What Makes a Great Leader?

 What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones?

Daniel Goleman wrote an article in Harvard Business Review about the key attributes of a great leader.  Here's what he found:

Individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence (EI) make great leaders.  There are five key EI skills they posses:

1.     Self-awareness-knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others.

2.     Self-regulation-controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods.

3.     Motivation- relishing achievement for it own sake.

4.     Empathy- understanding other people’s emotional make-up.

5.     Social Skill- building rapport with others to move them in desired directions.

We are all born with certain levels of EI skills but can strengthen them through persistence, practice, and feedback.

Research found managers who had a critical mass of EQ capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings by 20%.

Organizations with high EI experience these advantages:

1.     Politics & in fights are reduced.

2.     Productivity is higher.

3.     Talented people flock to the organization and stay (less turnover).

4.     When employees master their emotions they can effectively handle change.

5.     Enhances integrity which is a personal value but also a organizational strength.

Over the next 5 weeks we're going to break down the five EI skills and the hallmarks associated with each.

If the benefits stated above weren't enough to catch your attention, here's another fact:

People with high emotional intelligence make $29,000 more annually than their low emotional intelligent counterparts.

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