Understanding Leadership Abilities And Styles

Leadership and Its Importance

Question:

Discuss about the Linking Emotional Intelligence and Performance.

Leadership is the capacity and the ability of a person to inspire, motivate and encourage a group of followers. It is an important aspect with respect to an individual as well as an organization (Bolman, 2017). The leadership abilities vary from person to person. There is a strong set of values, traits and intelligence that define the kind of a leader a person will be (Northouse, 2015).

Leadership is a very crucial aspect of any individual as it largely defines with an individual’s ability to lead, guide, motivate and inspire people (Fairhurst, 2014). It is considered to be an important quality in one’s career. Hence it becomes imperative for individuals to identify and work on their leadership abilities early in time.

In this course module, I have deeply reflected upon my leadership skills and the value set that governs the same. I have been a part of various online surveys and taken a genuine and honest feedback from my friends in order to understand my leadership abilities. In this report I have attempted to understand and fully document the various aspects of my leadership style and abilities.

Schwarz has pioneered the study of values. He believes that values are long term and not mere attitudes to different situations. Based upon this thinking, he came to build the “Schwarz’s theory of basic value”. In this theory, he has reasoned that values are goals for motivation and therefore basic values must be derived by basic needs of humans namely our biological needs, our need to coordinate with others and the need for the group to survive and flourish (Marcus, 2017).

These basic needs of humans drive their basic values and shape the personality of an individual. Schwarz identified 10 basic needs of a human and related various set of values with those 10 needs.

I sincerely read the chapter 8 of Personal values from ‘Success with soul’ (Sun, 2014) and established that my top 3 values are as below:

1. Honesty – One of my top most quality as per analysis is honesty. I have always been an honest person and I really do not indulge in lying. Many of my friends have often lied in order to get out of school or any such responsibility but I have ensured that I don’t lie. I strongly believe that honesty is very crucial to develop and maintain trust. I have realized that this value belongs to the domain of Benevolence (Schwarz, 2014).
2. Broadmindedness – My second most important quality is my broadmindedness which fits under the module of universalism. Since my teenage years, I have been very liberal in my views and I do not easily get offended. I do no judge people and I really understand that every individual thinks, behaves and acts differently.
3. True friendship – For me friendship is very important. I am a very social person and have a lot of friends. However, I have a set of 4 friends who are very close to me and I really value their friendship. This is a part of the security module. I believe, these true friendships provide a sense of security and safety.

While in the process of understanding my values, I also took the online survey of Schwarz’s value scale. The findings of which were as below. This survey made me realize that I score highest in Hedonism and Self-direction. This implies that I am a very motivated person but I also believe strongly in my personal pleasure and happiness (Caprara, 2016). As a person I don’t value traditions much as I believe they pull us down. Also these traditions and customs probably suited ancient times but are not necessarily valid today.

Understanding Values and Personality Traits

Highest Value (1 )__________ HONESTY ___________________: Domain is ___ BENEVOLENCE ___
Second highest Value (2) is ________ BROAD MINDEDNESS ______:  Domain is ___ UNIVERSALISM __
Third highest Value (3) is ____ TRUE FRIENDSHIP __:  Domain is _______ SECURITY _______

NEXT 3 VALUES
Fourth Value (4 )__________ INDEPENDENCE ________________: Domain is ___ SELF DIRECTION____
Fifth highest Value (5) is ________ EQUALITY______:  Domain is ___________ UNIVERSALISM _____
Sixth highest Value (6) is _____ HELPFULNESS ______:  Domain is ____ BENEVOLENCE ________

In order to gauge my traits as a leader, I took the big five personality test. This test made me realize my top traits and I scored highly on extraversion and openness to experience (Judge, 2015). This is true because I really enjoy the company of others and I am always open to new experiences. This is evidenced by the fact that I travel a lot and indulge in various sports and event. I scored low on neuroticism because my temperament is very moderate. I tend to remain calm in different situations and avoid getting angry or feeling depressed. Whenever I feel angry, I try to compose myself.

With an aim to identify my biggest strengths, I took the RBS test wherein I asked my friends to email me my biggest strengths. I also asked them to enlist why they thought I possessed those particular strengths. Once I received their feedback, I started evaluating exactly how these strengths would help me become a better leader and impact my leadership style. The following table, shows the result of the exercise.

1. Optimism: I always look for the positive in every situation. I can hence work in sales or marketing as I don’t get easily demotivated.
2. Integrity: I keep my commitments and value honesty. I stick to programs. However, I need to learn to say ‘no’.
3. Purpose: I like being busy and having a sense of purpose in everything I do. I get rather annoyed when I do not know the ultimate aim of doing a particular task
4. Salesmanship: I love meeting new people and becoming the initial point of contact in various groups.
5. Self-motivation: I read and watch a lot of inspiring books and movie. I read about successful people and hence remain motivated. The kind of life that I have planned for myself, requires me to work hard. And I keep thinking of a successful future every time I feel demotivated.

Upon highlighting the leadership abilities on the Zender’s research. I have established that the abilities are grouped. The capabilities are clustered around character and interpersonal skills (Zehnder, 2017). Because I am an honest person who works with integrity. Also I have a large social circle and I thoroughly enjoy meeting new people.

I need to enhance a few aspects of my personality. Firstly, develop others and Focuses on results. This is because I feel I believe in effort. As long as I put enough effort, I don’t feel bad if the aim is not achieved. I need to become more result oriented.

Emotional intelligence or EQ is the ability of a person to identify, recognize, control and manager their emotions. The person’s emotions can be a major driving factor for an individual. A high level of emotional intelligence enables individuals to remain calm and composed and take decisions efficiently. 

Gauging Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

My scores show that I have a high ability of relationship management and emotional awareness. I believe in developing others and working like a team. However I scored extremely low on social emotional awareness. My awareness is usually limited to my inner circle. My score in Emotional awareness is also good as I am a confident person and mostly aware of my strengths and weaknesses. I usually tend to remain calm and composed but sometimes I lose my patience and panic. Which is what I need to work on the most.

Emotional intelligence is extremely useful but can surely be worked upon (Druskat, 2013). I have started putting in efforts to enhance my emotional intelligence. I make a sincere effort in remaining calm when something angers me. I try to sit alone with myself and compose my temperament. Also I try to become more aware of my surroundings. If I see that someone is angry, I try not to irritate them and make an attempt to understand their situation. Hence I am working on being more empathetic.

Working on my emotional intelligence is expected to lead to an improved mental health, increased job performance and leadership abilities (Gilbert, 2017). When I lead the team in the future, it is imperative that my emotions are well under control and effectively managed. This is very important if I want my team to work together and take important decisions quickly.

Cultural intelligence deals with the ability of an individual to relate work cross culturally in an efficient manner (Ang, 2015). In this course module, I have taken up a questionnaire to understand my perception of my culture as compared to other cultures. The scores of which are as below:

I have come to understand my views and perspectives in greater detail. For example, I strongly believe that my Australian culture and society is provides equal opportunities to men and women as compared to Anglos. However, as a family, our culture is strong enough to promote love, respect and appreciation between parents and children. This is why I have scored 7 on in-group collectivism.

During this course, I looked at the article in Harvard business review named “Cultural Intelligence” (Harvard Business Review, 2004). And I performed a small exercise that helped me diagnose my cultural intelligence. The details of which are as below:

I have scored relatively high in this because I have worked with various nonprofit organizations that allowed me to interact with people from different countries. This helped me understand that I can easily adapt to a different culture and their lifestyles. According to the analysis, I have a high CQ which will really help me work in multi-cultural organizations and lead a sundry group of people (Chao, 2017).

Cultural Intelligence and its Role in Leadership

In order to understand my leadership style, I took the VLS task vs. relationship test. The purpose of the test was for me to understand how much I emphasize task as well as relationship behaviors in my life. And also to gauge the relationship between these task and relationship behaviors (Cronin, 2015).

My score on relationship is 24 which falls under the category of high range. I have come to realize that I am a relationship oriented leader and believe in building good relationships with my team members. I genuinely feel that if a team works together in unity then they can surely achieve their targets. Moreover, the culture in which the organization functions in more important.

My score on Task is 13 which is low moderate range. This means that I believe in accomplishing the task and fulfillment of goals but not at the cost of hampering relationships with the team members.

Conclusion

This module has been extremely helpful for me to analyze my leadership skills. I have taken up various surveys and online tests that have helped me understand that my people management skills and communication skills are my strengths. I should work on them further and highlight them in my professional experience.

My virtues of honesty and my love and responsibility for my family are also important aspects of my personality and I will never corrupt them. Lastly, my leadership style is more relationship oriented than task oriented. I will work on being more result oriented and also put efforts to increase my emotional intelligence.

References

Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L., 2015. Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.

Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.

Caprara, G.V., Vecchione, M., Schwartz, S.H., Schoen, H., Bain, P.G., Silvester, J., Cieciuch, J., Pavlopoulos, V., Bianchi, G., Kirmanoglu, H. and Baslevent, C., 2016. Basic values, ideological self-placement, and voting: A cross-cultural study. Cross-Cultural Research, p.1069397117712194.

Chao, M.M., Takeuchi, R. and Farh, J.L., 2017. Enhancing cultural intelligence: The roles of implicit culture beliefs and adjustment. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), pp.257-292.

Cronin, L.D., Arthur, C.A., Hardy, J. and Callow, N., 2015. Transformational leadership and task cohesion in sport: The mediating role of inside sacrifice. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 37(1), pp.23-36.

Druskat, V.U., Mount, G. and Sala, F., 2013. Linking emotional intelligence and performance at work: Current research evidence with individuals and groups. Psychology Press.

Fairhurst, G.T. and Connaughton, S.L., 2014. Leadership: A communicative perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp.7-35.

Gilbert, D., McKee, A., Spreitzer, G. and Amabile, T., 2017. Happiness (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series). Harvard Business Press.

Harvard Business Review, 2004, ‘Cultural intelligent’, https://hbr.org/2004/10/cultural-intelligence, retrieved on 15 November, 2017.

Judge, T.A. and Zapata, C.P., 2015. The person–situation debate revisited: Effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the Big Five personality traits in predicting job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(4), pp.1149-1179.

Marcus, J., Ceylan, S. and Ergin, C., 2017. Not So “Traditional” Anymore? Generational Shifts on Schwartz Values in Turkey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 48(1), pp.58-74.

Northouse, P.G., 2015. Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Schwartz, S.H., Caprara, G.V., Vecchione, M., Bain, P., Bianchi, G., Caprara, M.G., Cieciuch, J., Kirmanoglu, H., Baslevent, C., Lönnqvist, J.E. and Mamali, C., 2014. Basic personal values underlie and give coherence to political values: A cross national study in 15 countries. Political Behavior, 36(4), pp.899-930.

Sun, M., Zhang, H., Zhao, Y. and Shang, J., 2014, November. From Post to Values: Mining Schwartz Values of Individuals from Social Media. In Chinese National Conference on Social Media Processing (pp. 206-219). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Zehnder, C., Herz, H. and Bonardi, J.P., 2017. A productive clash of cultures: Injecting economics into leadership research. The Leadership Quarterly, 28(1), pp.65-85.

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