Dear Nick,
Here's something I found following some of your links. It is from a paper
by Samuel Bliss at Bellevue University ;-) Honestly!
Sometimes, reading, looking, listening to people I get the powerful
impression that the more people need to open up into tree like structures
the more they close down into brick like structure. I expect someone like
Blake said something similar, though with much greater poetry than I am
able.
Here is something apropos that by William James, who I think knew a thing
or two ;-)
" Every definite image in the mind is steeped and dyed in the free water
that flows around it. With it goes the sense of relations, near and far,
the dying echo of whence it came to us, the dawning sense of whither it is
to lead. The significance, the value of the image, is all in this halo or
penumbra that surrounds and escorts it."
This is difficult to grasp ; - )
I created a picture file yesterday, a kind of collage. If anything here
resonates let me know, I will send it to you 'private' and you can make of
it whatever you will ;-)
(It seems a while since you wrote here;-)
A Leader With Emotional Intelligence
These findings are consistent with Patricia Pitcher's description of a
company led by one CEO with high emotional intelligence who was succeeded
by a CEO without emotional intelligence. She began with a description of
the high emotional intelligence CEO (the artist) who took over a
medium-sized company. He had a vision to build the company into a global
corporation "operating in general and life insurance, banking, trust and
investments services" (spanning the world. This dream of his was during
the time when most people believed banking and insurance would never meet.
After 15 years, the company was worth $20 billion dollars and was an
integrated service company in Europe, Asia and North America. The CEO's
colleagues described him as a warm, generous, people-oriented,
imaginative, daring and funny person.
Patricia Pitcher explains the generous, people-oriented attributes helped
him attract and keep great colleagues and investors. His emotional and
inspiring traits allowed his enthusiasm to spread. The visionary, daring,
intuitive and unpredictable qualities helped him to keep focused on the
goal, avoid short-term gratifications and achieve his goal. His
open-mindedness helped the company and himself to develop and retain
different kinds of people. This ensured new ideas and fresh approaches to
problem solving. The CEO surrounded himself with the best talent he could
find. He decentralized the power structure allowing his talented staff to
express themselves in their own way. He sat on the independent boards and
asked questions, but did not interfere with his staff. The other
executives included artists and six craftsmen.
The craftsmen were described as being well-balanced, trustworthy,
reasonable, sensible and realistic. They were complementary to the
artists. These craftsmen knew what worked and what did not. They
understood that people made mistakes, but they learned from them, and if
you drove out error, you drove out innovation. These people dealt with the
day-to-day operations.
There were six other people in the company whom Pitcher calls the
technocrats. These people were described as being "intense, determined,
uncompromising, hardheaded, cerebral and analytical." They were often
called "brilliant, stiff and distant." Their interpersonal relationships
lacked depth, and they misread the people around them. She described the
technocrats as people who thought they were "realistic and sensible, even
imaginative, but no one else did". Technocrats erred in their judgments
of others, markets and situations. They did not learn from the mistakes
because they thought others were at fault. Those who made errors would be
fired. The article goes on to describe what happened when the CEO felt it
was time for him to leave and let fresh air into the company.
A Leader Without Emotional Intelligence
In 1980 the company leadership was given to the second-in-command, a
technocrat. This leader was analytical, uncompromising and brilliant.
Patricia Pitcher believes such a person would find decentralization a
sloppy way of doing business. So, the new CEO started to centralize the
decision-making processes. He created a new head office that replaced the
subsidiaries' authority. All of the craftsmen and artists running the
subsidiaries were gradually fired and replaced by competent professionals
or technocrats by 1992. Within three years the "organization was dead." If
the professionals where so brilliant, what caused the company to fail?
Pitcher suggests that the company failed because "If you [do not have]
respect for the emotional qualities that come in the imaginative package,
you drive out the peculiar vision of an Artist. If you equate experienced
with outmoded or old-fashioned, you drive out the Craftsman, who inspires
the loyalty and the dedication, and who knows what making widgets is all
about. If you fire people for making one mistake, nobody's going to go
out on a limb to make any. Innovation stops. An organization without
loyalty, dedication, skill, and dreams can go downhill very fast". She
points out that running a modern company requires "all kinds of
perspectives... even the cerebral, analytical and uncompromising. The
Artists and Craftsmen can live with those different perspectives, but the
Technocrat cannot". What does this perspective reveal about the
relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness?
To answer the question, an examination of the influence of emotional
intelligence on the two leaders is required. The first chief executive
officer demonstrated most of the attributes associated with emotional
intelligence. Accurate self-assessment (self-awareness) was demonstrated
by his ability to know his limits and his strengths. He surrounded himself
with people who had abilities he did not, e.g. the craftsmen, other
artists and technocrats. Daring to follow his dream demonstrated
self-confidence (self-awareness) and innovation (self-regulation), aspects
of emotional intelligence (Goleman). His openness to new ideas,
decentralization of power and his constant learning (shown by asking
questions at board meetings and listening to the responses), demonstrated
empathy.
Empathy is being aware of the feelings of others, their concerns and
needs. It can be broken down into seeking understanding, development of
others' abilities, leveraging diversity to allow new ideas and
opportunities to be heard, and being politically aware of a team's needs
and power structure (Goleman). The CEO's social skill, another aspect of
emotional intelligence, was demonstrated by cultivating relationships with
investors, colleagues, and his employees. These aspects lead to trust
which is the second most important characteristic of emotional
intelligence.
Trustworthiness is an important element in a leader's makeup as shown in
the previously described study. Without trust, much time and effort is
spent on non-productive activities because leaders feel compelled to draw
up procedures in great detail, even for simple transactions -. Innovation
will stop when subordinates do not trust the leaders. Creativity will
vanish if the sense of trust in an organization is lost and if people are
preoccupied with protecting their backs. The second CEO probably lost the
trust of his employees as a result of his lack of emotional intelligence.
Because the new CEO was not aware of how his actions and emotions were
affecting others, he could be considered to be lacking in emotional
intelligence (Ryback ). Pitcher said that he blamed others for problems
and did not look at the situational forces people were reacting to. In
order for the technocratic leader to be able to see the situation
realistically he must be aware of his own influence on the situation and
the motives of others involved. According to Manfred F R Kets de Vries "to
be able to decipher these deeper motives-to tease out the emotional,
cognitive, and experiential components requires the capacity to "listen
with the third ear an awareness about our own feelings, the knowledge and
skill to handle those feelings, and an appreciation of emotions in other
people (empathy)". Mike Miller's (1999) opinion is that many managers
fail because they are too rigid and have poor relationships. As a
consequence they are unable to adapt to changes in the business
environment, organization, culture, work processes, and technology.
Managers unable to receive or respond to feedback are unable to determine
how they need to change their approach to leading others. This will
alienate the people they work with by "being overly harsh in their
criticisms, manipulative, insensitive, unethical, and untrustworthy. They
cling to autocratic, outdated methods of direction and control. These
managers demonstrate clearly that being technically talented is not enough
to drive success".
It is apparent the second CEO was ignoring how his emotions influenced his
actions in favor of an analytical or autocratic approach to management.
Without emotional intelligence, the technocrat CEO was limited in his
ability to influence people in a positive way, e.g. he did not help people
to develop their potential. Being able to influence people is an important
part of being an effective leader. It is easy to assign a project. It is
another matter to persuade a colleague or superior to change his or her
mind about a policy decision. Clearly the major difference between the
first and second CEOs was the level of emotional intelligence shown by
each. While IQ serves as the entry-level requirement for executive
positions, "emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership"
(Goleman, 1998).
end citation
Love,
Andrew
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