WFED410:

Lesson 03: Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Lesson Overview

This lesson focuses on increasing your understanding of what emotional intelligence (EI) is and why it is important to success in leadership and other roles. The readings and videos provide an historical overview of emotional intelligence, describe the different theories, highlight research findings, and show how to develop emotional intelligence.

The activities will help you appreciate emotional intelligence competencies as a critical factor in leadership success and increase your awareness of your emotional intelligence strengths and areas for development. An emotional intelligence competency self-assessment (with “validation” by another person), is used to guide your development plan.

Lesson Objectives

After successfully completing this lesson you should be able to

• define emotional intelligence and review how the brain functions in response to emotionally significant events;
• describe Goleman's emotional competence framework;
• assess your emotional intelligence and increase your awareness of your strengths and development needs in specific EI competencies; and
• identify ways to develop your emotional intelligence and add ideas to your Personal Learning Summary and Development Plan.

Lesson Readings & Activities

By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 03 Course Schedule.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (also known as EI or EQ) is critical to success in both work and life in general. The term itself implies both feeling and thought, with a focus on the importance of emotions as the first screen for all information received. Emotion is defined as “any agitation or disturbance of mind, feeling, passion; any vehement or excited mental state. “[1] In the article in which they introduced their model of emotional intelligence, Salovey and Mayer defined emotions as “organized responses, crossing the boundaries of many psychological systems…Emotions typically arise in response to an event, either internal or external, that has a positively or negatively valenced meaning for the individual.” [2] Daniel Goleman has defined emotion as follows: “I take emotion to refer to a feeling and its distinctive thoughts, psychological and biological states, and range of propensities to act.” [3] In general, theorists agree that emotions are a combination of pleasantness or unpleasantness and activation—high or low. For example, excitement is a combination of pleasantness and high activation; calmness is a combination of pleasantness and low activation.

A dictionary definition of intelligence is “the capacity to apprehend facts and propositions and their relations and to reason about them.”[4] As defined by David Wechsler, it is “the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.”[5]

Popularized by Daniel Goleman,[6] the term “emotional intelligence” was actually coined by Salovey and Mayer in 1990. They defined it as “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” [7] They considered it to be part of individual capacity, a potential intelligence for achieving mastery, and initially described it as a three-component model: appraisal and expression of emotion, regulation of emotion, and utilization of emotion.

“The emotionally intelligent person…attends to emotion in the path toward growth. Emotional intelligence involves self-regulation appreciative of the fact that temporarily hurt feelings or emotional restraint is often necessary in the service of a greater objective.”[8]

Goleman describes emotional intelligence as a “master aptitude,”

To the degree that our emotions get in the way of or enhance our ability to think and plan, to pursue training for a distant goal, to solve problems and the like, they define the limits of our capacity to use our innate mental abilities, and so determine how we do in life. And to the degree to which we are motivated by feelings of enthusiasm and pleasure in what we do—or even by an optimal degree of anxiety—they propel us to accomplishment. It is in this sense that emotional intelligence is a master aptitude, a capacity that profoundly affects all other abilities, either facilitating or interfering with them.”[9]

Although there are many different theories about emotional intelligence, most agree that this form of intelligence is not fixed genetically nor does it develop only in early childhood. Emotional intelligence seems to be largely learned and continues to develop as we go through life.

Much of Goleman’s work is focused on emotional competence, which he defines as “learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work.”[10] In his view, emotional intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills that are based in the emotional intelligence dimensions. Being high in emotional intelligence does not guarantee a person will have learned the emotional competencies that matter for work; it means only that the person has excellent potential to learn them.

That emotional awareness and regulation skills are important to contentment and achievement, and not always fully developed, is not a new concept. For example, Aristotle’s challenge, from The Nicomachean Ethics:

Anyone can get angry—that is easy—…but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.[11]

And, from the fourth lecture of Russian philosopher, Ouspensky,

“In reality we have much more power over negative emotions than we think, particularly when we already know how dangerous they are and how urgent is the struggle with them. But we find too many excuses for them, and swim in the seas of self-pity and selfishness, as the case may be, finding fault in everything except ourselves.” [12]

The Emotional Brain

Recent neuroanatomical research, including the mapping of physical locations of various brain functions, has significantly increased our understanding of how the human brain works. Rather than a unified entity, the brain is composed of anatomically distinct parts in which specific functions are localized.[13] Cognition and emotions are interwoven in mental life, especially in complex decision-making, self-awareness, and interpersonal functioning. The different parts of our brain have different characteristics; although their neural connections allow them to influence each other, they are able to operate independently of each other.

Emotional competencies are ones that combine thought and feeling… The tight orchestration of thought and feeling is made possible by what amounts to a superhighway in the brain—a bundle of neurons connecting the prefrontal lobes, behind the forehead—the brain’s executive decision-making center—with an area deep in the brain that harbors our emotions[14]

The two main brain systems of interest are the limbic and the cerebral cortex. The limbic system, which includes the amgydala, is lower in the brain and develops before the higher cerebral system, the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala, the storehouse of memories of emotional reactions, signals us with emotional information. It is emotional, intuitive, simple, approximate and categorical, and, as compared with the cerebral cortex, faster, more automatic and unconscious. The cerebral cortex is rational, conceptual, analytical, complex and quantitative, and, as compared with the limbic system, slow, tentative, effortful and conscious.

When an emotionally significant event occurs, the sense organs carry information to the thalamus, which interprets sensory stimuli, takes a snap shot and compares the incoming information with stored earlier scenes. It then triggers the amygdala which sends signals to the hypothalamus to initiate the physical changes that accompany emotions and stimulate motor areas of the brain. It also sends a signal through the hippocampus, the lowest part of the cortex, to the prefrontal cortex. The pre-frontal cortex, which stores long-term memory, receives the information and processes it in a relatively slow, careful and thoughtful manner. The cortex’s analysis of the meaning of the event is fed back to the amygdala and influences both emotional and behavioral responses.

The amygdala receives information about environmental events first, and it responds in a quick, crude, emotional and action-oriented fashion. The cortex receives information about events only later, and it responds in a slow, careful, analytical manner, with forethought. As a result, an event can elicit an emotional reaction and a motor response before the person has even begun to think about what the event means. Although the reaction time difference may be but a fraction of a second, the quicker response of the limbic system can cause someone to behave impulsively even when he or she has the cognitive ability to choose a more adaptive response.

Emotional incompetence often results from habits deeply learned early in life. These autonomic habits are set in place as a normal part of living, as experience shapes the brain. As people acquire their habitual repertoire of thought, feeling, and action, the neural connections that support these are strengthened, becoming dominant pathways for nerve impulses. Connections that are unused become weakened, while those that people use over and over grow increasingly strong. When these habits have been so heavily learned, the underlying neural circuitry becomes the brain’s default option at any moment—what a person does automatically and spontaneously, often with little awareness of choosing to do so. [15]

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Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

This lesson's readings and videos share the results of various research studies that found a strong link between leadership success and high emotional intelligence. Goleman's other writings detail study results which show the differentiating role of emotional intelligence competencies on effective performance in leadership (and other professional roles). For example, he cites a landmark study of top executives who derailed which found two common traits to be rigidity (lack of adapting to change or accepting feedback from others) and poor relationships.[16] As well as reporting on longitudinal studies examining the relative contributions of IQ and social-emotional intelligence to professional success, Cherniss[17] also gives a good review of the historical roots of emotional intelligence and describes different instruments to measure it.

More recent studies support the earlier findings, in terms of the specific emotional intelliegence skills that support leadership success and the missing skills that are associated with derailment. One study[18] found a connection between company profitability and the executives’ levels of empathy, self-regard, reality testing and problem solving. They also reported that the top executives had significantly higher emotional intelligence scores than the normative population on more than half of the EQ-I subscales.[19]

In today’s work environments, leaders need to build trust relationships, foster teamwork, and collaborate with and coach a variety of people. It stands to reason that self- and other-awareness, emotional self-management, and relationship skills are essential to success.

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Developing Emotional Intelligence

Improving social-emotional competence is hard work. It requires that the person sees value in developing greater self-awareness and empathy, for example, and also is prepared for relapses as old neural pathways are extinguished and new ones are developed. Consider the following two quotes:

“Capacities like empathy or flexibility differ crucially from cognitive abilities; they draw on different areas of the brain. Purely cognitive abilities are based in the neocortex, the 'thinking brain.' But with personal and social competencies, additional brain areas come into play, mainly the circuitry that runs from the emotional centers —particularly the amygdala—deep in the center of the brain up to the pre-frontal lobes, the brain’s executive center. Learning emotional competence retunes this circuitry.”[20]

“Cognitive learning involves fitting new data and insights into existing frameworks of association and understanding, extending and enriching the corresponding neural circuitry. But emotional learning involves that and more—it requires that we also engage the neural circuitry where social and emotional habit repertoire is stored. Changing habits such as learning to approach people positively instead of avoiding them, to listen better, or to give feedback skillfully, is a more challenging task than simply adding new information to old.”

“Motivational factors also make social and emotional learning more difficult and complex than purely cognitive learning. Emotional learning often involves ways of thinking and acting that are more central to a person’s identity…The prospect of learning to develop greater emotional competence is a bitter pill for many of us to swallow. It thus is much more likely to generate resistance to change.”[21]

A recent publication by Sheldon, Cunning, and Ames (2014) [22] reports the findings of their studies examining how accurately people appraise their emotional intelligence skills. The results indicate that, at least for their professional student samples, those least skilled in emotional intelligence were largely unaware of their deficits and also discounted as inaccurate or not relevant concrete feedback about their performance as measured on the MSCEIT. Compared with top performers, they were more reluctant to improve their emotional intelligence. An inability to recognize either their lack of skills, or the value from improving, makes it more difficult for those who most need improvement to do so. In his second lecture, Uspenskii expressed a similar thought in somewhat different terms:

“The first obstacle in the way of development of self-consciousness (i.e., self-awareness) in man is his conviction that he already possesses self-consciousness or, at any rate, that he can have it at any time he likes.” [23]

The difficulties associated with developing emotional intelligence competencies are also addressed in the Emmerling and Goleman article assigned as part of this lesson. They contend that some development in emotional intelligence can occur through maturation and life experience, and that “the brain circuitry of emotion exhibits a fair degree of plasticity, even in adulthood.” “However…we argue that without sustained effort and attention individuals are unlikely to improve greatly a given aspect of their emotional intelligence (even though) there is research evidence for people’s ability to improve their social and emotional competence with sustained effort and a systematic program.”[24]

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APPENDIX

The Four Branches of Emotional Intelligence [25]

Perception, Appraisal and Expression of Emotion

• Ability to identify emotion in one's physical states, feelings, and thoughts.
• Ability to identify emotions in other people, designs, artwork, etc., through language, sound, appearance, and behavior.
• Ability to express emotions accurately, and to express needs related to those feelings.
• Ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate, or honest vs. dishonest expressions of feeling.

Emotional Facilitation of Thinking

• Emotions prioritize thinking by directing attention to important information.
• Emotions are sufficiently vivid and available that they can be generated as aids to judgment and memory concerning feelings.
• Emotional mood swings change the individual's perspective from optimistic to pessimistic, encouraging consideration of multiple points of view.
• Emotional states differentially encourage specific problem-solving approaches such as when happiness facilitates inductive reasoning and creativity.

Understanding and Analyzing Emotions; Employing Emotional Knowledge

• Ability to label emotions and recognize relations among the words and the emotions themselves, such as the relation between liking and loving.
• Ability to interpret the meanings that emotions convey regarding relationships, such as that sadness often accompanies a loss.
• Ability to understand complex feelings: simultaneous feelings of love and hate or blends such as awe as a combination of fear and surprise.
• Ability to recognize likely transitions among emotions, such as the transition from anger to satisfaction or from anger to shame.

Reflective Regulation of Emotions to Promote Emotional and Intellectual Growth

• Ability to stay open to feelings, both those that are pleasant and those that are unpleasant.
• Ability to reflectively engage or detach from an emotion depending upon its judged informativeness or utility.
• Ability to reflectively monitor emotions in relation to oneself and others, such as recognizing how clear, typical, influential, or reasonable they are.
• Ability to manage emotion in oneself and others by moderating negative emotions and enhancing pleasant ones, without repressing or exaggerating information they may convey.

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Activities

Losing it, Emotionally

Overview

Think about a recent interpersonal situation where your emotions interfered with attaining the results or outcome you wanted. This should be a situation you are comfortable sharing with your instructor and one of your fellow learners.

Instructions

Part 1

1. Briefly describe the situation by answering the following questions:

   • Who else was involved and what is their relationship to you?
   • What transpired? Briefly describe the event, how it started, what was said, what was done.
   • What was your emotional state? To the extent possible, identify the emotions you were feeling, what you were thinking, and, if possible, the extent to which you think you were “out of control.”
   • What was the other person’s emotional state? To what extent would you say he or she was “out of control”?
   • How did the situation end?
   • In retrospect, what could you have done (or said) to achieve a better outcome?

2. Review your description, and respond to the following questions:

   • Did you find it difficult to recall a situation where your emotions did not serve you well? If so, why do you think that was the case?
   • Did you find it easy or difficult to identify (label) your emotional state? What about the other person’s emotional state?
   • Were you aware of your emotions at the time you were experiencing them?
   • Did you attempt to do anything to manage or regulate your emotions during the interaction?
   • What were your dominant emotions immediately after the interaction was over?
   • In rethinking the interaction, what insights have you gained about how to handle future similar interactions (or different interactions with the same person)?

Submit your situation and analysis for peer review by 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday.

Part 2

You will be assigned to review at least two of your classmates' submissions after Thursday. See How do I submit a peer review to an Assignment? for instructions.

Note: You do not need to review with a rubric.

Deliverable Timelines

Day	Task
Monday–Thursday	Submit responses for Part 1.
Friday–Sunday	Submit peer reviews, as assigned, for Part 2.

EI Competency Assessment Report

Overview

Prepare a report to summarize your emotional competence and identify both strengths and areas you could focus on developing for the future.

Instructions

Part 1

Using the descriptions of the 25 competencies included in the Emotional Competence Framework, complete a self-assessment of your strengths and development needs. A good way to do this is to proceed through the competencies in the order presented and assess how you think you measure up on each competency.

Use whatever code is meaningful to you to separate the competencies into three categories:

• those you perceive as strengths,
• those you are uncertain about, and
• those you perceive as needing development.

Part 2

Independent of your self-assessment, share a copy of the framework with someone who knows you well:

1. Ask the person to do a similar review and assessment of your competencies (strengths, uncertainties, and development needs). This could be one of your outside stakeholders for the FeedForward activity, or someone else—ideally, it is someone with whom you have a work relationship.

   Be sure to do this early in the week so that you have ample time to review the results.

2. Compare your self-assessment with the other person's assessment to identify areas of agreement and disagreement.

3. Examine the response patterns.

   • Do your strengths fall mostly under the personal competence or social competence categories?
   • Is there clustering under any of the subcategories (e.g., self-awareness, self-assessment, etc.)?
   • What patterning is evident in the competencies you and the other person identified as needing development?

Deliverable

Prepare a summary report. The report should include

• the results of your original self-assessment: the competencies you saw as strengths, the ones you were uncertain about, and those needing development (Part 1);
• the areas of agreement and disagreement between your assessment and the other person's assessment, including your conclusions after doing the comparison (Part 2, Step 2);
• what you concluded after examining the pattern of your strengths and areas for development (Part 2, Step 3);
• one or two of the competencies you consider to be strengths, with specific situations or examples to support your assessment;
• one or two competencies that could be developed that aren't already strengths and how the development of those competencies will benefit you;
• your general sense of your current level of emotional competence (you may also include your reactions to any online emotional intelligence “quiz”); and
• how you think building emotional competence will improve your performance as a leader.

Additional Requirements

• To help visually present the results of your self-assessment and the results of the other person's assessment, you are required to include the table in the EI Competency Assessment Results Template in your report.
• The report is a course requirement. It should be at least one and no more than four pages long (doubled-spaced, 12-point font).

Lesson 3 Personal Reflection Action Plan

Overview

Each week, you will spend about 30 minutes reflecting on your readings and assignments. You will identify at least three areas of learning or insight and describe what was new or insightful to you. You will also be asked to identify one action item that you will do during the following week to reinforce the key learnings.

Donahue's Building Leadership Competence: A Competency-Based Approach to Building Leadership Ability (2018) provides a comprehensive framework to help you identify the competencies you need and give you the tools to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Instructions

Please spend some time reflecting on your key learnings from this week's lesson and update the Personal Reflection Action Plan you submitted in the previous lesson.

1. Describe your performance on the action item you chose last week.
2. Describe in detail at least three areas of learning or insight you gained from the readings and/or assignments in Lesson 2.
3. Identify one action item that you will do this week to reinforce your learning. This could be something you are going to start for the first time or something you may want to just do differently. Be explicit in your explanation.

Please note that you do not need to create and submit your Personal Reflection Action Plan in a separate file each week. You can update the same file throughout the course and submit your updated plan for grading.

If you are updating your plan via Google Drive or OneDrive, please make sure that you provide a sharable link so the instructor can access your plan.

Lesson 3 Reading Quiz

Overview

This is a multiple-choice comprehension quiz for Lesson 3 readings.