Sunday, July 28, 2002		Books

At the heart of effective leadership
Prerana Trehan

The New Leaders Transforming the Art of Leadership into the Science of Results
by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Published by Little, Brown. Pages xvii+302. Rs 395.

THE little heart in the middle of a corporate ladder on the cover may look incongruent but is eloquent. It says it all. Technical skills are not enough to make outstanding leaders, what is needed is emotional intelligence, maintain Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee in The New Leaders. Carrying forward into the workplace the theory that Goleman enunciated in his international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, the authors postulate that effective leadership is a function of the heart. The ability to touch the people they lead on an emotional plane, and not technical brilliance alone, sets good leaders apart from their average counterparts. The authors attribute this book to "the unprecedented, enormously enthusiastic reader response to the Harvard Business Review articles What Makes a Leader? and Leadership That Gets Results."

Traditional thinking has for long held that emotions have no place in the workplace. After all, mushy-gushy sentiment would only get in the way of rational which is prized precisely for its lack of emotion or ‘irrational thought.’ Emotions are viewed as too personal, too difficult to quantify, too whimsical and too subjective to be spoken about meaningfully. Not true, say the authors. Far from being detrimental to the work environment, emotions are an integral part of the leadership repertoire. How effective or otherwise a leader is depends on how emotionally intelligent he is, that is, how well he can handle himself and his relationships. Emotional intelligence, that includes self-awareness, self-confidence, transparency, adaptability, optimism, empathy, inspirational leadership and conflict management, mark the leaders who excel. The good news is that emotional intelligence is not fixed at birth and can be learned. While leadership training programmes can instil emotional competencies in leaders, motivation is needed to sustain and build upon this change.

Leaders who score high on EI, drive emotions positively in those they lead and thus bring out the best in everyone, a phenomenon known as resonance. Just the opposite occurs when leaders are low on EI: they drive emotions in the negative direction and create dissonance. Not only do resonant organisations perform better than dissonant ones, but their attrition rates are lower too. That means that not only do such organisations manage to hone talent, they manage to retain it as well. Research shows that the number one reason why people leave their jobs is dissatisfaction with the boss. Leaders who exude upbeat feelings attract people, because working in their presence is a pleasure. Conversely, leaders who are irritable, rude or domineering, repel others; no one wants to work for a grouch. "Of all the factors in a company’s control, tuned-out, dissonant leaders are one of the main reasons that talented people leave — and take the company’s knowledge with them."

Leaders in tune with their own feelings and with those of their team members typically tend to perform better than emotionally clueless leaders. "When people feel good, they work at their best. Feeling good lubricates mental efficiency, making people better at understanding information and using decision rules in complex judgements, as well as more flexible in their thinking. Upbeat moods, research verifies, makes people view others — and events — in a more positive light. That in turn helps people feel more optimistic about their ability to achieve a goal, enhances creativity and decision-making skills, and predisposes people to be helpful."

EI is a more accurate pointer of a leader’s effectiveness than IQ. The authors say their rule of the thumb holds that EI contributes 80 to 90 per cent of the competencies that distinguish average from outstanding leaders. While purely cognitive abilities such as technical expertise are important to the extent that these are threshold abilities, that is the skills that people need to do an average job, EI-based competencies characterise leaders who excel. Furthermore, emotionally intelligent organisations tend to perform better than organisations where the emotional environment is toxic.

Now a word about the authors. Daniel Goleman is a psychologist who has for many years reported on the brain and behavourial sciences for the New York Times. He has authored the internationally bestselling books Emotional Intelligence and Working with Emotional Intelligence. Richard Boyatzis is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Chair of the Department of Organisational Behaviour at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. Annie McKee serves on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, teaches at the Wharton School’s Aresty Institute of Executive Education, and consults to business and organisation leaders worldwide.

Though repetitive in parts, the book is nonetheless convincingly written. Sound arguments, extensive case studies and research findings redeem this book from the genre of How-to-Become-Rich/Famous/Thin/Successful/Popular/Married/
Divorced-Within-10-Days books that it seems to belong to at first glance.

The theory of emotionally intelligent leadership might not find many takers in India where, traditionally, leadership has been less about vision and more about coercion. But then it takes outstanding leaders to build outstanding organisations. Would Infosys have been possible without Narayan Murthy’s leadership? Or Reliance without Dhirubhai Ambani’s? The blurb says, "This is a book no leader in any walk of life can afford to miss, for it transforms the art of leadership into the science of results." An advice leaders across the world, and in India, would do well to heed.