The Emotional Intelligence of Leaders

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After reading McCrimmon’s article, I was able to better understand his point of view regarding “thought leadership” McCrimmon (2005). His article was set up entirely different from the Goleman article. McCrimmon provides an abstract which details the purpose of his article, his viewpoint and all of the findings and background information that he shares as essential for success.

McCrimmon believes that organizations with fast growth understand the approach of thought leadership and how it is different from other forms of leadership. Essentially, thought leaders are defined as leaders that are not necessarily in leadership positions on the job. I found it interesting that this type of leader is not asked to make decisions but will challenge how a job is operational and work eagerly toward transformation.

Thought leadership challenges the way that we operate. Thinking logically with facts and the proper use of emotions is one way of describing this form of leadership. This type of leader is able to bring fresh ideas to the table and effectively change operating procedures. I have a personal experience with this form of leadership. When I was first hired on my job, my project manager asked me to attend a meeting where the entire staff would be going over some standard operating procedures on how to track external training through the standard form adopted from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). As I sat in the meeting, I was flabbergasted by the antiquated process. I wanted to speak up about a more effective way to get the job done without little to any disruption but was afraid I may be ignored since I was the new girl on the team. As the meeting progressed, I decided to interject my thoughts and to my surprise, my team loved my approach and took my idea to my project manager who made the decision that I should begin to work with the team lead to execute the plan as soon as possible. I was thrilled that my idea was being implemented in the new process and was proud that I had enough courage to speak up at the meeting. My example paints the picture of a significant detail in thought leadership. At the time, I was not in a management position on the team. I was not asked for my opinion but my idea received the credit for a successful streamlined process that others follow to this day.

A logical idea presented by an entry level employee like the personal example I gave earlier can be a characteristic in thought leadership. The author provided a few scenarios to assist with helping me to understand what he was trying to convey. From those examples, I was able to understand the different variations. This type of leader may be able to support someone else’s idea because it was more inspiring. This leadership can come from people that we don’t even know. For example, Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln are leaders who have impacted an entire nation while they were alive and even in their death. An interesting fact about this type of leadership is how it can occur. An example of this is collaboration in an “all hands” meeting and someone blurts out a great idea and without any evidence that the idea can work, the team goes through a trial and error experiment to test out the idea. This type of leadership can be learned through personal experience or through someone else’s idea.

In conclusion, the author closes with comments that help support his idea of why this type of leadership is important in the rising of groundbreaking organizations. He argues that thought leadership focuses on the elevation of new ideas and why it is so important to focus on just that component in order to be a successful leader.

I once worked a job where the leaders in higher positions were all women. This was a new experience for me and I was not able to flourish on this job like I would have liked to. The bickering back and forth became the new normal on the job. I didn’t want the stigma of women not being able to handle leadership and powerful positions to be my reality but I did find communication and expressing feelings in a productive way challenging when there was a problem on the job. Emotional intelligence is ongoing and is a struggle for a lot of leaders.

After reading Goleman’s article I was able to connect more with realizing the issues I once encountered. His point of view was more convincing to me because of the connection I was able to build. I enjoyed how both authors argued their cases and I found both articles to be intriguing. McCrimmon’s article was very thought provoking and he definitely backed up his point of viewpoint with various definitions and examples throughout the article. Overall, both topics in the articles are important in leadership. In my opinion, a true leader must exude emotional confidence and be able to take an intelligent idea and make it innovative.

References

Goleman, D. (1998). The Emotional Intelligence of Leaders. Leader to Leader, 1998(10), 20-26.

McCrimmon, M. (2005). Thought leadership: A radical departure from traditional, positional leadership. Management Decision, 43(7), 1064-1070. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/2120066167?accountid=14580.