—match the development of an aircrew team (PSU, 2014; Tuckman, 1965). Squadron aircrews are formed based upon availability and particular qualifications that are required by certain tactical missions. As such, this often results in conflict and, at the very least, is identified as learning each members communication style and abilities. To this degree, the process of learning such intrinsic personality traits and mannerisms produce Tuckman’s storming stage. Further, and only once the learning has occurred, normalization resides. For an aircrew this is the process for which effective communication and procedural optimization is evident. Simply, a crew that has been together for a considerable about of time now understands how each member can best contribute to the mission. Ultimately this process continues and increased performance, communication, and interpersonal dependency is maximized. This is the stage when a seasoned crew, throughout the length of a 6-9 month deployment, finds superior levels of communication (which, interestingly enough, is typically displayed as non-verbal, almost intuitive, assumptions that produces crew cohesiveness and efficacy) and mission accomplishment. The ability to function within a seasoned crew through months of combat flights stands as one of the most interesting and amazing experiences of my life. I have personally never witnessed or been apart of such a group of individuals that I knew like the back of my hand and could, without a word, know their exact next move or thought in most situations. This, in my mind, is the end of Tuckman’s performance stage—the truest optimization of interpersonal communication, reliance upon each other, and mission accomplishment.

As mentioned earlier, leadership within this type of team is by position and it ultimately predicated by experience and qualification. This position, though a byproduct of qualification, is not solely a product of previous leadership performance. It is a culmination of experience, performance, test grades, and piloting skills. Very little, if truly any, leadership abilities are considered in such qualifications. To this degree, such marginalization often initially degrades both critical team leadership functions mentioned by Northouse (2013) – task function and maintenance functions. More specifically, pilots often lack the situational awareness and abilities to guild teams through complex situations or missions that require leader driven evolutions and time critical decisions that ultimately affect the outcome of the mission. Also, newer leaders often lack the ability, or empathy, to spend effort dealing with troop welfare and the general well being of the other team members. From my experience newer pilots often focus on task function well before they master and display adequate maintenance functions for their team.

Though unique in function and set up as multi-crewed aviation can be, generally Tuckman’s stages can be found in nearly all organizations to some degree. Tuckman’s model has also been described as, “the most predominantly referred to and most widely recognized in organizational literature” (Miller, 2003, p. 122). Though the process of leadership development and selection is unique in it self and would depart from the point of this blog, such a process within aviation does change how the team is assumed and constructed—for which ultimately determines their effectiveness and the probability of mission completion. As such, it is important to note that each team is unique in and of it self. There will exist particularities in each formation, conflict, normalization, and performance outcomes that any team can display and produce. Like most models or theories, Tuckman’s stages of teams stands as a generalization that is broadcasted throughout all organizations and functions of teams.

Written by: Morgan L. DeBusk-Lane

References

C-130J Super hercules. (2014). Retrieved October 22nd, 2014, from             http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/c130.html

Miller, D. L. (2003). The stages of group development: A retrospective study of dynamic team processes. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 20(2), 121-134. doi:10.1111/j.1936-4490.2003.tb00698.x

Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus (2014). PSYCH 485 Lesson 9: Team Leadership. Retrieved October 21st, 2014 from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/09_lesson/printlesson.html

Sol Tree (2009, October 9). Solution tree: Rick DuFour on groups vs. teams [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hV65KIItlE

Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), 384-399. doi:10.1037/h0022100

Utley, D. R., Brown, S. E., & Michael P J Benfield. (2009). Working group or team: Characteristic differences. IIE Annual Conference.Proceedings, , 415.

Military Power, Authority and Influence

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The existence and position of leadership in organizational structures differs throughout the type and purpose of the organization—as Stogdill (1948) stated,

A person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some combination of traits, but the pattern of personal characteristics of the leader must bear some relevant relationship to the characteristics, activities, and goals of the followers. (p. 64)

To this degree, the selection, identification, and progression of promotions is vital to the operation of any organization. However, as Stogdill alluded to, identifying the overarching goal of the organization is paramount in identify and positioning leadership appropriately. This instigation of leadership, though generalized, is markedly different in organizational military structures. As such, the process of promoting, identifying, and positioning is vastly different in military instances than corporate structures that in turn dynamically change the utilization of authority, power, and influence.

The hierarchical structure of the military does, to some degree, mimic that of larger public civilian organizations. This often resembles the pyramid shape, where there is a leader at the top, middle management in the middle and common workers at the base. Leadership in the military, from the bottom ranks up, is driven by timelines, experience, mission accomplishment, and organizational needs. This, in no way, sounds unfamiliar to everyday corporate America. However, the place of authority—marked by obedience and discipline, influence—by persuasion, and power—by position, has little correlation.

The definition of authority differs from that of power in that it identifies legitimacy, justification, and right to exercise power (Gregory, 1955). This right–authority, in speaking of corporate settings, is generated from position, title, experience, and popularity. This is often the same in the military, however, rank often, if not completely, overshadows that of all other factors because military members are held by law to obey and follow such orders from those appointed to ranks above them—regardless of their experience, popularity, or efficacy of leadership. This dynamic surely changes how authority imparts power and influence to service members as compared to existing structures in civilian settings. I have personally experienced this numerous times where the custom and requirement of respecting rank was the only avenue of respect and obedience the person brought as a leader. I had a direct supervisor that was quickly promoted assume command of 45 others and myself. His lack of leadership, newer placement of authority, and illogical use of power resulted in well below average mission accomplishment. This, as would be hypothesized, resulted in decreased troop moral and very little respect and will to follow towards that individual. Come to find out, his use of power was only in support of his own personal goals. This personalized use of power clearly prevented the concentration of effort to be on our organizational goals and thus prevented our success as a unit.

This instance, though somewhat uncommon, can largely be contributed to poor leadership identification (bulk, illogical, and systematic promotions) and development (poor preparation from promotion, leadership positions, and authority). More specifically, there are general guidelines and requirements for promotion throughout the ranks that very seldom, if not at all, require leadership ability and performance. The military, at least in particular branches, hold things such as: marksmanship, physical test performance, qualifications, and martial arts degrees to the same if not higher weight in criteria for promotion. This clearly marginalizes leadership as a prerequisite for greater responsibility, authority, and opportunities.

In sum, the congressional requirement and culture of rank, for which demands respect and harnesses all authority, nullifies the typical definition of power—in that it does not require a capacity to produce behavior changes in others and it demands obedience that circumvents influence (Bass, 1990). However, as French and Raven (1959) explained power in terms of influence and is identified as the “relationship” between a social agent and a person (leader and follower) and has a unique “source” of power. Utilizing this perspective of analysis, military power is primarily sourced through coercive power—as any failure to influence or obey is met with punishment by law (French and Raven, 1959). Additionally, referent power is sourced, as group identity, especially in combat military units, is, as researchers have found, to be one of the most powerful leadership resources (French and Raven, 1959; Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2011). This is also supported by Lippitt’s (1952) research in that more often than not, leaders will utilize more than one avenue to source their influence among subordinates.

In conclusion, the military does often correlate structurally to their civilian counterparts, however, the methods for which leaders are chosen and positioned is vastly different and shifts the definition of power, instance of authority, and method of influence. As we’ve seen, this shift is mainly due to the process for which leaders are selected and the unique criteria for which power, authority, and influence is used—as we’ve all seen the negative side such power, authority, and influence can take on women in the military, prisoner abuse, and hazing. To these degrees, though extreme, the unique place of both referent and coercive power dynamically changes how leaders and followers interact in the military and stands to redefine and highlight the importance of leadership identification and development.

Written by: Morgan DeBusk-Lane

References

Bass, B. M., (1990). Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership. 3rd ed. New York: Free Press.

French, J., & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies of Social Power. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

Gregory, W. E. (1955). “Authoritarianism” and authority. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 641-643. doi:10.1037/h0048733

Haslam, S. A., Reicher, S., & Platow, M. (2011). The new psychology of leadership: Identity, influence, and power. New York; Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.

Lippitt, R. (1952). The dynamics of power. Human Relations, 5(1), 37.

Stogdill, R. M. (1948). Personal factors associated with leadership: A review of the literature. Journal of Psychology, 25, 35-71.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

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1101951002_400

 

Picture retrieved from: http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19951002,00.html

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For the most part all of us interact with each another to some degree. This is not news to anyone. However, why, how, and for what reasons is commonly associated with social psychology. Much can be explained by the underlying, or obvious, reasons we interact—though not all are completely understood, even by the producer, all have reasons or instigations—even if they are not purposeful or self actuated. Having resolute control of our exchanges, particularly in the identification and response to our own emotions, can have a profound impact in how we present ourselves, handle situations, and ultimately accomplish goals with the collective force of individuals within a group—through leadership.

Within the world of academia, the study of how leadership is best developed has just recently begun to gain momentum (Luthans & Avolio 2003). Concurrently, within the last decade, the emergence of emotional intelligence has demonstrated strong research correlations to academic achievement, quality of social interaction, and leadership (Bar-On, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2004). As such, emotional intelligence stands to collectively participate in providing better leadership development and training.

Intrinsic to human social interaction resides two common ideals: the innate ability and need of socialization and the self conceptualization and enhancement of social skills needed to progress and even thrive far beyond just merely existing (Saarni, 1999; Holodynski, & Friedlmeier, 2005). As such, much of the foundation can be associated to Darwin’s understanding of the “emotional expression in survival and adaptation” (1872). This was further predicated by the Bar-On’s model of emotional intelligence that utilizes the view of emotional intelligent behavior as effective adaptation in Darwinian terms (Bar-On, 2006). With further connotations from positive psychology, Bar-On progressed away from psychopathology by highlighting “the importance of the ability to ‘thrive’” and not just survive through the optimization of controlling one’s emotions (Bar-On, 1997). From this, the drive of much of emotional intelligence research has been towards its correlation with various other psychological constructs—much like the overwhelming correlation data of general intelligence or IQ.

Generally, IQ (or g-factor) is the most commonly associated trait of perceived leadership, as we typically think good leaders are inherently smart (Lord, De Vader, & Alliger, 1986). It has also been explained that, “No other trait—not even conscientiousness—predicts so many important real-world outcomes so well” (Schmidt, & Hunter, 2000, p. 4). However, the positive correlation between intelligence and leadership is only moderate—p1 = .21, whereas the correlation between extroversion is p1 = .31 (Judge, Colbert, & Ilies, 2004). Interestingly enough, there exists no positive correlation between emotional intelligence and IQ— p1 = > 0.1(Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000). More importantly, the correlation between extroversion and emotional intelligence was very significant, p1 = 0.26, in the same study.

Finding that both emotional intelligence and extroversion are positively correlated AND extroversion and leadership ability are strongly correlated could, though not prematurely or falsely indicate a direct relationship or causality, predict that those who are more emotionally intelligent are better leaders. As such, this does not negate the fact that all but neuroticism of the big Five Factor Model positively correlates to emotional intelligence—where extroversion stands as the strongest (Dehghanan, Abdollahi, & Rezaei, 2014).

Further, one study does demonstrate just this. Through a longitudinal study, researchers demonstrated that higher levels of extroversion in adolescence strongly correlate to leadership qualities later in life (Guerin, Oliver, Gottfried, Gottfried, Reichard, & Riggio, 2011). Additionally, an enormous amount of data suggests very strong relations between social skills and leader competency and abilities (Riggio, & Lee, 2007; Riggio, Riggio, Salinas, & Cole, 2003).

Ultimately the importance of emotional intelligence on leadership ability is dynamic. Understanding the interplay between one’s emotions and their effectiveness as a leader by the utilization of social skills and analysis of intrinsic emotions is well beyond the scope of this conversation. However, the bond between emotional intelligence, extroversion, and leadership ability is strong and can stand to optimize leadership development through a collaborative effort to secure and instigate social skills and promulgate gregariousness throughout the lifespan.

Written by: Morgan DeBusk-Lane

References

Bar-On, R. (1997). The emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i): Technical manual. Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.

Bar-On, R. (2006). The Bar-On model of emotional-social intelligence (ESI)d. Psicothema, 18, 13-25.

Ciarrochi, J. V., Chan, A. Y. C., & Caputi, P. (2000). A critical evaluation of the emotional intelligence construct. Personality and Individual Differences, 28(3), 539-561. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00119-1

Darwin, C. (1872/1965). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dehghanan, H., abdollahi, H., & Rezaei, M. (2014). A study on effect of big five personality traits on emotional intelligence. Management Science Letters, 4(6), 1279-1284. doi:10.5267/j.msl.2014.4.016

Guerin, D. W., Oliver, P. H., Gottfried, A. E., Gottfried, A. W., Reichard, R. J., & Riggio, R. E. (2011). Childhood and adolescent antecedents of social skills and leadership potential in adulthood: Temperamental approach/withdrawal and extraversion. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(3), 482-494. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.04.006

Guerin, D. W., Oliver, P. H., Gottfried, A. E., Gottfried, A. W., Reichard, R. J., & Riggio, R. E. (2011). Childhood and adolescent antecedents of social skills and leadership potential in adulthood: Temperamental approach/withdrawal and extraversion. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(3), 482-494. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.04.006

Judge, T. A., Colbert, A. E., & Ilies, R. (2004). Intelligence and leadership; A quantitative review and test of theoretical propositions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 542-552.

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