The role of emotional competence in leadership effectiveness

The main purpose here is to determine the underlying relationship between effective leadership and emotional competence or intelligence (Rockstuhl et al. , pg. For employees to work smart and choose to sacrifice their interest over those of the organization, they require to be given direction by their leaders for the sake of the wellbeing of the organization. Generally, in organization setup people expect others to understand their emotions including their feelings in order to achieve respect for each and every one (Rockstuhl et al. , pg. , pg. Hotel leaders should have the emotional competence for them to understand the effects of negative emotions and feelings brought by anger and jealousy. If a leader does not have the emotional competence or intelligence, he or she will have difficulties in dealing with organizational problems as they arise.

It is therefore important for leaders in hotel and hospitality, government, organizations and religion sectors among other sector to understand the importance of emotional competence in order to create a healthy environment of work (Melita et al. , pg. The capacity of self-reflection among leaders is important as it takes care of one’s thoughts, actions, wants and feelings and therefore can easily assess one’s degree of stress. Self-regulation on the other hand helps leaders deal with blame games or defending games and the leader is able to take difficult messages or feedback which is negative as he or she monitors the intensity of responses in an appropriate manner depending on the context of discussion. Lastly, empathy is a skill which helps leaders reward people or their employees according to the accomplishments or strengths and be able to give positive feedback, mentor employees, respect them and value diversity (Cavallo et al.

, pg. All these three are importance for leader’s effectiveness. Emotional intelligence helps leaders foster safe environments in organizations where employees feel the comfort of taking calculated risks and air out their opinions. This improves collaboration at work place which is not just a goal, but it empowers the culture for such an organization and thus leads to a leadership effectiveness where everyone feels recognized together with their opinions appreciated (Riggio et al. , pg. Leaders’ opinions alone cannot run an organization smoothly because the main resource are the employees and they need to feel as if they are part of the organization. Leaders who are emotionally intelligent do not take things personal but instead they have the ability to get ahead of the plans with no worry about the effect on their ego.

Organizations therefore, need to work towards increasing emotional competence of employees and also their emotional responsibility. Emotions on leadership is very advantageous. Incorporating emotions on leadership comes along with emotional labor, happiness and regulation of emotions. Major researchers across the world have recognized that leadership is a process which incorporates emotions. The attribute of being a leader should inspire the followers and enhance a sense of organizational identity. With emotional labor, leaders need to manage their feelings to create an observable bodily and facial display to the public. Sectors like health care providers, sales agents and airline attendants are seen to manage their emotional displays and they have been seen to attend to their clients with a smile on their face which is very appropriate for their role.

Organizational leaders hence require management skills for their emotions to be able to serve and listen to their employees in a good manner. Reports from various researches on emotions and leadership noted that individual people, groups of people and those in organizations are affected by feelings or emotions. The effects of such feelings can be transferred to followers that is, from leader to a follower and sometimes from follower to a leader (Carmeli, pg. Leaders with emotional competence are motivated to work harder to ensure better results for an organization. Such leaders do not require to be pushed to do whatever thing they are supposed to do. This motivation is later transferred to the employees because sometimes employees do not like being led by leaders who are lazy (Wong et al.

, pg. Leaders who are hard working and are motivated to work transfer the same to employees and a collaboration of team work is achieved which creates a happy environment at the place of work. , pg. However, self-awareness and a manager who is emotionally competent can be able to properly plan his or her time in order to get work done properly in advance before the deadlines. Therefore, managers require self-understanding for them to withstand pressure, manage their time and emotions properly and get work done. Emotional competence in the context of leadership enhances self-management which is the ability of a leader to exercise control and revert moods so as not to hurt other people around him or her. Other aspects or skills like trustworthiness, change comfortability and integrity are also enhanced among leaders who can manage themselves properly.

Some researchers have shown that women are good in managing their emotional empathy and are able to take note of other peoples’ emotions unlike men. With this view, leadership and emotional competence can be said to be differences between men and women but emotional behaviors are things which can be learnt as people move along with life. Emotional competence plays a very key in leadership effectiveness and ensures organizational success. However, for emotional competence to be effective, it needs to start from oneself as one can enhance the well-being of other people including employees if he or she understands him or herself. How leaders operate on their level of emotions determines the behavior of employees in an organization. "Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers.