Why responsible leadership starts with better emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence plays a key role in responsible leadership, enabling ethical choices and good stakeholder engagement, writes UNSW Business School's SJ Yang

Today's leaders are expected to drive positive changes in society, the economy, and the environment. This begins with rethinking the traditional concept of leadership to focus on responsible leadership. Responsible leadership is an approach to leadership that prioritises ethical behaviour, sustainability, and the well-being of all stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, and the environment.

This approach involves making decisions that contribute not only to the organisation's success but also to societal well-being and ecological sustainability. At the heart of responsible leadership lies an ethical commitment to consider the interests of all stakeholders, crucial for sustainable business success.

A vital element of this approach to leadership is emotional intelligence (EI), which enables leaders to manage themselves and their interactions with others thoughtfully and effectively.

What is emotional intelligence?

The concept of emotional intelligence was first introduced by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey in 1990, before gaining widespread recognition through Daniel Goleman's seminal book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. This notion has since transcended its origins as a psychological buzzword to become an indispensable attribute for leaders, particularly in environments where physical and manual tasks are overtaken by roles that demand adept human interaction. In recognition of its growing importance, the World Economic Forum identified emotional intelligence as the sixth most critical skill for leaders in 2020.

Emotional intelligence encompasses a range of emotion-related knowledge, skills, and competencies essential for personal and social functioning. Key components of EI include:

• Self-awareness: Recognising and understanding one's own emotions.
• Self-regulation: Managing and controlling one's emotions in a constructive manner.
• Self-motivation: The drive to pursue goals for personal fulfilment, beyond external rewards.
• Empathy: Perceiving, understanding and relating to the feelings of others.
• Social skills: The ability to interact, respond to, and influence the emotions of others effectively.

Why is emotional intelligence important for responsible leadership?

Emotional intelligence is a key component in fostering responsible leadership. For example, Accenture reported attributes related to emotion as one of the five elements of responsible leadership. To be a responsible leader, one needs to be able to experience empathy for all stakeholders. Emotional intelligence enhances the ability to experience empathy, enabling individuals to deeply understand and consider the emotions and perspectives of others and hence make decisions that align more closely with ethical principles. Empathetic leaders, in particular, are more aware of the impact of their decisions on all stakeholders, leading them to choose options that benefit the wider community, rather than just focusing on the bottom line.

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Research supports the positive impact of emotional intelligence on ethical decision-making. Furthermore, research has found that a higher level of emotional intelligence is associated with more effective communication and better conflict management. Such skills are key to implementing aspects of responsible leadership such as engaging stakeholders and building community.

Emotional intelligence can be developed

Unlike general intelligence (IQ), which tends to remain constant throughout one's life, emotional intelligence can be developed through both short-term and longer-term training programs. Short-term interventions, often lasting just several days, are designed to quickly boost emotional intelligence by focusing on immediate awareness and skill-building. Participants engage in role-playing, active listening, emotional reflection through journaling, and stress management techniques like breathing exercises, acquiring skills they can apply in daily interactions.

Longer programs, extend for several weeks or months, and allow for deeper, more sustained development of emotional intelligence. These typically include extended coaching, mentorship, and 360-degree feedback, supporting ongoing personal reflection and tailored improvements. Such programs progressively build EI skills, leading to lasting changes.

How to develop your emotional intelligence

Improving your emotional intelligence is a continuous journey, similar to strengthening a muscle-the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. By consistently applying certain strategies in your daily life, you will gradually enhance your emotional awareness, knowledge and skills and become more adept at managing both your emotions and your relationships. 

You can enhance your emotional intelligence development by integrating four core principles of learning into your daily routine, namely, experience, reflection, conceptualisation, and active experimentation.

1. Concrete experience: Learning is facilitated through direct participation in events or activities. It involves gaining firsthand experience without any filters or interpretations. In the context of EI, this means immersing yourself in situations that naturally evoke emotional responses, both for you and others.

For example, do not shy away from naturally occurring events that evoke emotional responses, such as teamwork conflicts or dealing with difficult stakeholders. Document these experiences in an ‘emotions journal’, noting the specific emotions felt, the triggers, your and other people’s reactions, and the outcomes. This direct engagement helps form a solid foundation for understanding emotional dynamics.

2. Reflective observation: Reflect on your emotional experiences from multiple perspectives. This includes analysing what happened, how you reacted, and considering how others may have perceived the situation and reacted. Do this by revisiting your emotional journal to contemplate your reactions and the triggers behind them.

For example, during a meeting, you might find yourself frustrated when a subordinate interrupts you with suggestions multiple times, leading to a sharp response from your side. In analysing this situation, you might start by considering the specific emotions you experienced. Were you mildly irritated, angry, sad, and/or depressed? What emotions do you think your subordinate was experiencing? What were the signs (e.g., vocal cues, facial expressions) that they were experiencing these emotions?

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Reflecting further, you would consider the possible reasons for your reaction, pondering whether it was merely the interruptions, the manner or context in which they occurred, or something related to the person who interrupted you. Was there something about how you appraised the situation (e.g., as an interruption as opposed to the subordinate trying to be helpful) that precipitated your negative feelings? Did you transition from one emotion to another? You might also think about how your subordinate might have viewed your response and how it might have created tension among others present.

Finally, you could reflect on specific strategies that you could have used to manage your and others’ emotions in this situation.

3. Abstract conceptualisation: Learning is facilitated by forming generalisations based on your reflections on your emotional experiences. This can be achieved by recognising general patterns in your and others’ emotional processes across situations. For example, what are the habitual ways in which you respond emotionally to being interrupted? Are there particular types of people (e.g., people you do not respect) who you are more sensitive to? Seek feedback and cross-check your insights with peers and mentors to gain external perspectives on how you generally handle different emotional situations.

With this feedback and your own insights, think about possible strategies for managing your emotions more effectively in future scenarios. For example, if you find that interruptions consistently trigger frustration, you might plan to address this by setting clear expectations at the beginning of meetings about when and how those present can interject.

This proactive approach could help manage your emotional response and improve communication. Alternatively, you might change the way you appraise the situation by conceiving the interruptions in a non-threatening way, such as an opportunity to learn others’ opinions.

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4. Active experimentation: Apply the emotional strategies you have developed to new situations to test their effectiveness. Monitor your own and others’ emotional reactions to these new strategies and how they affect your interactions; adjust based on the outcomes. This final stage involves translating learned concepts into practice and continuously refining your emotional skills through deliberate practice based on real-world feedback.

By cycling through these stages, you create a dynamic learning process that continuously enhances the knowledge and skills that underlie your emotional intelligence. This method not only helps in recognising and regulating your emotions but also in effectively managing relationships with various stakeholders which will help you to achieve positive social, economic, and environmental outcomes.

Dr Seung Jung (SJ) Yang is a lecturer in the School of Management and Governance at UNSW Business School. Her diverse teaching portfolio spans undergraduate integrated first-year courses and postgraduate international business courses. SJ is dedicated to research in emotional intelligence, responsible leadership, and management education. Prior to her academic career, she accumulated valuable experience working with multinational corporations in South Korea and provided cross-cultural consulting services to various Australian organisations.