What makes a leader?
Being a leader is more than being called a leader as some unique qualities must be processed by a good leader. In fact, it is difficult to decide whether leaders are made or born.
Although different researches have shown that some people are born with some leadership traits that could make them good leaders, Other findings point to the fact that the qualities that are peculiar to a leader can be developed. whereas, more people agree with the latter. In essence, majority believe that leaders are made and not born.
Therefore, if leaders are born with some special innate traits, then we should endeavor to study and establish these traits as the characteristics of a good leader. It is no longer strange that intellectual prowess and technical abilities alone can not guarantee that a person can lead effectively. This can be established by a lot of people that have seen this firsthand and can give examples of one or two persons they know who are intellectually sound but have failed in leadership positions.
The situations are easy to recall because of the unexpected disappointments that are experienced when a person fails in a leadership role even when we have expected them to perform well based on their technical proficiency and or intellectual capacity. Similarly, in many cases, people can also talk about a time when someone who does not have extraordinary technical skills or intellect has performed brilliantly in a leadership role.
Oftentimes, when people are asked ‘what makes a good leader’, their answers include qualities like intelligence, vision, resilience, determination, and others. Qualities like emotional intelligence and other character traits do not make this list most of the time. Probably because they are sometimes disguised as any of the aforementioned qualities. However, they are quite as essential as the obvious traits if not more.
Intelligence and technical skills are indeed important requirements for a leader however, studies have shown that emotional intelligence may be just what distinguishes exceptional leaders from those who are just filling the role.
The term emotional intelligence was brought to a wider audience by Daniel Goleman in his 1995 book on the subject. Goleman used about 200 businesses as a case study in his research and concluded that emotional intelligence is what distinguishes great leaders from ordinary ones. His finding dictates that the role of emotional intelligence in being a great leader supersedes that of training, intelligence, and even an unlimited supply of good ideas.
Goleman identified the components of emotional intelligence as self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill. He of course expatiated on each component and established how they are related to leadership, how they can be recognized in people as well as how they can be learned.
Emotional intelligence itself is defined as the ability to perceive emotions so that it can assist thoughts, understand emotions and regulate emotions to improve intellect. All the components of emotional intelligence are quite important to becoming a great leader. Self-awareness helps to correctly identify personal emotions while self-regulation assists with regulations of impulses just as the name suggests.
A good leader must not act impetuously and that is where self-regulation comes in. However, great leaders are motivated people; that is, they possess the propensity to pursue their goals intentionally and persistently. Other qualities of good leaders include:
We have seen that the qualities of an ideal leader are not only limited to their technical skills or intelligence because they are not sufficient to make a good leader. Emotional intelligence has a fair percentage in the making of a good leader and its role is not mentioned enough.
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