w h at m a k e s a l e a d e r ?
types of leadership. Most mergers need a sensitive
negotiator at the helm, whereas many turnarounds
require a more forceful authority.
I have found, however, that the most effective
leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a
high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical
skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as
“threshold capabilities”; that is, they are the entrylevel requirements for executive positions. But my
research, along with other recent studies, clearly
shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua
non of leadership. Without it, a
person can have the best training
in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply
of smart ideas, but he still won’t
make a great leader.
In the course of the past year,
my colleagues and I have focused
on how emotional intelligence
operates at work. We have examined the relationship between
emotional intelligence and effective performance, especially in
leaders. And we have observed
how emotional intelligence
shows itself on the job. How can
you tell if someone has high
emotional intelligence, for example, and how can you recognize it
in yourself? In the following
pages, we’ll explore these questions, taking each of
the components of emotional intelligence – selfawareness, self-regulation, motivation, em pathy,
and social skill – in turn.
abilities like analytical reasoning; and competencies demonstrating emotional intelligence such as
the ability to work with others and effectiveness in
leading change.
To create some of the competency models, psychologists asked senior managers at the companies
to identify the capabilities that typified the organization’s most outstanding leaders. To create other
models, the psychologists used objective criteria
such as a division’s profitability to differentiate the
star performers at senior levels within their organizations from the average ones. Those individuals
were then extensively interviewed
and tested, and their capabilities
were compared. This process resulted in the creation of lists of
ingredients for highly effective
leaders. The lists ranged in length
from 7 to 15 items and included
such ingredients as initiative and
strategic vision.
When I analyzed all this data,
I found dramatic results. To be
sure, intellect was a driver of outstanding performance. Cognitive
skills such as big-picture thinking and long-term vision were
particularly important. But when
I calculated the ratio of technical
skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent
performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as the others
for jobs at all levels.
Moreover, my analysis showed that emotional
intelligence played an increasingly important role
at the highest levels of the company, where differences in technical skills are of negligible importance. In other words, the higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more
emotional intelligence capabilities showed up as
the reason for his or her effectiveness. When I compared star performers with average ones in senior
leadership positions, nearly 90% of the difference
in their profiles was attributable to emotional intelligence factors rather than cognitive abilities.
Other researchers have confirmed that emotional
intelligence not only distinguishes outstanding
leaders but can also be linked to strong performance. The findings of the late David McClelland,
the renowned researcher in human and organizational behavior, are a good example. In a 1996 study
of a global food and beverage company, McClelland
found that when senior managers had a critical
mass of emotional intelligence capabilities, their
Effective
leaders are alike
in one crucial
way: they all
have a high
degree of
emotional
intelligence.
Evaluating Emotional Intelligence
Most large companies today have employed trained
psychologists to develop what are known as “competency models” to aid them in identifying, training, and promoting likely stars in the leadership
firmament. The psychologists have also developed
such models for lower-level positions. And in recent years, I have analyzed competency models
from 188 companies, most of which were large and
global and included the likes of Lucent Technologies, British Airways, and Credit Suisse.
In carrying out this work, my objective was to
determine which personal capabilities drove outstanding performance within these organizations,
and to what degree they did so. I grouped capabilities into three categories: purely technical skills
like accounting and business planning; cognitive
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harvard business review
November–December 1998