The contribution of emotional leadership to personal and professional effectiveness of managers in the corporate environment

M.Phil.The major socio-political, technical and global changes in the world have placed increased demands on managers in the corporate environment to develop people orientated skills. In this study emotional leadership was offered as a possible solution to this problem. This essay researched the problem from a personal and professional leadership perspective with the aim to: • investigate the nature of emotional leadership; • investigate the role and contribution of emotional leadership in the corporate workplace; and • identify ways in which managers can apply emotional leadership in the workplace to enhance their effectiveness as managers. In chapter two a word and concept analysis was done and it was found that emotional leadership is the ability to think logically with emotion in four areas: to perceive emotion; to integrate it in thought; to understand it; and to manage it. This ability begins with the self and evolves to include others. Emotional leadership implies to be aware of the messages emotions are conveying, and to manage them effectively, instead of being controlled by emotions. Furthermore it was found that emotional leadership is an ability consisting of hierarchical building blocks with every level bringing together and building on the capabilities of all the preceding ones. In order of hierarchical importance, emotional leadership can be interpreted as: • self-awareness or the ability to monitor the self, observe self in action, and to influence personal actions; • the ability to manage own emotions to personal benefit; • the ability to read, recognise, and discern the emotions of others, and to respond appropriately; and • the ability to assist others to manage their emotions and to respond effectively; It was also found that emotional leadership is not the sole predictor of workplace success. There is, however, agreement and evidence to conclude that emotional leadership can assist with workplace effectiveness and can be effectively used to improve individual, as well as organisational performance. There is also widespread agreement that with the correct training and experiences, managers in the corporate environment can improve their knowledge on emotions and how to manage it effectively, and thus enhance personal effectiveness. It is thus recommended that organisations, in developing people skills, should ensure that an effective balance exists between emotional leadership training and functional skills training. The training should focus on the lymbic system, which facilitates effective emotional leadership development. To ensure holistic training of managers, the training should include all aspects of personal development, as well as interpersonal effectiveness