Rachael Watson
L A497A
Selected Reading
Refining Emotional Intelligence
Daniel Goleman’s “What Makes a Leader” illustrates the importance of a leader
possessing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence encompasses self-awareness, selfregulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. I agree with Goleman’s view that emotional
intelligence is vital for a leader to succeed, more so than even one’s IQ and technical skills, but
I’m not completely convinced that emotional intelligence can be taught.
Goleman states that emotional intelligence can be learned, but I’m not sure I completely
agree with this assessment. Although I believe that an individual can acquire knowledge
regarding emotional intelligence, I do believe that the traits of the individual determine whether
this knowledge is put into action. For a leader to exhibit emotional intelligence, I believe the
individual must possess innate characteristics that cause them to strive for this type of leadership.
I tend to believe that you can’t teach an individual to be motivated or empathetic; these
are innate characteristics and part of the personality of the individual. These innate
characteristics allow for an individual to grasp and successfully exhibit emotional intelligence.
Goleman does state that learning emotional intelligence is difficult and one must have a great
deal of desire and commitment in order to learn emotional intelligence. I believe that for one to
even possess the needed desire or willingness to commit to learning emotional intelligence, that
the individual must have innate characteristics that would make them care about acquiring
emotional intelligence and putting it into action. I don’t believe that the concept of emotional
intelligence can be taught to an individual without that individual already possessing some form
of emotional intelligence inherently.
In “Exploring Psychology” by David G. Myers it is stated that, “heredity predisposes one
quickly apparent aspect of personality- temperament, or emotional excitability” (Myers, 2010)
and “…that our biologically rooted temperament provides building blocks for our enduring
personality” (Myers, 2010). So while one can be taught the five components of emotional
intelligence, I think that for one to truly be a leader who displays emotional intelligence, they
must possess specific innate characteristics. Ultimately I don’t believe the individual is learning
emotional intelligence, but the individual is simply refining their existing emotional intelligence.
Reference
Myers, D. G. (2010). Exploring Psychology (8th Ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.