Great Leaders have high Emotional Intelligence.

 The leaders are always very effective not only due to their strategic planning, vision and influential ideas but also to a huge extent through their emotions. No matter what the strategies and plans they set their success depends on how they implement it. Great Leaders are the torch bearers in driving the emotions towards the right path for human quality development.

The leaders and managers of the organizations need to possess the emotional competencies which are required to manage emotions of their own and others, as well as to drive the emotions in the accurate way.

Our history is full of the examples of great leaders who ignite our enthusiasm and bring out the best in us. 

Mother Teresa

Leaders are required to possess the courage to make decisions and sometimes even get criticized for them. Mother Teresa was criticized by people many times for her exceptional decisions and distinctive works as she had chosen the path less traveled. But her response was to stand by her beliefs, values and focus on getting her task completed .

“Mother Teresa is one of those humans who had a simple dream that profoundly changed our world. Her dream was helping the poorest of the poor. She began with that vision, and then developed a clear plan for making it come true”.

She communicated in a language which people understand. To her, communication was being a good listener rather than being a good speaker. She used the power of silence and gave close attention to people’s thought and responses.

 Mahatma Gandhi:

Gandhi is known to be an emotionally balanced individual, a leader who holds the qualities of being Sthitpragya, who enjoys the objects, emotions and thoughts of the world without being unduly disturbed by the fluctuations and challenges of the world

Gandhi was an excellent example of this he was not flattered by praise or scared by censure. He said that he who swells with praise & sink with criticism cannot deliver service. Gandhi had the ability to initiate and implement change for the benefit of the maximum number of people through minimum harm. He was a symbol of change and humanitarian in outlook which made him earn appreciation even from opponents.

Abdul Kalam:

Emotionally intelligent leaders have a unique competence of imparting lessons for society through their life instances. One of the incidences of Abdul Kalam’s life describes this.

Abdul Kalam in his interview with Knowledge @ Wharton said that one of the important lessons he learned in the space and missile program was not just how to handle success but how to deal with failure. He wanted the young people to understand how they should manage failure. As they will face problems in any project they take up and sometimes it can even result in failure. He asked young people to have the positive attitude and not to loose heart as failure teaches us many new things.