Research has shown that although having a high IQ or technical expertise is important to get into a job, it is your non-intellectual ability (intellect consisting of cognitive and technical skills) which often decides how successful you will be while in that position. This non-intellectual ability is referred to as Emotional Intelligence (EI) -as opposed to Intellectual Intelligence (IQ), which is a measure of a person's intellectual ability. And it has been shown that the higher one's position in an organization the more important EI becomes in determining one's success in that position. Thus top managers such as chief executives or leaders of organizations need to have a high level of EI if they want to ensure that their organizations will be successful.
Therefore company boards for example have a heavy responsibility to all stakeholders of the company, be they employees, shareholders or customers alike, to ensure that they hire individuals who have both the required intellectual and emotional ability to lead their organizations. Choosing someone who has only the necessary intellectual qualifications but whose emotional and social skills are below par is an almost certain recipe for disaster. Organizations led by such individuals often find themselves in financial distress with unhappy, demoralized staff members and consequent sub-optimal levels of performance. On the other hand choosing the right person can boost the profits of an organization and increase the morale and productivity of its people.
Leadership is thus largely about emotional (and spiritual) intelligence and encompasses competencies such as emotional self-awareness, self-confidence, emotional self-regulation, integrity, conscientiousness, empathy, conflict resolution and a host of others. Greed, a negative emotion which generates dysfunctional behavior, is one of the consequences of a weakness in emotional self-regulation for example. The recent financial destruction and market meltdown witnessed has been attributed to a significant degree to behavior stemming from greed.
Emotional intelligence and its competencies reside specifically in the Emotional Mind (also know in medical jargon as the neocortical-limbic circuitry) as opposed to the Intellectual Mind - or more specifically the prefrontal neocortex- which is located in the frontal lobes of the brain. What we are referring to are nerve cells (neurones) and their connections (synapses) forming networks or circuits in these - as they also do in other- parts of the brain.
Thus, to put it simply, circuits which extend from the prefrontal neocortex (where emotions are regulated) to the limbic area (where emotions or feelings are activated) constitute the Emotional Mind while those circuits which operate purely within the prefrontal neocortex constitute the Intellectual Mind (Rational Thinking and Technical Mind).
Since the human brain, like that of all vertebrates, is divided in two parts, left and right, the emotional brain consists mainly of two almond-shaped structures known as the amygdalae (singular: amygdala) and two nearby structures called the hippocampi and the networks connecting them. The brain similarly has two prefrontal neocortices, left and right. A high level of activity (thinking) in the left prefrontal neocortex is associated with positive emotions (feelings) while, similarly, a high level of activity in the right results in an individual experiencing more negative emotions. Thus happy, enthusiastic and joyful people have highly active left prefrontal neocortices while the opposite is true for sad, depressed, anxious or generally distressed individuals.
Given the unique ability of the human brain to change its structure and function through the processes of neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, acquisition of leadership skills and career development is absolutely possible.
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