EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE IMPACT OF EACH ON LEADER COMMUNICATION

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE, AND CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE IMPACT OF EACH ON LEADER COMMUNICATION

Phuoc D. Nguyen

Abstract

Global leaders need to possess skills of emotional intelligence (EI), social intelligence (SI), and cultural intelligence (cultural quotient: CQ); these three intelligence forms include skills that positively support leader communication to reach leadership effectiveness. This paper describes the impact of EI, SI, and CQ on leader communication; leader communication is used throughout the leadership process. The paper has also used EI, SI, CQ, leadership communication literature, and best practices as pieces of evidence to support these impacts; it finds out the relationship among EI, SI, and CQ and its skills which impact positively leader communication. The author suggests added skills of social change sensitivity including political, economic, cultural, and legal changes for SI, emotional sensitivity for EI, and multi-cultural sensitivity and cross-cultural team building and team-working for CQ. Lastly, the author suggests future research on the impact of leadership intelligence including intelligence forms related to leadership on leader communication.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, social intelligence, cultural intelligence, leadership communication, cross-cultural team, team-working, leadership effectiveness, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skill, emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, self-confidence; self-management, self-control, transparency, social awareness, organizational awareness, relationship management, change catalysts, conflict management, teamwork and collaboration, emotional expressiveness, emotional sensitivity, emotional control, social self-efficacy, impression management, intercultural communications sensitivity.

Leadership communication plays a very important role in the leadership process to reach leadership effectiveness. To reach leadership effectiveness a leader needs to possess EI, SI, and CQ. SQ has subsets of EI and CQ and they have closed correlations and relationships with each other. How do EI, SI, and CQ and the impact of each on leader communication? The EI impacts on leader communication because EI includes skills of perception and interpretation of cues and effective interaction with others. The SI impacts leader communication because SI includes skills of perception and interpretation of emotional cues and expressing of emotion. The CQ impacts leader communication because of CQ includes skills of perception and interpretation of cultural cues and effective processing of cultural information. EI, SI, and CQ have also included skills that impact indirectly on leader communication.

The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Leader Communication

One of the most fundamental intelligence forms for effective leadership communication is EI. A leader implements a leadership communication process and channels that he/she needs to own highly EI. His/her EI positively impacts leader communication. Therefore, leadership communication and EI are critical success factors for every organization.

Haji, Bemby & Sentosa (2013) explain “EI is an ability of a person in knowing and understanding him or herself and other people. People’s emotional quotient and spiritual quotient might be a greater predictor of success rather than intelligence quotient” (as cited in Goleman,1995). Haji et al. (2013) note further “More emotionally intelligent persons are categorized as succeed at communicating whether interesting and affirm ways, that could others feel better in the job circumstances (as cited in Goleman,1998). Goleman (1999) proposes “EI comprises five components of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill” (p. 9). Goleman (2014) states “EQ included competencies of self-awareness – emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, self-confidence; self-management – self-control, transparency, adaptability, achievement, initiative, optimism; social awareness – empathy, organizational awareness, service; relationship management – inspiration, influence, developing others, change catalysts, conflict management, teamwork, and collaboration” (pp. 51-52). Goleman uses the motivation component in his EI model 1999 to integrate it into his EI competencies model 2014 because all EQ competencies included motivation skills.

Jadhav and Gupta (2014) based on Goleman’s EI Model (1999 & 2014) to supplement skills included the Self-awareness Cluster included Emotional Self-awareness; the Self-regulation Cluster included Trustworthiness, Conscientiousness, and Innovation; the Empathy Cluster included Understanding Others, Developing Others, Leveraging Diversity, and Political Awareness; the Social Skills Cluster included Communication, Leadership, Building Bonds, and Cooperation.

There is a strong presence of ‘Communication skills’ in other clusters as well. Several research studies have shown significant ties between communication skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and empathy. Self-awareness is also often a prerequisite for effective communication and interpersonal relations, as well as for developing empathy for others. When one possesses self-awareness he/she can practice effective communication because one is cognizant of how he/she comes across to people” (Jadhav and Gupta, 2014, p. 86). Accurate self-assessment of self-awareness competency that leaders know their leadership strengths and weaknesses. As a result, they will communicate to their colleagues, peers, superiors, leadership consultants, and leadership coaches to receive improvement, support, instruction, and advice aimed at improving their leadership weaknesses, enhancing their current leadership competencies, and acquiring and updating appropriate new leadership competencies. Accurate self-assessment results support leaders in studying and practicing effective leadership communication skills and consolidating interpersonal relations. The Achievement of self-management competency that leaders use appropriate leadership communication channels to motivate their subordinates to reach desired performance, enhance and improve organizational performance continually. Transparency of self-management competency that leaders communicate publicly to the entire organization their wrongful mistakes, they enlighten all their leadership actions, and they also take responsibility for their leadership actions. The empathy of social awareness that leaders implement their leadership communication through others’ emotions, they can read others’ thoughts, listen to all of others’ ideas and opinions, and understand others’ viewpoints. Service of social awareness competency that leaders create marketing communication channels, they encourage their subordinates to communicate directly to customers aim to consolidate relationships with customers and create new relationships. Inspiration of relationship management competency Leaders inspire organizational goals in their subordinates, they create the motive for their subordinates to reach beyond organizational goals; they use leadership communication channels such as organizational communication, intranet communication, and management information systems to inspire their subordinates. Influence of relationship management competency that leaders use verbal or non-verbal communication and their credibility to influence their subordinates through internal professional networks. Developing others of relationship management competency that leaders use leadership communication to coach, instruct, and train their subordinates. Change catalysts of relationship competency that leaders identify change needs in each stage, they use leadership communication to project a change plan; and activate, coordinate, and evaluate the change. Conflict management of relationship management competency that leaders use leadership communication to identify conflicts, coordinate cross-functional teams, cross-cultural teams, allocate resources, and resolve conflicts. Teamwork and collaboration of relationship management competency that leaders use leadership communication to implement team building and teamwork; leaders are the primary catalyst to develop and activate teamwork; connecting and building collaboration to teams, and building team-working spirit.

Riggio and Reichard (2008) indicate “The three emotional skills are: (1) emotional expressiveness; (2) emotional sensitivity; and (3) emotional control. While emotional expressiveness is the ability to communicate nonverbally, especially when sending emotional messages. Emotional sensitivity refers to skill in receiving and interpreting the nonverbal, or emotional, expressions of others. Finally, emotional control refers to regulating nonverbal and emotional displays” (p. 171). Emotional expressiveness should include verbal communication and written communication. Emotional sensitivity is the ability to understand and read others’ emotions and emotional climate through others’ behavior, actions, writing, facial expressions, voice, gestures, and attitude in sensitive situations. Emotional control is the ability to keep calm under stressful situations.

EI has a close relationship with SI. Goleman’s (2014) EI competencies of social awareness and relationship management contribute to creating the SI.

The Impact of Social Intelligence on Leader Communication

SI has a positive impact on leader communication. Leaders who have high SI that they have always use leadership communication in every social process. Every activity of the organization has always interacted with the society in the geographical areas where the organization operates. Therefore, leaders should possess EI and SI in their leadership communication.

Subramanian (2016) proposes “The key elements of SI included Verbal Fluency and Conversational Skills, Knowledge of Social Roles, Rules, and Scripts, Effective Listening Skills, Understanding What Makes Other People Tick, Role Playing and Social Self-Efficacy, and Impression Management Skills. (p. 129). Social interaction requires leaders who possess great communication skills such as Verbal Fluency Conversational Skills and Effective Listening Skills. All EI and SI competencies include leadership communication and leaders should take advantage of opportunities to communicate effectively and use their EI and SI competencies to reach leadership effectiveness. Leaders should measure their EI and SI competencies implementation to assess the impact outcomes of their EI and SI competencies in leadership communication. Leaders use their Verbal Fluency Conversational Skills and Effective Listening Skills to follow up on the delivery of their message and to receive feedback and response from their message receiver through appropriate leadership communication channels. Leaders survey periodically their leadership communication satisfaction to improve their leadership communication skills and supplement new leadership communication channels. SI sensitivity skill helps leaders plan good communication strategies aimed at creating new social relationships and consolidating existing social relationships. Leaders classify leadership communications channels that fit their leadership communications channels to fit social interaction in every leadership communication activity.

Dong, Koper and Collaço (2008) demonstrate “Intercultural communication sensitivity (ICS) is crucial for individuals to possess when dealing with people who are from different cultural backgrounds. This sensitivity leads individuals to better understand and respect others and themselves. Studies indicate that intercultural communication sensitivity may help people accomplish goals and prevent misunderstandings” (pp. 167-169). Global leaders who lead their workforce in different countries at geographical areas and regions and their workforce from different cultural backgrounds; require leaders who have high SI, emotional sensitivity, social sensitivity, and ICS thus SI competencies fit ICS. ICS requires global leaders who always acquire multicultural knowledge, norms, customs, new cultural understanding, and adaption skills. Furthermore, ICS requires a sensitivity level higher than emotional and social sensitivity. Global leaders stimulate and adapt appropriately to national, regional, and local cultures to understand deeply multi-cultural behaviors and respect multi-cultural people.

Moreover, global leaders integrate organizational culture into national, regional, and local cultures to create their organizational culture values. SI competencies of Knowledge of Social Roles, Rules, and Scripts, Effective Listening Skills, Understanding What Makes Other People Tick, Role Playing and Social Self-Efficacy and SI competencies of interest and concern for others and empathy are very important to creating high ICS, emotional sensitivity, and social sensitivity.

Riggio and Reichard (2008) propose “The three corresponding social skills are labeled: Social expressiveness is ability to communicate verbally and skill in engaging others in social interaction. Social sensitivity is verbal listening skill, but also ability to ‘read’ social situations, and general knowledge of social rules and norms. Social control refers to sophisticated social role-playing skills and tact in social situations” (pp. 171-172). Social expressiveness expresses leaders’ social emotion and thinking to interact with and inspire the society through use of verbal fluency and conversational skills. Social sensitivity is the ability to identify, understand, and analyze social changes and social situations that impact organizational activities.

The Impact of Cultural Intelligence on Leader Communication

Crowne (2009) suggests “The interpersonal aspects of SI include the interpersonal aspects of CQ; only CQ specifically focuses on cultural aspects of interaction. This also indicates that CQ could be a subset of SI” (p. 154). EI addresses emotional elements and EI is a subset of SI too thus having the relationship between SQ, EI, and CQ.

Javaheri, Safarnia, and Mollahosseini (2013) state “CQ means the ability of gathering and processing the messages in order to adopt the required decisions and related approaches for finding compatibility with a new environment. CQ consists of these four dimensions: Meta-cognitive CQ or cultural intelligence strategy contains the mental interactions of an individual in the acquisition of knowledge and understanding appropriate communication methods among different cultures. Cognitive CQ is defined as an individual’s cultural knowledge about economic, legal, and social aspects of different cultures and can be acquired from educational and personal experience. Motivational CQ shows the ability of individuals in directing their attention to understanding cultural differences, preserving their energy for learning, and having motivation to work in cross-cultural situations. Behavioral CQ is defined as the capability to perform culturally preferential verbal and non-verbal actions when interacting with people from a different culture” (pp. 539-540). CQ uses appropriate leadership communication channels to create and deliver appropriate messages based on acquired multicultural knowledge, norms, behaviors, and beliefs that fit national, regional, and local cultures in a new multicultural environment. Meta-cognitive CQ supports leaders to learn and adapt multicultural knowledge, norms, customs to acquire great and leadership styles, behavior, and attitudes and uses appropriate multi-cultural communication channels to communicate organizational goals and strategies aimed to reach leadership effectiveness in a multicultural environment. Cognitive CQ helps to acquire aspects of political, cultural, legal, social, historical, and economic knowledge to global leaders in different cultures to understand and communicate national, regional, local, and personal cultures. Motivational CQ helps global leaders who self-motivate to learn multi-cultural norms aim to understand people in different cultures and motivate people to follow organizational culture which integrated it into local and personal cultures; leaders deal in and adapt appropriately to cultural differences and situations. He/she manages to stress smoothly caused by cultural differences. Behavioral CQ helps leaders who implement verbal and non-verbal fluency communication; cultural behavior and leadership attitudes fit and harmonize in different cultures.

Bücker, Furrer, Poutsma, and Buyens (2014) state “CQ is an important facilitator in cross-cultural interactions. Because communication is a key process in developing understanding and adjustment between people of different cultures, any ability to enhance this process is important and should be nurtured” (p. 21). Global leaders categorize personal or group behaviors and attitudes from different cultures to integrate them into appropriate behaviors and attitudes that fit organizational, national, and local cultures. Leaders study to understand new cultures, beliefs, customs, taboos, and ethos to behave in different national and organizational culture situations. Moreover, leaders adapt to new cultures to remove cultural differences, values, and language barriers and communicate effectively through cultural communication sensitivity and multi-cultural communication. Leaders use sensible senses to identify how individual personality traits in comparison to their personality traits, organizational culture, and their own national culture.

Conclusion

Crowne (2009) demonstrates the relationships among SI, EI, and CQ. He summarizes skills associated with SI, EI, and CQ. “Common skills associated with SI as the super-ordinate construct to EI & CQ included perception and interpretation of cues, sensitivity to complex situations, flexibility in behaviors, effective interaction with others, and continuously learning” (p. 158). We see that skills of perception and interpretation of cues, effective interaction with others, perception and interpretation of emotional cues, expressing of emotion, perception, and interpretation of cultural cues, and effective processing of cultural information impact directly leader communication. Whereas skills of motivation to learn about cultures and possessing cultural knowledge help global leaders to possess the skill of multi-cultural communication sensitivity to communicate multi-cultural effectively. Furthermore, SI, EI, and CQ require skills of perception and interpretation and continuous learning. All of skills the above- mentioned help multi-cultural and global leaders to reach leadership effectiveness. It is suggested that to supplement the skill of sensitivity to social changes including political, economic, cultural, and legal changes for SI to communicate these changes to message receivers quickly and timely; add the skill of emotional sensitivity for EI, this skill is most important to EI because it helps leaders to read emotion and he/she reacts immediately and timely to understand emotion aims to express emotion effectively; add the skill of multi-cultural sensitivity for CQ, this skill helps leaders communicate multi-cultural effectively. However, Crowne’s (2009) research has not mentioned on skills of cross-cultural team building and team-working for CQ. Skills of the EI, SI, and CQ show the positive impact of each on leader communication; EI and CQ are subsets of SI, between EI and CQ have a relationship with each other thus this demonstrates the relationships among SI, EI, and CQ. Therefore, SI, EI, and CQ impact positively on leader communication. The larger significance of the EI, SI, and CQ and the impact of each on leader communication is the impact of leadership intelligence on leader communication; all of the intelligence forms that have leadership relationships are subsets of leadership intelligence. It needs to research further about this subject.

References

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