INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENTAHMEDABAD

Term Paper Assignment

Leading with passion: Leadership from the perspective of emotions

Submitted to Prof. Parvinder Gupta

In Partial fulfillment of the requirements of courseOrganizational Behavior (Micro)

Submitted on: September 18th, 2014

By

Shiva Kakkar

This page is intentionally left blank

Leading with passion: Leadership from the perspective of emotions

Shiva Kakkar

Successful leaders are known to motivate people by stimulating them emotionally. In the words of Ken Blanchard, “the key to successful leadership is influence, not authority”. Leaders have the uncanny ability to understand emotions in other people and influence them. This ability is often termed as ‘Emotional Intelligence’ (EI). While there is enough OB literature present on the salient features of EI, very few studies have actually attempted to explain how EI is operationalized into practice. The objective of this paper is to study this particular aspect i.e. how leaders affect their followers and manage their emotional states. The comprehension and management of emotions in others is in itself an emotionally challenging task for the leader. Therefore, the second objective of the paper is to understand how leaders regulate their own emotions. Lastly, we cover the topic of ‘Emotional Intelligence’ and try to get new insights into the subject building upon the views proposed in the paper. The paper aims to synthesize concepts from various leadership and emotion theories and provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject.

‘What is the world, O soldiers?

It is I:

I, this incessant snow,

This northern sky;

Soldiers, this solitude

Through which we go

Is I.’

- ‘Napolean’ by Walter De La Mare

These words by Walter De La Mare convey the anguish and concern of a leader for his

followers. The poem is devoted to Napolean Bonaparte who was leading the French campaign

against Russia in 1812. The Russians used the tactic of ‘continuous retreat’ wherein they gave

resistance just enough for the cold winter to set in. The tactic worked and Bonaparte and his men

were left stranded and out of resources in the chilling Russian winter. Yet, Napolean kept on

motivating his men, reminding them of their duty and exhorting them to strive and survive.

Though Napolean had to retreat in the end, he and his men did survive the winter. The incident

shows us the humane side of leadership. Leadership is often considered to be a ‘tough’ job; one

requiring cold calculated logic and sharp resource planning. Yet, there is no other role which

provides the opportunity to connect with people like leadership. And it is this ‘connect’ that

brings forth the role of emotions in leadership. From Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela, the

one thing running common across these seemingly unintimidating individuals is their ability to

emotionally connect, understand, respond and get along with people. In the words of Peter F.

Drucker,

“Real leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I'. And that's not because

they have trained themselves not to say ‘I'. They don't think ‘I'. They think ‘we'; they think ‘team'.

They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but ‘we' gets the credit. This is what creates

trust, what enables you to get the task done." (Drucker, 2007)

All of us some point of time had a brush with leadership either as a leader or a follower. The

objective of this paper is to understand leadership from the perspective of emotions and try to

gain new insights into the subject.

Role of emotions in the workplace

The field of emotions is one of the most understudied and underestimated fields in both social

and organizational contexts. Darwin (1873) forwarded the biological and evolutionary

perspective of emotions as a ‘build-up and discharge of nervous system for the purpose of

survival’. He suggested that emotions were not merely irrational or frivolous component of

human (and animal) behavior but an important aspect of adaptability (Ashkanasy, Hartel, &

Zerbe, 2000).

The world of business management has always seen emotions as an aberration to rational

behavior. The school of scientific management has traditionally had its roots firmly entrenched

into cognitivism and behaviorism. F.W. Taylor held a single-dimensional view that human

beings were inherently rational individuals who would unquestionably perform labor for

personal rewards and benefits (Ashkanasy et al., 2000). Subsequently, this lead to an

oversimplification of jobs aimed single-pointedly at increasing efficiency and boosting

production. The result was a highly mechanistic system which considered emotions as

unnecessary distractions hampering production and reducing efficiency (Muchinsky, 2000).

But in the last two decades the field has re-emerged due to its propensity to impact and direct

human behavior (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995). Everyday emotions have a tremendous impact

on the behavior of people in organizations. A lot of work in organizations today involves

working in groups and teams where people need to deal with their own emotional state and the

emotional state of others. Another reason for the increasing interest in emotional research is due

to the emergence of ‘emotional labor’. Emotional labor, contrary to popular perception, is not

only practiced by front-line employees but by all regular employees of the organization including

leaders. In organizations today, the negative emotions are typically suppressed while positive

emotions are expressed by both leaders and followers (Rajah, Song, & Arvey, 2011). This

regulation of positive and negative emotions is extremely important and is termed as ‘emotional

labor’. Research suggests that leaders who are not able to regulate their negative emotions like

anxiety, disappointment and uncertainty are termed as ineffective and rated negatively by their

subordinates (Dasborough, 2006; Lewis, 2000 as cited in Rajah et al., 2011).

The real objective of a leader is to motivate people and motivation is highly dependent upon how

people feel about things – their ‘emotions’. Emotions motivate people to act (Popa & Salanta,

2013) and the role of a leader is also to motivate his followers to act in a certain way (Maddock

& Fulton, 1998). This duology of emotions and leadership is aptly explained by Maddock and

Fulton (1998) when they say ‘leadership is nothing but motivation and motivation is nothing but

emotion’.

The empathetic leader: An overview of emotion theories and their interaction

with leadership

All great leaders have one common trait – they inspire people (Biro, 2013). Effective leaders

identify, understand, empathize and create positive feelings among followers. This is because

intelligent leaders possess the unique quality of ‘empathy’. An empathetic leader is one who

observes, understands and responds to the needs of the followers in a sensitive manner. Great

leaders are able to inspire their followers because they possess the ability to empathize with their

followers. According to Salovey and Mayer (as cited in Kellett, Humphrey, & Sleeth, 2002)

empathy is the central characteristic of emotionally intelligent behavior. Empathetic leaders are

themselves optimists and through their influence breed optimism among their followers. (Avolio,

Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004).

A leader through his empathetic emotional skills is able to influence and minimize the negativity

surrounding an event by influencing the manner in which group members perceive the event.

The leader takes a strength based approach which shifts the attention of followers away from the

weaknesses as a group to the positive attributes of each individual and their relative strengths as

a team (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001; Buckingham & Coffman, 1999; Clifton & Harter, 2003 as

cited in Avolio et al., 2004). A good way to understand this is through the study of ‘appraisal

theory’ proposed by Magda Arnold.

Appraisal theory

According to Arnold, appraisal is the most important part in generation of emotions (Reeve,

2005). Arnold was the first to use the term ‘appraisal’ to explain the elicitation of emotions.

Appraisal is nothing but how people think about a particular event or object which results into

the production of emotions. Thus, appraisal precedes and leads to the elicitation of emotions. The

way a situation is interpreted results into the elicitation of a particular emotion (Scherer, 1999).

Depending upon the emotions experienced, the individual modifies his or her behavior with

respect to the situation. If the emotion is positive, the motivation to face the situation is

generated. If the emotion is negative the motivation to avoid the situation is generated (Reeve,

2005). It is interesting to note that it is the cognitive appraisal of the situation and not the

situation in itself that elicits emotions. Therefore, changing the appraisal would bring about a

change in emotions (Reeve, 2005).

Figure 1: Leadership influence on appraisal (adapted from Reeve, 2005)

In such a situation, the leader can play an important role to stimulate and facilitate a positive

appraisal of the event by his or her followers. In difficult times, the first step any leader should

take is to display positive emotions and be enthusiastic himself no matter how dire the situation

(Adair, 2006). A famous example of this is in the famous speech by Winston Churchill in which

he proclaimed ‘(the people of) Britain will keep fighting until the last drop of blood and the last

breath in the body’ The speech was given at a time when the England had been continuously

bombed by Nazi’s for more than 70 days and it was in complete shambles. In spite of the dire

situation, Churchill was able to galvanize the masses and eventually win the war through his

sheer grit and undying spirit (Axelrod, 2012). Secondly, the leader should continuously motivate

and monitor progress and take complete accountability (Adair, 2006). The leader’s influence is a

part of the extrinsic motivation provided by the environment.

While we attain a rudimentary understanding of the role of leadership in emotions from this, a

deeper analysis of the inter-linkages is presented later in the paper. To understand the impact of

leadership influence on emotions in more detail it is necessary to understand the framework of

‘Affective events theory’ (or AET) (Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996).

Affective events theory

Affective events theory (AET) (Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) is an important

theoretical framework as it gives an opportunity to study emotions exclusively in the context of

the workplace. While Arnold’s appraisal theory acts as a pointer towards the impact of emotions

on action, AET goes in depth to explain the relation between emotions and job satisfaction,

which in turn determines the behavior of the individual in the workplace. From the perspective of

leadership, this is important as the perception and relationship with the leader directly effects an

individual’s perception about his/her job, thereby impacting his/her job satisfaction. It’s a

popular business saying that ‘people do not quit their jobs, they quit their bosses’ (Ellenbogen,

2014). AET is particularly useful in understanding this relationship between an employee and

his/her satisfaction with the job in which the supervisor (or boss) tends to act as a mediator.

According to Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) certain ‘events’ on the job trigger emotional

reactions (known as ‘affect’). The affect leads the person to form an overall judgment about the

job which determines the work attitude and behavior of the person on the job. In the words of

Harold M. Weiss,

‘Recent affective experiences carry more weight in the judgment. People don’t seem to simply

add up their affective experiences. They provide some sort of meaning structure to the

experiences, and that is what influences a person’s overall judgment. Think of going to a very

sad movie. Throughout the movie you are in a negative affective state, yet your judgment at the

end is positive. Frequency of affective experiences is a better predictor of overall judgments than

intensity. Life satisfaction is higher with a history of small but frequent pleasant experiences

than it is with a history of infrequent, but intense pleasant experiences. Presumably, job

satisfaction works the same way’ (Weiss as cited in Latham, 2007).

It is important to understand that OB literature often tends to distinguish between emotions and

mood. According to Fridja (as cited in Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) the difference

between mood and emotions is in terms of object directedness and response. While emotions are

directed towards an object (say a person) moods often lack any objective target. Thus, it can be

said that emotions are contextual while mood lacks any context. Mood is often passive, less

intense and sustains for a longer time than emotions which are active, very intense but of a

shorter duration. ‘Affect’ is an umbrella term encapsulating both mood and emotions.

Based upon Weiss’ observation, it can be said that a leader can play an important role in the

interpretation of a situation and the formation of an affective reaction among the subordinates.

Negative events dent motivation and weaken the positive mood. Effective leaders find ways of

minimizing the impact of negative events on their teams (Pirola-Merlo, Härtel, Mann, & Hirst,

2002). This moderation is important because negative emotions carry much more impact on the

individual than positive emotions (Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). The most common

negative emotion encountered in the workplace is that of ‘pessimism’. Pessimism is a passive

emotion which gives rise to appraisal tendencies of uncertainty and low control (Connelly,

Gaddis and Helton-Fauth as cited in Thiel, Connelly, & Griffith, 2012). Pessimism leads to self-

doubt, lower motivation and skepticism about one’s actions leading to despair and ultimately

hopelessness (Thiel et al., 2012). This is accompanied by lower performance and decrease in

productivity. Thus, managing negative affect in group members is one of the most critical tasks

for any leader. This can be done by facilitating the cognitive appraisal process of the members of

the team in response to a negative event. Effective leaders are able to handle this situation by

managing the various aspects goal setting and goal clarification required in anxiety laden

situations (Pirola-Merlo et al., 2002). By goal setting and goal clarification, it is implied that

leaders are able to guide their subordinates by removing ambiguity surrounding the goals and lay

down clear-cut action plans. This reduces the perceived difficulty of achieving the goal, thereby

enhancing performance.

Figure 2: Leaderships' interaction with affective events

Group affect and leadership

The modern workplace extensively focuses on team work and coordination among a group of

people to get work done. Every group has a leader who is accountable for getting things done by

the group. Affect plays an important role in groups. According to Fridja (as cited in Lord,

Klimoski, & Kanfer, 2002) emotions play an important role in informing an individual how other

members of the group are feeling and how they appraise the situation. According to Bandura (as

cited in Lord et al., 2002) such processes are vicarious, i.e. members of the group get affected by

observing each other. As per Basch and Fischer (as cited in Lord et al., 2002) members of the

group are exposed to similar situations and hence, encounter similar events and would largely

produce the same kind of affective reactions by observing each other. This shared affect is

termed as the ‘affective group tone’ (George, 1990 as cited in Pirola-Merlo et al., 2002). The

affective group tone is also closely related to ‘team climate’. In addition to the characteristics of

affective group tone, team climate also includes the groups attitudes and expectations (Pirola-

Merlo et al., 2002). This again puts the spot light on the role of appraisal and how the leader can

influence a more positive appraisal. Effective leaders encourage a strong sense of team identity

and facilitate positive interpersonal relationships between members and avoid the impact of

negative events through such cohesiveness (Pirola-Merlo et al., 2002). The role of the leader is

important since in times of a critical or ambiguous event, the team members look up to the leader

for guidance. This may be due to the fact that the leader serves as a parental figure for the group

and is assumed to possesses the greatest amount of knowledge, experience, and understanding of

the situation (Pescosolido, 2002). The duty of the leader is to interpret ambiguous situations and

model an appropriate response so as to set a positive emotional tone for the group that reassures

and motivates the members to move forward (Pescosolido, 2002).

Another issue group leaders often need to face is group-conflicts occurring in the group. In a

research conducted by Pirola-Merlo et al. (2002) relationship problems between team members

was found to be one of biggest problems hindering team performance. To deal with all these

issues, leaders must develop emotion management skills, demonstrate a high level of emotional

awareness, intelligence and the ability to regulate their own emotions (self-regulation) (Tse,

Dasborough, & Ashkanasy, 2008). A leader should be able to manage his personal emotions in

order to think objectively without taking sides among the members (unbiased). According to

Humphrey (2002), leader’s management of the group members’ emotional states has a

tremendous impact on performance.

The LMX-AET-TMX triumvirate (Tse et al., 2008)

The Leader-member exchange theory (LMX) can be studied through the perspective of Affective

events theory (AET). LMX states that leaders form different relationships with each of the

subordinates in a team and such dyadic relationships can influence the subordinate’s

performance (Greenberg & Baron, 2008). Accordingly, members can have a high quality LMX

(strong relationship with the leader) or low quality LMX (weak relationship with the leader)

Team-member exchange (TMX) is an extension of LMX theory. It is concerned with the

relationship of an individual in the team with other members. TMX focuses on the willingness of

an individual member to give and seek support and recognition, as well as share ideas and assist

other members in the team (Seers, 1989 as cited in Tse et al., 2008). Such exchanges are

facilitated by the friendship of members with each other in the group (Tse et al., 2008).

Figure 3: Multi-level model of interpersonal relationships at work (Tse et al., 2008)

Building upon the affective events theory (Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), Tse and

Ashkanasy (2008) suggest that affective climate of the team plays an important role in

influencing friendship among the members. As explained earlier, emotions of members in a

group impact each other and contribute towards the affective climate of the team. According to

Tse and Ashkanasy (2008), the leader through his charisma and guidance can regulate the

affective climate so as to influence the perceptions of the team members. Teams with strong

affective climates foster synergy and enhance workplace friendship. Members experiencing a

high quality LMX relationship are more likely to develop friendships at work and bring aboard

the members experiencing a weaker relationship (Tse et al., 2008). The leader should encourage

the High LMX members to do so as it gives him/her the opportunity to improve his/her own

relationship with low LMX members. By forming friendships, high LMX members increase

group cohesiveness and aid the amalgamation of low LMX members, helping them contribute

more effectively. The affective climate acts as a moderator while the leader acts as a mediator in

the whole scheme. This ultimately enhances and reinforces the TMX relationship, ensuring better

understanding, coordination and support among members (As well as the leader) resulting into

high performance. The takeaway is that if the leader fosters a climate of co-ordination and

support among members rather than pitting them against each other, the team would act as a

cohesive lot.

Mood of the leader: effect on subordinates

The general mood of the leader has severe effects on the overall mood and performance of the

team. To recall, mood is a passive, less intense affective state that persists for a longer duration

of time and helps shape the general perception about the workplace environment (Howard M.

Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). In a study of self-managing teams conducted by Sy, Côté, &

Saavedra (2005), leader’s mood was found to have several implications on the group members.

The authors chose self-managing groups as these groups have high autonomy and control and it

was thought that the impact of the leader’s mood on the members would be less. To the contrary,

the authors found that in order to work effectively, self-managed groups required high leadership

skills. Depending upon the complexity of the task and skills required, the member possessing the

requisite skills and competencies would be sworn in to provide leadership. The only difference is

that self-managed groups require a more flexible leadership rather than fixed leadership.

The study also found that the leader’s mood directly reflected upon the subordinates. Group

members having a positive leader were more positive themselves. The affective tone of the group

was more positive under a positive leader. It was also found that the more positive groups had to

expend fewer efforts on accomplishment of tasks than negative groups. The mood of the leader

was found to influence the co-ordination among members in the group. This lends further

evidence to the LMX-AET-TMX triumvirate which states that affective climate strengthens

group cohesiveness among the members and between the leader and the members (Tse et al.,

2008). The leader is one of the most important contributors to affective climate and perhaps the

biggest extrinsic motivator for members.

Another instance when the leader’s emotional state is explicitly manifested to the team is during

‘feedback’. Feedback is an important process which helps an individual align his or her efforts

with the sought goal and monitor his or her progress. In an organization, feedback generally

comes from the supervisor. The feedback is provided routinely or as part of the performance

appraisal process. Negative or failure feedback is often accompanied with strong emotional

experience for the members. It is necessary that feedback be provided by managers (or leaders)

in a calm, considerate and supportive manner (Gaddis, Connelly, & Mumford, 2004). This calls

for a positive affective state to be displayed by the leader. According to the study conducted by

Gaddis, Connelly, & Mumford (2004) leaders displaying anger, frustration and disgust (negative

affective states) were perceived by group members to be less effective and demotivating when

compared to leaders who displayed positive affective states like optimism and happiness.

Even worse, the groups wherein leaders displayed negative affective states while providing

failure feedback, performed more badly on subsequent tasks compared to groups that got failure

feedback from positive leaders (Gaddis et al., 2004). According to Fridja (as cited in Gaddis et

al., 2004) the leader’s negative state leads to arousal of negative emotions in the group members

like fear and anxiety. Due to this, the perceived gap between performance and goal seems larger

than it actually is, leading to greater amount of stress. Stress results into an increased amount of

emotional coping which leaves fewer emotional resources for task accomplishment (Howard M

Weiss & Beal, 2005; Howard M. Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Thus, it is important to

understand that being a leader requires an intelligent assessment of emotions both in oneself and

the members. Blaming the group members for lack of performance may end up worsening the

situation even further.

Self-regulation in leaders

In order to regulate emotions in the members of the group, a leader must first be able to regulate

his (or her) own emotions and behavior. This is known as ‘Self-regulation’. Self-regulation can

be defined as a person’s ability to alter behavior with respect to situational demands (Baumeister

& Vohs, 2007). ‘Self-regulation theory’ (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994) is major

theoretical framework which explains the how regulation takes place in an individual.

Baumeister (1994) lists three components essential for self-regulation:

1. Standards: Regulation is performed in order to achieve or fulfill a certain standard. Clear

and transparent standards are untenable for effective self-regulation.

2. Monitoring: Regulation is a continuous process and cannot be done unless there’s a

continuous monitoring and feedback system. Monitoring is required to check progress

and compliance to standards.

3. Strength: Strength indicates the will power to self-regulate. Strength is the tenacity and

steadfastness to meet the standard.

4. Motivation: Motivation is the fuel for self-regulation. Closely related to will power,

motivation is the ability to not only remove negativity but creating a climate of hope and

positivity for oneself.

Emotional regulation can be understood as a component of self-regulation limited to the

management of moods and emotions. Gross (1998) defines emotional regulation as ‘the

processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and

how they experience and express these emotions’. With reference to Pescosolido’s definition,

the above four components can be considered as steps towards modeling an emotional response.

The leader must himself be clear with standards that need to be achieved (for example, delivering

a task under deadline and the group’s ability and limitations in doing so). The leader needs to

continuously self-monitor (for ex. keep oneself calm and contained emotionally). Maintaining

standards and continuous monitoring requires a strong will power on part of the leader so as to

not fret or panic in challenging situations and maintain his/her calm emotional state. Lastly, the

leader stays motivated by being optimistic and hopeful. Motivation gives a higher sense of

controllability leading to more channelized efforts (Latham, 2007).

Self-regulation during failure

There is no leader who has never encountered failure. The greatest leaders in the world have had

times when they hit the rock bottom. What makes them a ‘leader’ is in their ability to bounce

back from failures and regain control of the situation. According to Boss & Sims Jr (2008),

regulation of emotions is extremely important in facilitating recovery. Gross (as cited in Boss &

Sims Jr, 2008) suggests that positively oriented leaders consider failing as a single ‘negative

situational outcome’ rather than attributing a loaded word like ‘failure’. Effectively, this means

that leaders tend to suppress negative appraisal of emotions. According to Boss & Sims Jr.

(2008) successful leaders self-regulate in such situations through a behavior focused approach

that has three characteristics:

1. Self-observation: Leaders keenly observe themselves and their behavior in organizational

context and evaluate their own behavior as positive or negative. This helps them in

devising strategies to deal with challenges and any negative situations occurring in the

future.

2. Self-goal setting: Leaders set their own goals and timeframes to achieve objectives. They

are quick to chalk out plans to deal with failures and modify their strategy.

3. Self-rewarding: Leaders do not need external incentives or rewards to get motivated

towards success. The reward lies as much in success as in the learning gained from

failure.

Being positive in the situation doesn’t mean that the leader needs to be all joy and smiles. Rather,

being positive suggests that the leader is on a continuous lookout for opportunities to bounce

back and/or salvage the situation (Sonnenfeld & Ward, 2008). Leaders are quick to jump to

contingency plans. They derive support from their followers and use it as a support structure to

forward their plans.

Self-regulation for preventing team failure

While failure imparts important lessons, it is not at all a desirable situation to be in. As important

it is for leaders to bounce back from failure, it is equally important to prevent failures due to

errors or discrepancies in the team. For this, it may be required that a leader acts as a hard

taskmaster. In most situations a sense of congeniality works best for team work but in exigent

situations, occasional display of emotions like anger may actually work towards enhancing

overall team performance. Rebuke or anger for a leader is not a personal affair. Daniel Goleman

(2006) explained this well in the opening paragraph of his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ by

quoting Aristotle who says,

‘Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right

degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within

everybody’s power and is not easy.’(Goleman, 2006)

Gross (1998) supports this position by saying that emotion regulation at times involves

increasing or initiating negative emotions and decreasing or stopping positive emotions. In many

professions like bill collectors, recovery agents, bouncers, individuals feign a heightened sense

of anger in order to present an intimidating image. The same is true for leaders. Sometimes, it

may be necessary for a leader to feign emotions like anger in order to jolt out group members of

their complacency or inertia. As Ronald Reagan once put it, ‘when you can't make them see the

light, make them feel the heat’. The point of interest here though is that good leaders don’t

‘personalize’ issues. The relationship between a leader and subordinates may get emotionally

intense but never personal or inimical. The intensity of emotions is subject to the task at hand.

The moment the task is accomplished the emotional heat dwindles and the relationship reverts to

that of warm congeniality.

Emotional Intelligence

Though the concept of emotional intelligence was popularized by Daniel Goleman (2006) in his

book ‘Emotional Intelligence’, the concept was introduced first by Salovey and Mayer (as cited

in Kellett et al., 2002) who were influenced by the work of Howard Gardner on the multiple

intelligences theory. From the literature reviewed above, it can be understood that a good leader

is able to cognitively understand the moods and emotions of the followers and respond in a

manner so as to influence their perception. This convergence of cognitive ability with emotions

is termed as ‘Emotional Intelligence. In the words of Salovey and Mayer, ‘emotional intelligence

taps into the extent to which people’s cognitive capabilities are informed by emotions and the

extent to which emotions are cognitively managed.’ (as cited in Kellett et al., 2002)

The central tenet of emotional intelligence is ‘empathy’. In order to plan a cognitive action based

on emotional inputs, the leader must be able to comprehend the emotions of the followers and

experience them himself (Mayer & Geher, 1996). Researchers have tried to study the role of

empathy in a scientific manner to validate it. In a research by Cooper and Sawaf (as cited in

Kellett et al., 2002) the researchers found that the ability to empathize was the primary difference

between successful and unsuccessful leaders. The role of empathy doesn’t stop at merely

understanding the feelings of others. For a leader, the success lies in understanding the follower’s

emotional state and enabling the follower to deal with his or her emotional state. In the process,

the leader just acts as the enabler or facilitator who helps stabilize the follower’s emotional state

(Thiel et al., 2012). In order to achieve this, the leader himself must have a positive affective

state which requires effective self-regulation of personal emotions.

Conclusion

The literature reviewed above focuses on the leaders’ ability to drive the thinking, motivation

and response of his or her team. While a lot of research studies focus on the requirement of

emotional intelligence as an imperative, very few studies have tried to look into the factors that

enable a leader to operationalize his EI. By integrating the perspective of leadership with

appraisal theory and AET, we get a view of how effective leadership actually impacts the

thinking process (cognitive appraisal) of the followers in order to facilitate a positive appraisal.

Under an able leader the positive affect is reinforced while negative affect is diminished. Tse’s

multi-level analysis of team climate and interpersonal exchanges at work (the LMX-AET-TMX

triumvirate) acts as an excellent explanation of the impact of the leader on team climate and the

cohesiveness among members.

Secondly, not only is it necessary for the leader to manage the emotions of his or her team but

managing one’s own emotions is equally important. The self-regulation theory provides a robust

framework to guide emotional regulation in leaders. The flow and manifestation of emotions in

an effective leader is more task oriented rather than relationship oriented. To put it in rather

ornate words, such a leader can be happy without being complacent, sad without being depressed

and angry without being enraged. The leader’s emotional state is in accordance with the task at

hand. There is no scope for relationship conflicts between an effective leader and followers.

Last but not the least, the role of empathy in leadership should not be forgotten. To sense the

pulse of the people is a trait that runs common through successful leaders. Empathy is the driving

force behind emotional intelligence which enables a leader to understand influence other

individuals. In fact, it is the ability to empathize, understand and utilize the knowledge gained

through empathy that makes a leader out of common individuals. The question whether

leadership is an art that can be learnt is still far from being solved. But the awareness about the

aspects of leadership may give valuable lessons to managers on becoming better bosses and

effective team handlers.

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