Introduction
In recent years, emotional intelligence (EI) has been recognized by many as a critical component of managing organizations efficiently. The previous environmental assessments provide an understanding that the healthcare industry is subjected to many changes; thus, a leader of an establishment must be prepared to adapt his or her approaches. EI enables such alterations by allowing to mitigate unnecessary stress and tension. This paper aims to analyze the concept of emotional intelligence in regards to leadership, develop a personal assessment, create a brand statement, and explain a chosen leadership model.
Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
A leader in any company should be aware of the needs that his or her followers have to ensure that employees can deliver better results, which is facilitated through EI. EI is defined by Chakrabarti and Chatterjea (2018) as an ability to understand and control personal emotions. This component enables a person to determine what he or she is feeling in a particular situation and the specific causes. Also, this helps one to be aware of other’s emotions as well, which enhances communication.
Therefore, a manager can predict possible reactions of individuals to particular decisions and messages and ensure positive outcomes. Goldman defines the five essential components that can help executives manage their organizations better – “self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills” (as cited in du Plessis, Wakelin, & Nel, 2015, p. 20). From this definition, one can argue that EI is helpful in both personal and professional life; moreover, a leader must have a high level of EI.
The factors mentioned above can help enhance one’s leadership skills because a self-aware person can assess his or her strengths and understand weaknesses, which would enable efficient work. Additionally, self-regulation allows executives to maintain control over their decisions in stressful situations, which results in a thorough analysis of events and proper decision-making process. Next, EI enables leaders to maintain high levels of personal motivation and ensure that other employees can work towards the company’s goals.
Empathy and social skills establish a better connection between managers and staff members leading to increased loyalty. Using this approach an individual can resolve conflicts in the organization by understanding different points of view, be better at providing rewards and punishments through a proper understanding of other’s emotions, and communicate with the personnel more cohesively.
Therefore, EI and leadership have a connection because the ability to control one’s emotions can help executives make better decisions, based on facts and not his or her feelings about a particular matter. According to Arunima and Ajeye (2014), previous researches proved that healthcare leaders could benefit from applying EI in their work because they can understand the patient’s needs more comprehensively.
Another aspect is the connection with employees, which enables the execution of daily tasks. For instance, du Plessis, Wakelin, and Nel (2015) state that executives who use servant style can build a good connection with their followers by using EI because it helps to establish trust within a company. This factor facilitates a better workplace environment and can help improve the efficiency of an organization.
Personal Leadership Assessment
A chaotic situation that I experienced is a change in practices of billing and reimbursements due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As an insurance company, Anthem had to create a plan that would enable patients to take advantage of the legislation while bringing profits to the company. The team members in my department were required to learn a lot of new information regarding the new financial system and offer insight into possible programs that can help Anthem. This provided a lot of stress for both the management and employees due to time constraints and uncertainties, thus affecting my ability to work efficiently.
In stressful situations, similar to the one described above one should apply the five EI components that were mentioned in the first section of this paper. Thus, through self-awareness one can assess the elements that contribute to stress and adverse outcomes, in this case, this is time constraints and uncertainties (Chakrabarti, & Chatterjea, 2018). This factor contributes to self-management because one can come up with strategies that help deal with similar occurrences. For example, I can apply mindfulness, which is recommended by Bao, Xue, and Kong (2015) because it affects the perception of stress on a particular instance. The authors define the notion as an attempt to connect internal understanding and external events, which may help perceive an occurrence differently.
Other components of EI, empathy, and social skills help explain to others how I feel about this event and what can be done in the future to ensure that no stress occurs for the employees. This can be carried out by talking to colleagues to assess their opinion and communicating with the executives to ensure that they are aware of the issue. Alternatively, the Forbes Coaching Council (2018) recommends writing out one’s thoughts to manage anger and identify potential responses of others. By using this insight, it can be concluded that throughout my future leadership development I will focus on reducing stress through mindfulness, to ensure that I can achieve success as a manager.
Personal Leadership Brand Statement
The STAR method, situational leadership assessment, and EI test can help me create a personal brand statement that will reflect my values. My leadership brand can be described by the two following words – compassionate adaptability so that I can integrate a patient-centered approach in the challenging environment of the healthcare insurance industry and help Anthem reach its goal of attaining profit from the ACA program in 2019 and increasing the number of clients by 30%.
Personal Leadership Model
Leadership strategy that can help guide a team and ensure its efficiency should be based on cooperation and exchange of information between members of the department. According to Jamshed, Nor, and Bakar (2017), knowledge exchange is a method for overcoming obstacles in healthcare management. More specifically, the authors argue that EI and knowledge sharing are among the crucial factors that contribute to the efficiency of teamwork in healthcare.
This is because productivity requires proper coordination and cooperation from individuals. Thus, one may apply the strategy of sharing insights, such as “task-relevant information, experiences, and perspectives” to motivate colleagues for better work (Jamshed et al., 2017, p. 34). Within this strategy, EI ensures that team members are capable of understanding other individual’s perspectives on particular issues, thus, creating a better environment for cooperation and teamwork. A leader can apply EI and knowledge exchange to improve communication, ensure proper conflict resolution, and motivate personnel by assessing factors that matter to particular individuals.
Any leader should be aware of financial targets and prioritize revenue for his or her company. Therefore, economic forecasts would help me leverage my adaptability and develop organizational strategies that help Anthem be a profitable organization. For instance, Madden (2015) states that modern health care establishments shift their focus from quantity to quality, which requires soft leadership approaches from financial specialists.
In this regard, a leader can enable the effectiveness of his or her team by mitigating stress from adverse economic outcomes and creating efficient strategies by avoiding an emotional judgment of the situation. Therefore, executives should base their style of managing teams on the profitability prospects to be effective.
My leadership approach reflects the mission and values of Anthem because I prioritize compassion for patients, while Anthem aims to bring benefit to the communities in which it operates. Additionally, the company highlights the importance of being innovational, which can be carried out through the adaptation of new technologies, strategies, and patient care approaches. For instance, a new technology that enables motoring one’s health state regularly would require Anthem to change its plans and adapt strategies, for which executives would have to alter their approaches to work.
This competency is reflected in my adaptability brand statement because a leader would have to change his methods to enable innovation and development for Anthem. Moreover, the chosen leadership style corresponds with my personal and professional ethics, because I consider bringing novel healthcare services to individuals to be my mission at Anthem.
Conclusion
Overall, this paper provides an understanding of emotional intelligence as a critical component of adequate leadership. Additionally, the personal situational assessment, STAR analysis, and EI testing allow identifying compassion and adaptability as core statements of my brand. The two accurately reflect the needs of both Anthem and the health insurance industry to change and provide quality services to patients. Further examination of leadership approaches presents a knowledge sharing strategy as an approach to managing teams efficiently.
References
Arumina, S., & Ajeye, J. (2014). Age and emotional intelligence of healthcare leaders: A study. Advances in Management, 7(7), 41-48.
Bao, X., Xue, S., & Kong, F. (2015). Dispositional mindfulness and perceived stress: The role of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 78, 48-52.
Chakrabarti, G., & Chatterjea, T. (2018). Employees’ emotional intelligence, motivation & productivity, and organizational excellence: A future trend in HRD. Singapore, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.
du Plessis, M., Wakelin, Z., & Nel, P. (2015). The influence of emotional intelligence and trust on servant leadership. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 41(1), 1-9.
Forbes Coaches Council. (2018). 14 things emotionally intelligent people do in times of high stress. Forbes. Web.
Jamshed, S., Nor, M. N., & Bakar, R. A. (2017). Enhancing team effectiveness through leader emotional intelligence and knowledge sharing: Structural equation modeling approach. International Online Journal of Educational Leadership, 1(1), 34-59. Web.
Madden, M. (2015). Soft-leadership competencies for today’s healthcare finance executives. Healthcare Financial Management. 69(5), 42.