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Human Relations

2000; 53; 1027 Human Relations Jennifer M. George

Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence

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Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence Jennifer M. George

A B S T R A C T This paper suggests that feelings (moods and emotions) play a central

role in the leadership process. More specifically, it is proposed that

emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage moods

and emotions in the self and others, contributes to effective leader-

ship in organizations. Four major aspects of emotional intelligence,

the appraisal and expression of emotion, the use of emotion to

enhance cognitive processes and decision making, knowledge about

emotions, and management of emotions, are described. Then, I

propose how emotional intelligence contributes to effective leader-

ship by focusing on five essential elements of leader effectiveness:

development of collective goals and objectives; instilling in others an

appreciation of the importance of work activities; generating and

maintaining enthusiasm, confidence, optimism, cooperation, and

trust; encouraging flexibility in decision making and change; and estab-

lishing and maintaining a meaningful identity for an organization.

K E Y W O R D S affect � emotion � emotional intelligence � leadership � mood

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By all counts, leadership ranks among the most researched and debated topics in the organizational sciences. A wide diversity of approaches to leadership has been proposed – researchers have analyzed what leaders are like, what they do, how they motivate their followers, how their styles inter- act with situational conditions, and how they can make major changes in their organizations, for example (for reviews of the leadership literature see Bass, 1990; Fiedler & House, 1994; Yukl, 1998; Yukl & Van Fleet, 1992). Researchers have also explored when leadership might not be important and some leadership experts have proposed that leadership is more a creation in the minds of followers than a characteristic of those who occupy leadership roles (e.g. Meindl, 1990). While we have learned much about leadership from this diversity of approaches, it still remains somewhat of an enigma. While research has been conducted which supports (and sometimes fails to support) currently popular theories, and these theories have increased our under- standing of leadership, how and why leaders have (or fail to have) positive influences on their followers and organizations is still a compelling question for leadership researchers.

While existing studies detail what leaders are like, what they do, and how they make decisions, the effects of leaders’ feelings or their moods and emotions and, more generally, the role of emotions in the leadership process, are often not explicitly considered in the leadership literature, with the notable exception of work on charisma (e.g. Conger & Kanungo, 1998; Lindholm, 1990). This relative neglect is not surprising as the organiz- ational literature has been dominated by a cognitive orientation (Ilgen & Klein, 1989), with feelings being ignored or being seen as something that gets in the way of rationality and effective decision making (Albrow, 1992). Just as motivation theory and research have ignored how workers’ moods and emotions influence their choice of work activities, levels of effort, and levels of persistence in the face of obstacles (George & Brief, 1996), leader- ship theory and research have not adequately considered how leaders’ moods and emotions influence their effectiveness as leaders. Two prelimi- nary studies suggest that leaders’ feelings may play an important role in leadership. George and Bettenhausen (1990) found that the extent to which leaders of existing work groups experienced positive moods was positively related to levels of prosocial behavior performed by group members and negatively related to group turnover rates. George (1995) found that work groups led by sales managers who tended to experience positive moods at work provided higher quality customer service than groups led by man- agers who did not tend to experience positive moods at work. While these two studies help to fill a gap in the leadership literature, in and of themselves, they do not illuminate the role of moods and emotions in the

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leadership process per se but rather suggest that feelings may be an import- ant factor to consider.

The growing body of literature exploring the role of moods and emo- tions in human and organizational affairs (e.g. Fineman, 1993; Forgas, 1995) suggests that, rather than being simply an additional factor to consider, feel- ings play a much more central role in the leadership process. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework describing what that role might be. First, however, it is useful to sample the literature and research findings attesting to the central role of feelings in human affairs.

The role of feelings in human affairs

A growing body of literature suggests that moods and emotions play a central role in cognitive processes and behavior. What distinguishes moods from emotions is their intensity. Moods are pervasive and generalized feeling states that are not tied to the events or circumstances which may have caused the mood in the first place (Morris, 1989). Moods are relatively low intensity feelings which do not interrupt ongoing activities (Forgas, 1992a). Emotions are high intensity feelings that are triggered by specific stimuli (either inter- nal or external to the individual), demand attention, and interrupt cognitive processes and behaviors (Forgas, 1992a; Morris, 1989; Simon, 1982). Emo- tions tend to be more fleeting than moods because of their intensity. Emo- tions often feed into moods so that, once the intensity of an emotion subsides because the individual has cognitively or behaviorally dealt with its cause, the emotion lingers on in the form of a less intense feeling or mood. Hence, for example, the intense anger that a leader might experience upon learning that he or she was deceived by a follower resulting in a lost opportunity sub- sides once the leader has recovered from the shock and decides how to deal with the situation. However, the anger lives on for the rest of the day in the form of a negative mood which colors the leader’s interactions and thought processes.

Feelings have been shown to influence the judgments that people make, material recalled from memory, attributions for success and failure, creativity, and inductive and deductive reasoning. When people are in positive moods, for example, their perceptions and evaluations are likely to be more favor- able, they are more prone to remember positive information, they are more self-assured, they are more likely to take credit for successes and avoid blame for failures, and they are more helpful to others (e.g. Bower, 1981; Cun- ningham et al., 1980; Forgas et al., 1984, 1990; George, 1991; Isen et al., 1976, 1978; Rosenhan et al., 1981). Positive moods have been found to

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enhance flexibility on categorization tasks and facilitate creativity and induc- tive reasoning (Isen et al., 1985, 1987). Conversely, negative moods may foster deductive reasoning and more critical and comprehensive evaluations (Salovey et al., 1993; Sinclair & Mark, 1992).

While a stereotype of the ‘rational’ decision maker is a person who can set aside their personal feelings and coolly calculate the best course of action to deal with a problem or opportunity, neurological findings suggest that feel- ings are necessary to make good decisions (Damasio, 1994; Goleman, 1995). Neurological research on patients who have had brain tumors removed and subsequent damage to sectors of the brain responsible for moods and emo- tions has yielded a perplexing pattern of results. Some of these patients show no deficits in memory, intelligence, verbal ability, and numerical ability. Given the nature of their injuries, however, they tend to be emotionally flat. For example, they don’t seem upset when recounting their own personal injury, problems, and disappointments or when viewing pictures that induce nega- tive feelings in people without any brain injuries. Elliot, a former attorney, seen by neurologist Damasio, was one such patient. After removal of his brain tumor, Elliot continued to score either at average or above-average levels on measures of intelligence and other cognitive abilities. However, his life fell apart after his injury. He had trouble regularly attending work, when at work had a hard time getting things done, and eventually lost his job and got divorced. After much research and analysis and comparison with other patients with similar kinds of injuries, Damasio concluded that Elliot’s lack of feeling left him unable to make decisions. On problem-solving tasks, for example, Elliot could come up with multiple viable solutions and the pros and cons for each, yet could not choose among them. Feelings help us to make choices and decide among options and, once devoid of feelings, people can ‘rationally’ assess pros and cons of choices ranging from what’s the best time to schedule a doctor’s appointment to what type of career to pursue, yet may never be able to make a wise choice from the alternatives generated (Damasio, 1994; Goleman, 1995). While very intense emotions can certainly interfere with effective decision making, as Damasio (1994: 53) suggests, ‘reduction in emotion may constitute an equally important source of irra- tional behavior.’

This brief sampling of findings is indicative of a wider body of litera- ture which, though in diverse areas such as neuropsychology, social psy- chology, and organizational behavior, point to a consistent conclusion: feelings are intimately connected to the human experience. Feelings are intri- cately bound up in the ways that people think, behave, and make decisions.

In this regard, Forgas’ (1995) affect infusion model (AIM) provides a useful framework for understanding the conditions under which affect is

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