Key message: Emotional intelligence is a dynamic virtuewith requires proactive, self-reflective practices and empathizes on behaviours based on experiential knowledge. It serves as a remediation for contemporary health care issues. Nurse leaders equipped with emotional intelligence are strategically placed to manage changes, resolve conflicts and maintain clinical competence standards.
IntroductionLeadership is the cornerstone for an organizational and has been moulded over the centuries to its current form. In ancient times, any person with a dominant personality was considered the leader, this was the evolution of the autocratic style of leadership. The enormous physical and emotional pressure felt by the subordinates in this leadership style paved the way for the democratic style, which considered the needs and problems of the subordinates, and assigned tasks which could be efficiently and effectively performed by a person. As decades passed by some democratic leaders failed to maintain their standards, and allowed the 'laissez faire' leadership style to permeate. This style was characterized by autonomy and decision making powers to the subordinates, with the leader serving as a 'puppet' dancing to the tunes of the subordinate.
BackgroundOver the past few decades, organizations realized that, implementing a single style of leadership was unfruitful and a mixed method which incorporated all the components discussed above was effective. This was called as the transformational leadership style, which yielded higher productivity and satisfaction in organizations. The major disadvantage stemming from this model of leadership was the inability of the leader to decide on which standard of leadership to adapt to in a given situation. This mismatched situation created the environment for the incorporation of emotional intelligence into leadership. Spano-Szekely 1 has empirically postulated that emotional intelligence is positively correlated with transformational leadership and negatively correlated with 'laissez faire' leadership.Varied leadership styles have been utilized in nursing. Vesterinen studied the leadership style practiced by Finnish nurse managers and has broadcasted the styles practiced as visionary, coaching, affiliate, democratic and commanding. From the perspective of Rishel, 2 leadership development in nursing should focus on development of their innate sense of purpose and enrichment of their emotional intelligence.Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capacity of individuals to recognize their own, and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour. It is generally said to include 3 skills:1. Emotional awareness, including the ability to identify your own emotions and those of others;2. The
AbstractBackground: A leader is the stronghold of any organization and leadership styles have evolved and transformed along with mankind. Leadership styles have varied from one-dimensional model to...