Leaders across many industries face a constant struggle to drive and sustain organizational performance and retain their best talents and capabilities that contribute immensely for revenues and profitability. The performance measurements that define great leadership is traditionally focused on achievement of results, strategic focus, the power and the quality of decision making and the ability to anticipate trends that impact their own industries. Most of the time those who focus and perform well in navigating ambiguous and uncertain business climates and creating desired outcomes emerge as key performers. At times they forget how delicate it could be when they do not pay adequate time and attention to best serve their employees. This constant struggle continues to show up in shorter vicious cycles imposing pressure on the leaders to deal on a routine basis paying little or no attention to the bigger picture.
Although functional competencies help leaders to drive performance and results it is now considered a minimum capability requirement and research studies indicate that there is a distinct advantage amongst leaders who embrace Emotional Intelligence to relate and create collaborative outcomes to drive outstanding and sustainable organizational performance. The behavior patterns and attitudes of leaders operating with emotional intelligence distinctively differentiate themselves from mediocre leaders and the demonstration of these unique competencies helps to craft them as EFFECTIVE LEADERS.
Some of the key competencies EFFECTIVE LEADERS demonstrate are:
A high degree of self-awareness
The ability to relate to people around the organization
The level of composure
Interpersonal intellectual understanding
Ability to develop and create more leaders
Fostering ownership to the vision
Operate beyond protocol driven cultures
Recent research observations carried out by the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations reveals that there is strong correlation between organizational results and leadership that drives with emotional intelligence. It is time that top performers who are charged with the responsibility of driving results embrace Emotional Intelligence as a leadership competency that would unfold a leadership culture of sustainability of performance.