Intuitively, it makes sense that leaders that are more engaged and engaging tend to elicit better responses and better results from their teams.  Perhaps nice people can finish first.

Now, the father of the concept of Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (What Makes A Leader), along with Richard Boyatiz are pushing the envelope by integrating new research in social neuroscience with their studies of effective leaders.  Their recent Harvard Business Review article, Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership, is fascinating reading for anyone intrigued by the role that our biological makeup plays in our leadership abilities.

For those of you that like the short-story, without all of the intriguing content on mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillators and how they fire together and impact groups, here’s the scoop:

“The salient discovery is that certain things that leaders do—specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’ moods—literally affect their own brain chemistry and that of their followers.”

And

“ Leading effectively is, in other words, less about mastering situations—or even mastering social skill sets—than about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support you need.”

I wonder if Goleman and Boyatiz new my grandmother who would often indicate, “you capture more flies with honey than vinegar.”

With no intent whatsoever of devaluing this very interesting research, those of us who have been insightful enough to focus on honing our own leadership skills over time generally reached the same conclusions as the authors. 

In Practical Lessons and Leadership (2007), I penned chapters that focused on this concept in The Leader’s Charter; Creating the Effective Working Environment, The Power of Paying Attention and Growing Your Leadership Credibility.  Both my co-author and I incorporated the theme of “developing others” as a principle task of an effective leader throughout the book.

In workshops and coaching sessions, I ask the participants to evaluate themselves on many dimensions, including their personal leadership practices.  I also encourage them to ask their team members to complete these same surveys to identify gaps and gain a truer view of the group’s perspective on the leader’s habits, styles and effectiveness.  While simple and non-scientific, the surveys quickly identify issues in the areas that Goleman and Boyatiz now indicate are so critical to a leader’s success.

 Your Assignment:

I’ve included a short, 20-question survey entitled, “Your Personal Leadership Practices,” with this post and I encourage you to take this survey yourself and assess the statements as honestly as possible.  Then, provide this same survey to your team members and have them assess you from their perspective along these dimensions.  For best results, your colleagues should remain anonymous.  (Feel free to use and copy this survey freely.)

Personal Leadership Practices Survey (PDF)

The non-scientific, no intensive studies required approach to gauging and using the results are as follows:

-If your ratings or the ratings of your colleagues tend towards disagree or strongly disagree, you are further away from the empathetic and attuned leader than closer. 

-Look for gaps in perceptions, especially where you believe you are strong and your colleagues indicate otherwise.  That perception gap is closer to the truth than your own opinion. 

-Leverage the results…especially the gaps to identify areas to improve and then do it.  Use these results as a baseline and conduct the surveys again in a few months after you’ve sought additional feedback and adapted your behaviors.  Repeat and rinse. 

-Where possible, leverage objective measures of team performance and monitor those measures/indicators over time.  Also, look for improvements in softer activities, including innovation, problem solving, and group dynamics.

The bottom-line:

I wrote in Practical Lessons that, “It is nice to be nice, but not necessary.”  The context was that you need to have credibility, you need to be respected and you need relate effectively to your team members, but you didn’t need to be everyone’s best friend.  I still stand behind that perspective, with just a bit more resolve on the need to empathize with, pay attention to and laugh with my team members. 

Thanks to Goleman and Boyatiz, we now have some pretty solid proof that those things count on the road to becoming an effective leader.