Question

Are there times when a leader's personal characteristics are important? How does a leader's personal characteristics influence followers and situations? What role does emotional intelligence play in leadership?

Answer 1

Are there times when a leader's personal characteristics are important? How does a leader’s personal characteristic influence followers and situations?

Yes. Leader’s personal characteristics are important. A leader’s personal characteristic influence followers, as each follower, follow a leader for different reasons. The biographical factors such as age, gender, religion, work experience also affect the followers. The situations are handled with different perspectives as per these biographical factors. For example, an aged leader may use the same approach for repeated problems, but a young leader may use different approaches to the same problems.

Apart from these, ability, attitude, personality and perception make a difference in leadership style.

Ability is generally understood by the capacity to perform tasks. The leader’s ability to perform tasks and motivate followers is important. For example, Warren Buffet is followed by his followers due to his ability to motivate people to invest. He has proven his ability by his own example.

Attitude, personality, and perception also influence followers and situations. For example, When Apple signed an agreement with AT&T; it was observed that AT&T has accepted the terms due to Steve Jobs. The attitude and personality Steve Jobs carried had influenced the AT&T management to sign the agreement with a lower profit margin. The AT&T management had the perception that the deal will be profitable for the company because of Steve Jobs, and AT&T achieved that profit.

Role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in leadership:

Emotional Intelligence refers to the understanding own and other’s emotions. In specific circumstances, the emotional state of a person is predicted by the leader. It is very important to understand other’s emotions as well because successful leaders need relationship building capacity and social skills. When a leader empathizes with the followers, understanding leads to successful leadership. EI relates to self-management as one of the key components to understand others.