In 1990, two researchers, John Mayer and Peter Salovey, developed the idea of emotional intelligence (EI), which they defined as " the ability to monitor one's own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide thinking and action”.
With more interest being shown in the relationship between EI and leadership, a Californian firm, Ideashape, has surveyed 265 leaders – split roughly three ways between executives, directors and business owners / consultants – about which management capacities they associated with successful leadership.
Ideashape’s subsequent findings showed that Vision topped the list of critical leadership capacities for nearly all leaders. Two other EI – Relationship Building and People Development –ranked in the top five, along with the non-EI capacities, Strategic Thinking and Execution.
Of the remaining 15 capacities studied, all the EI items – including Self-Awareness, Empathy, and Adaptability – were rated as more important than traditional leadership capacities, such as External/Market Orientation, Financial Acumen, and Planning.
You can test your own emotional intelligence here.
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