Human Resource Development (HRD) is a function that helps employees develop their abilities and skill sets to suit the job requisite and to enhance the growth within the organization. It includes training, mentoring, coaching, succession planning among others. HRD focuses on the development of the superior workforce for the organizations to achieve their goals in service to their customers. While planning to attain these requirements at its best, in the past, the leaders of the organizations have looked at the employees as a channel to attain the established targets. Their focus was on giving strength to these channels in all the ways but overlooking their requirements as a human, to an extent. In the current scenario where companies are faced by the challenge of increasing attrition rate and its hampering effect on the efficiency has compelled them to think about innovative ways to value and maintain the most important asset of the organization – the people. In order to achieve this task effectively the leaders of the organization started focusing on the identification, assessing and controlling of the emotions of self and of employees too. This has led to the most striking concept of this era, the Emotional Intelligence.
This model was very well identified and explained in detail in the book, “Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence” (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). It stresses on the development of the softer side of the management while dealing with people. When one thinks about effective leadership, what comes to mind is blowing ideas, powerful strategies and clear vision. What is overlooked is leadership as the art of driving the organization and all its elements with a touch of emotions for self and for others. It encourages optimism and inspiration in the face of difficulty. A leader’s mood and how he shapes the mood of others has a significant impact in the organizations. Understanding the powerful role of emotions at the workplace sets the best leaders apart from the rest in tangible areas such as increased productivity and retention of talents as well as in intangible areas such as increased motivation and commitment (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). One more important aspect of this leadership style is the power to sway employees’ emotions. If emotions are pushed towards enthusiasm and interest the performance can ascend. If the emotions are driven towards anxiety and vindictiveness then the performance will stumble down. When the leaders drive emotions positively, as in the first case, this is called resonance. The latter effect is dissonance which undermines the emotional foundations.
Gifted leadership occurs where feelings and thoughts meet and this lies in the design of the human brain which is called the open-loop by the scientists and which deals with our emotional centers. As per this we rely on people around us for our emotional stability and these emotions are termed contagious. The more positive the environment around the people, the more cooperatively they work, which lead to better results. Laughter and smile among other emotions spreads like virus and creates warmth in the group. If somebody is laughing the immediate reaction of the others could be at least a smile without caring for the reason. These emotions are involuntary and, indicate trust, comfort and a shared sense of the world at the workplace. Employees who feel upbeat will go the extra mile to please customers and improves the service quality (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). The immediate impact is the increase in the revenue of the company twice the increase in employee’s morale.
Good leaders must read the emotions of others around them. If a leader is dissonant, meaning failing to empathize with the feeling of the group will be gauged easily as employees will feel off balance and perform poorly. Instead, if a leader exemplifies harmony it can cultivate an atmosphere of co-operation and trust, and employees will feel uplifted and inspired. The four domains of emotional intelligence – self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management adds a fundamental set of skills for resonant leaders (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). A leader should be able to read his emotions and understand its impact on the business and the employees. One should also be aware of his own strengths and limitations (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). A sound sense of one’s self worth and capabilities will help in boosting the self-confidence. Self-management can be practiced by way of emotional self-control, transparency, adaptability, achievement, initiative and optimism (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). Social awareness such as empathy, organizational cognizance and service to clients or customers becomes vital for emotional intelligence (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). Relationship management focuses on inspiring and influencing others, acting as a change catalyst, building bonds and working towards alliance.
Resonance not only demands the good mood of the leaders but also a set of coordinated activities that comprise particular leadership styles. Effective leaders practice one or more of six distinctive approaches to leadership style and can skillfully switch between them as per the situations. The first four are visionary, coaching, affiliate and democratic that boosts performance while the other two, pacesetting and commanding should be applied with caution (Goleman, Boyatzis & Mckee, 2004). The visionary style enunciates where the group is heading and sets people free to innovate, experiment and take risks to get there. Inspirational leadership, transparency and empathy are the EI competencies crucial to this style. Coaching style believes in the art of one-on-one. Leaders help people identify their unique strengths and limitations, tying those to their career aspirations. Effective coaching, emotional awareness and empathy are the three EI competencies crucial to this style. Affiliate style follows a caring approach. It represents collaborative competency in action and is concerned with promoting harmony and fostering friendly interactions. A potent combination of visionary style with affiliate style works better for many leaders. Democratic style builds upon teamwork and collaboration, conflict management and influence. The leaders with this style have great listening skills and are true collaborators. It quells conflict and creates harmony. This style works better when leader is unsure of which direction to take and need support from others. Pacesetting style must be applied cautiously. Here a leader is obsessive about doing things quicker and faster and quickly pin points poor performers. Leaders with this style can be indifferent to the feelings of those who follow the demands if the caring element is missed. This style works best with the team building and affiliate style of leadership. But this is least effective of all as it calls for agreement on what is told without any explanations. Hence, it should be applied sensibly and in limited scenarios.
It is important to develop emotionally intelligent leaders. The key to learning that lasts long lies in the brain. EI involves circuitry between the front lobes and the limbic system. Skills are centered in the limbic system and are well learned through motivation, constant practice and feedback as it is a slow learner. One should not settle into a routine or let small conveniences freeze into large habits and hence allow inertia to set in.
Leaders must be self-directed towards their development through five discoveries. The first discovery, who do I want to be? The ideal self is where the change begins. Think from fifteen years from now, what we are doing, who are around us, where are we living and how are we spending our typical day. What are guiding principles and core values? The second discovery, who am I? Taking stock of our talents and passion, seeking negative feedback and multiple views to get a complete picture, and then create a balance sheet listing both. The third discovery, what is my learning agenda? Focus on improvements and build on strengths while filling the gaps, set specific and manageable goals. The fourth discovery, am I practicing new thoughts, behaviors and feelings to the point of mastery? Reconfigure the brain while practicing new behaviors, envision one repeating the behavior one want to master over and over again. The last discovery, am I establishing supportive and trusting relationships that make change possible? Having supporting people around us when we want to change makes great difference especially when the relationships are filled with honesty, trust and psychological safety.
If one has to look forward to building an EI organization then the Human Resource Managers should focus more on creating more resonant leaders and thereby transform how people work together. Such leaders can be developed when there is parallel transformation in the organization that are guided by resonant leaders. Groups will only begin to change once they understand what the underlying norms are, how they work and also understand the ideal vision. Leaders should also encourage group decision making which is superior to that of the brightest individual in the group. Such groups are smarter than individual when they exhibit the qualities of EI. Leaders who have an extreme sense of group’s norms and are adept at maximizing positive emotions can create EI teams. A leader should strive towards maximizing the team’s EI. A group’s EI requires the same capabilities as an individual’s EI does. As emotions are contagious, a leader should gauge and keep the bad moods away from creeping in the team. The unproductive norms should be learned and the leader should work with the team to change them.
Leaders who want to change the organizations should first understand its emotional reality and actively question the cultural norms underlying the entities daily activities and behavior. A dynamic enquiry can help the leaders discover the emotional enquiry. Leaders should use open-ended questions to sense feelings and move further to smaller groups to draw accurate conclusions. One should strive towards creating a sustainable change by cultivating a dispersed cadre of EI leaders. This should be a part of strategic training plan and should also be managed by the senior managers. The change process should be self-directed and act like a knot to the organizations culture. The learning events should emphasize individual change and focus on emotional competencies. The training should be bursting with creative learning skills
Organizations such as dental hospitals are such entities who are directly involved in relationship business. Leading dental teams through change involves courage, commitment and practice and begins with understanding the emotions that drive behavior of the dental team. HRD managers should plan effective trainings which focus on understanding the powerful role of emotions for self, for the staff and most importantly the patients. When patients approach, they might experience a variety of feelings and may be scared that it will hurt. They might feel anxious, impatient, delighted and even relieved. The dental team should be taught to remain sensible to the suffering and feelings of the patients while giving them the best treatment and reacting appropriately to their emotions. As per Goleman, Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management skills should be developed and polished to give a human touch to the relationship of a doctor and patient. The six leadership styles discussed here should be applied and switched or combined as per the scenarios to resonate energy and enthusiasm for the hospital to thrive. Further, the five discoveries explained for self-directed leadership should be stressed upon to feel the pulse of the staff and increase the bottom-line performance. EI should be identified as one of the key components for implementing technical skills and business practices to have a positive impact on earnings or strategy.
In order to make new changes sustainable new norms should be created that foster emotionally intelligent environment. There is lasting value in resonant leadership as in our rapidly changing society where models and strategies are quickly shifting, leaders will need to be emotionally strong to withstand and foster these changes for organization’s success.
Reference
- Goleman. D., Boyatzis. R., & Mckee. A. (2004). Primal Leadership: Learning to
Lead with Emotional Intelligence. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School
Publishing.
