1.1 A key leadership skill: emotional intelligence

In the following sections, you’ll learn about a range of skills and abilities that employers value. One of the most important elements of effective leadership, and a key theme in current discourse on leadership skills and worthy of emphasis, is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is defined by Mayer and Salovey (1990, p. 189) as the ‘ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.’

Daniel Goleman (1998) adapted their model to identify five basic emotional and social competencies:

1. self-awareness
2. self-regulation
3. motivation
4. empathy
5. social skills.

This video, from Harvard Business Review, explains the value of emotional intelligence, examining each of the five competences in turn: Daniel Goleman: what makes a leader?.

In Section 2 you’ll see how some of these qualities are reflected in the competency frameworks used by a range of employers.