w h at m a k e s a l e a d e r ?
for building rapport. That doesn’t mean they socialize continually; it means they work according to
the assumption that nothing important gets done
alone. Such people have a network in place when
the time for action comes.
Social skill is the culmination of the other dimensions of emotional intelligence. People tend to
be very effective at managing relationships when
they can understand and control their own emotions and can empathize with the feelings of others.
Even motivation contributes to social skill. Remember that people who are driven to achieve tend
to be optimistic, even in the face of setbacks or failure. When people are upbeat, their “glow” is cast
upon conversations and other social encounters. They are popular,
and for good reason.
Because it is the outcome of the
other dimensions of emotional
intelligence, social skill is recognizable on the job in many ways
that will by now sound familiar.
Socially skilled people, for instance, are adept at managing
teams – that’s their empathy at
work. Likewise, they are expert
persuaders – a manifestation of
self-awareness, self-regulation,
and empathy combined. Given
those skills, good persuaders
know when to make an emotional
plea, for instance, and when an
appeal to reason will work better.
And motivation, when publicly
visible, makes such people excellent collaborators;
their passion for the work spreads to others, and
they are driven to find solutions.
But sometimes social skill shows itself in ways
the other emotional intelligence components do
not. For instance, socially skilled people may at
times appear not to be working while at work. They
seem to be idly schmoozing – chatting in the hallways with colleagues or joking around with people
who are not even connected to their “real” jobs. Socially skilled people, however, don’t think it makes
sense to arbitrarily limit the scope of their relationships. They build bonds widely because they know
that in these fluid times, they may need help someday from people they are just getting to know today.
For example, consider the case of an executive in
the strategy department of a global computer manufacturer. By 1993, he was convinced that the company’s future lay with the Internet. Over the course
of the next year, he found kindred spirits and used
his social skill to stitch together a virtual commu-
nity that cut across levels, divisions, and nations.
He then used this de facto team to put up a corporate Web site, among the first by a major company.
And, on his own initiative, with no budget or formal status, he signed up the company to participate
in an annual Internet industry convention. Calling
on his allies and persuading various divisions to
donate funds, he recruited more than 50 people
from a dozen different units to represent the company at the convention.
Management took notice: within a year of the
conference, the executive’s team formed the basis
for the company’s first Internet division, and he
was formally put in charge of it. To get there, the
executive had ignored conventional boundaries, forging and
maintaining connections with
people in every corner of the organization.
Is social skill considered a key
leadership capability in most
companies? The answer is yes,
especially when compared with
the other components of emotional intelligence. People seem
to know intuitively that leaders
need to manage relationships
effectively; no leader is an island.
After all, the leader’s task is to get
work done through other people,
and social skill makes that possible. A leader who cannot express
her empathy may as well not
have it at all. And a leader’s motivation will be useless if he cannot communicate his
passion to the organization. Social skill allows leaders to put their emotional intelligence to work.
Emotional
intelligence
can be learned.
The process is
not easy. It
takes time and
commitment.
102
It would be foolish to assert that good-old-fashioned IQ and technical ability are not important
ingredients in strong leadership. But the recipe
would not be complete without emotional intelligence. It was once thought that the components of
emotional intelligence were “nice to have” in business leaders. But now we know that, for the sake of
performance, these are ingredients that leaders
“need to have.”
It is fortunate, then, that emotional intelligence
can be learned. The process is not easy. It takes
time and, most of all, commitment. But the benefits that come from having a well-developed emotional intelligence, both for the individual and for
the organization, make it worth the effort.
Product no. 3790
To place an order, call 1-800-988-0886.
harvard business review
November–December 1998