Learning Emotional Intelligence 1

Learning Emotional Intelligence

Subject Code

University

Name of Student

Date 2018
 Learning Emotional Intelligence 2

Introduction

Today’s leaders are highly concerned about their ability to possess emotional

intelligence. Leaders believe knowledge in emotional intelligence is significant in helping them

overcome various challenges in the places of work. Through the ability to measure emotional

intelligence, leaders can overcome the challenges they face in managing their teams. However, it

is challenging for many leaders to possess emotional intelligence. Leaders are always faced with

talent wars as a result of the need to rise to the top management of a firm, and their ability to

possess the skills required for emotional intelligence can act as an advantage for gaining a

competitive age. This short paper highlights the importance of emotional intelligence and how it

can be learned.

The workforce of today is highly opposed to autocratic leadership where a leader would

command the subjects and make all decisions alone. Leaders thus have to know how to relate

with the employees in a manner that the supports their individual and organizations objectives.

This calls for emotional intelligence (Barron and Hurley, 2018). The employees in the current

work places also have more choices and options, and to be valued for them to continue staying in

the organization. All these calls for emotional intelligence that would help the leaders relate well

with their employees and at the same time ensure roles are accomplished as expected. Siegling,

Nielsen, and Petrides (2014) underlines that emotional intelligence help leaders to promote,

autonomy and freedom; consultation and involvement; opportunity for growth; and inclusion as

well as team spirit, however, it is difficult to find a single leader with the ability of meeting all

these demands. This makes it significant to determine whether emotional intelligence is

something that can be learnt.

 Learning Emotional Intelligence 3

Serrat (2017) carried out a study on emotional intelligence with the aim of determining

how interaction with children influences their emotional intelligence, and whether there is a

possibility of teaching the children emotional intelligence. Kahn concluded that the emotional

intelligence can be taught. She detected that the way one interacts with others influence their

ability of having emotional intelligence. Children who are brought up in regions or families

where people possess some level of emotional intelligence always grow up with high levels of

emotional intelligence while those who are brought up in families or regions where emotions are

rarely shown grow up with little levels of emotional intelligence (Serrat, 2017, p. 339). The

conclusion made by Kahn is supported by Caruso, Fleming, and Spector (2014) who revealed

that character can be modeled in children when they are still developing. Thus leaders can learn

emotional intelligence and apply it when managing their employees.

Conclusion

This paper has shown that emotional intelligence is important in the managing the current

employees. Emotional intelligence helps leaders to promote to value employees and understand

their emotions. It is possible to learn emotional intelligence, though this implies that emotional

intelligence is influenced by the environment where an individual was brought up. Managers

who get into management positions should understand the significance of emotional intelligence

and try to implement it for to successful manage a workforce that is highly demanding.
 Learning Emotional Intelligence 4

References

Barron, D. and Hurley, J., 2018. Emotional intelligence and leadership. In Emotional Intelligence

in Health and Social Care(pp. 75-87). Routledge.

Caruso, D.R., Fleming, K. and Spector, E.D., 2014. Emotional intelligence and leadership.

In Conceptions of Leadership (pp. 93-110). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Serrat, O., 2017. Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. In Knowledge

Solutions (pp. 329-339). Springer, Singapore.

Siegling, A.B., Nielsen, C. and Petrides, K.V., 2014. Trait emotional intelligence and leadership

in a European multinational company. Personality and Individual Differences, 65, pp.65-

68.