Horatio Nelson was one of the most successful military leaders in history.

He was undoubtedly a ’tough boss’.

At the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, he stood on deck with one arm shot off and the loss of one eye and refused to leave the deck even when the enemy was firing broadside directly across the deck.

But while Nelson was tough on himself and on the competition, he was not tough on his own men.

There was an intimate relationship, affection and affiliation, between him and his companions.

Contrast this culture with that of the French and the Spanish, who traded insults and expressed distrust at a pre-battle council meeting.

The night before the battle, Nelson sent off a mail ship, the last to sail for England before the battle.

As Nelson walked the decks of his ship the Victory, he found a common seaman sitting unhappily.

When asked the reason for his despair, he said that his letter to his family had failed to make the mail ship.

Nelson promptly ordered the recall of the mail ship that was already halfway to the horizon.

This action was ordered for the letter of an ordinary solitary seaman.

Surely this is not the stuff of which legendary military leaders are made?

In the warfare of competitive business in today’s tumultuous environment the conditions are different, but the principles are the same.

The ability of leaders to influence their people is key.

And in order to do so successfully, leaders must be emotionally intelligent.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

At its simplest, emotional intelligence is about effectively managing yourself (your emotions and your behaviours) and your relationship with others.

The idea seemed to strike a chord after the 1995 publication of Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ.

However as far back as 1920, Edward Thorndike had referred to the idea under the broader umbrella concept of ’social intelligence’.

Around 1980, Reuben Bar-On, an Israeli psychologist defined Emotional Intelligence as ’a cross-section of emotional and social competencies that determine how well we understand and express ourselves, understand and relate with others, and cope with daily demands and pressures’.

Salovey and Mayers (2000) define it as ’the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others’.

Goleman himself suggests that emotional intelligence encompasses ’the abilities to recognise and regulate emotions in ourselves and others’.

Around 1985, noted Harvard educator and psychologist, Howard Gardner identified ’intrapersonal (self) and interpersonal (others) intelligences’ as two of his seven ’multiple intelligences’, in his groundbreaking work on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

And Stephen Covey in his 1989 mega-selling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, framed his habits around The Private (relationship with self) and Public (relationship with others) Victories.

While Covey did not actually use the term Emotional Intelligence (he had a concept called the Emotional Bank Account) The 7 Habits have been described as ’Emotional Intelligence in practice’.

While the various definitions differ, the common core seems to be that emotional intelligence involves ’the abilities to perceive, understand and manage emotions in ourselves and others’.

The Link between Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

In the past there has been a tendency to view organisational leadership in more coldly rational terms and to see emotion as something to be avoided as opposed to being embraced.

Leaders were supposed to be rational and logical, dealing with the facts and figures.

The research, however, suggests that pure rationality devoid of emotion, does not necessarily lead to effective leadership. Emotion provides important information that helps leaders to make decisions and make choices.

In terms of traditional, cognitive intelligence (IQ), many have tended to regard cognitive intelligence as the primary factor in effective leadership. To be successful as a leader, according to this view, one has to be smart, educated, qualified.

However, the actual relationship between general mental ability and leadership effectiveness is not very strong. Indeed a recent study suggests that IQ accounts for only about eight per cent of the variability in leadership effectiveness.

Studies in the 70s by McClelland and others, supported the view that most of the competencies critical for success had to do with social and emotional abilities.

In leadership positions, 85 per cent of the competencies that emerged as critical for superior performance related to emotional and social intelligence.

The case for the role of emotional intelligence in executive success has been made not only by academic researchers, but by practicing managers as well.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, observed in the Wall Street Journal, that ’emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader’.

In the case of US President Barack Obama, it is clear that his self-control, his positive upbeat style, his ability both to listen and to communicate effectively, to connect with people in a sincere and genuine manner - in short, his emotional intelligence, was far more important than his Harvard law degree.

In today’s service-oriented, knowledge-based, people-focused economy, leaders need to reach deep within themselves, even as they strive to reach outward to build meaningful relationships with others, in order to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.

Curtis Manchoon - executive chairman - Leadership Consulting Group

E-mail: curtis.manchoon@lcg.co.tt