Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

85). The emotional development focus is “feeling good about personal choices” (p. 85).
EI “enables leaders to both effectively use emotions in decision making and manage
emotions which interfere with effective decision making” (George, 2000, p. 1043). The
challenge is “whether a leader can inspire people in order to encourage successful
implementation of decisions” (Thomas & Carnall, 2008, p. 195). Leader development
must concentrate on the hard choices (i.e., decisions) that leaders are required to enact
(Goffee & Jones, 2000; Thomas & Carnall, 2008). Doing so requires the leader to
engage developmental techniques such as active listening (to discern how others feel
when contemplating a decision), to examine feelings as a mechanism for predicting the
cause-and-effect dynamic of decisions, and to “include rational, logical information with
the emotional data to make an optimal decision” (Caruso & Wolfe, 2004, p. 257).
(Personal) Leadership. As defined by Nelson and Low (2011), this skill is the
ability to exert positive influence through “self-empowerment, interpersonal, and goal-
achievement skills” (p. 91). The emotional development focus is “feeling better about
personal leadership” (p. 91). Avolio (2004) stated, “the beginning point of developing
leadership in any individual starts with an enhanced sense of awareness, which leads to
behaviors or ways of thinking that are new, sustained over time, and become part of the
individual’s repertoire” (p. 82). This is congruent with personal leadership being the
most important component of leader and career development (Day, 2001; Halpern, 2004),
and a discipline for cultivating concentration and insight (Shields, 2009). Avolio (2004)
cited peer and instructor coaching, development plans and goals, and other feedback
mechanisms as ways to develop self (or personal) leadership. In addition, a landmark
empirical research study on developing personal mastery conducted by Shields (2009)