It’s no longer considered a very profound insight to note that managing people, teams, or a company means navigating your way through a sea of change. The emotionally intelligent manager does not just steer a course through the sea. Such a manager sets the course.
Managers are better able to see where they need to go and get their ships to that distant land by creating change. How do they do this? One method of creating change is to leverage the four emotional abilities and follow a general approach, or Emotional Blueprint, to management.
The Story: Jack Welch
Mr. Tough-Guy himself, Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, might be considered an emotionally unintelligent leader. He was known for his rude and blunt style, as well as his impulsive and, at times, nasty behavior.
For instance, Welch relates a speech he gave to the Elfun Society, an elite social organization whose ranks were drawn from GE’s management. Invited as the guest of honor to a large Elfun Society meeting, Welch bluntly told the assembled group that they were an anachronism and of little value. Not surprisingly, his speech was not received with a great deal of warmth. In fact, as he writes, “There was stunned silence when I ended the speech. I tried to soften the blow by milling around the bar for an hour. However, no one was in the mood for cheering up.”
The Emotionally Intelligent Manager Analysis
Certainly, any leader with half an ounce of emotional intelligence would not have been surprised at the feelings generated by such a speech in this self-congratulatory environment. This was Welch at his worst—blunt, aggressive, and angry. Or was it? His words were not encouraging and did not support the group’s current efforts. Not only did he surprise the hundred or so participants but he likely alienated and angered them. We suppose that if Welch really understood emotions, he should not have been surprised by how his speech was received. But we wonder whether Welch, on some level, knew exactly what he was doing and could have predicted, with some accuracy, how people would feel when he was done with his message.
This message delivered a strong dose of medicine that was needed because the patient—the Society—was sick. Welch administered the cure, and it hurt. The Elfun Society re-engineered itself sometime after Welch’s attack—an attack we might now view as a wake-up call and a challenge. The Society’s members heard the call and rose to the challenge, becoming a communityservicedriven group that made itself both relevant and important again to GE, as well as to its members.
There may have been softer ways of generating change but perhaps not many more effective means of generating such change in this entrenched organization. Sometimes, the emotionally intelligent leader must confront others and generate conflict as well as negative feelings in order to be effective. The key is to know when and how to do it, just as Welch did during that dinner speech.
A Plan for the Emotionally Intelligent Manager
Did Welch use the Emotional Blueprint in these situations or during his long tenure at the helm of GE? We don’t know the answer to this question, but we can apply the blueprint for him and, by doing so, perhaps help you see how it can help you become an emotionally intelligent manager. Here’s our emotional intelligence analysis concerning how Welch handled this situation.
Identifying Emotions: the group’s mood is complacent, content, and happy.
Using Emotions: the group is narrowly focused, and their focus is internal, on themselves. They don’t see or feel the bigger picture.
Understanding Emotions: A wake-up call would shock them out of their complacency. They would be surprised, then angry.
Managing Emotions: Once they were awakened, their complacent worldview could be challenged, and this emotional discord could motivate them to grow and develop.
Welch’s ability to communicate a vision and passion also appears to reflect keen emotional ability. One of our hypotheses regarding the ability to use emotions is that it is the underlying engine that drives charismatic leaders and the ability to create and communicate a vision. Mind you, we do not yet have solid data to back this claim. It is, essentially, our own gut feeling.
The Outcome and Lessons Learned
Is Welch an emotionally intelligent individual or manager? There are a number of examples of emotionally unintelligent behavior on Welch’s part outside the workplace, and his workplace demeanor was not always pleasant or supportive. Yet we cannot help but be impressed by the many examples of Welch’s actions and decisions that seem to us to reflect at least certain of the four emotional intelligence abilities.
Managing through tough times requires making tough decisions. If you cannot make these tough decisions, if you are too nice and are unable to handle negative emotion and conflict, you might be an effective manager when times are good but flail around helplessly in times of trouble. We do not advocate toughness, meanness, or outbursts as a management tool. But we do advocate for the identification, use, understanding, and management of the entire spectrum of our emotions.