Abstract

This journal intends to explain on what is leadership and discuss the author’s
perspective on the importance of having leadership values such as emotional
intelligence and effective communication within oneself. This journal will mainly
discuss what does leadership means and assessed the characters that are prevalent
in being a leader. This journal will also discuss the relevance of emotional intelligence
and effective communication in the workplace. All the issues therein will mainly refer
to the author’s past working experience and life experiences.

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Introduction

Leadership has become one of the most important traits that all employers are
looking for when recruiting. Some employers even go the extra mile to conduct
leadership programs for their employee before they are promoted to a higher position.
This is to ensure they have the necessary leadership skill to run the department and
the skills in managing his subordinates effectively. Due to its importance leadership
has always become a topic of extensive research over time. Many people have
attempted to define the concept (Bass, 1990). Leadership by definition is the process
of influencing an organized group to achieve its goal (Hershey & Blanchard, 1988).
Whereas Stogdill (1950) defines it as the process of an influencing the activities of an
organized group. It is accepted that the definition of leadership is subjective. However,
the most cited definition in the studies of leadership is the notion of transformational
leadership and transactional leadership (Burns, 1978).

Leadership to me is the ability to inspire and motivate others. A leader in my view must
be to able to communicate effectively, has emotional intelligence, be firm and
considerate to their followers. I strongly believe leaders must able to lead themselves
before they lead others. In doing so there must have necessary skills and ability such
as emotional intelligence and communication skills.
Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is one of the important ability that a leader should
have. EI is ‘the act of using and viewing the emotions through perception, control, and
evaluation' (Allen 2013: 6). Allen (2013) believes emotional intelligence can evolve
and grow. Mayer and Salovey in their article ‘Emotion Intelligence' in 1990 discussed
four branches to emotional intelligence namely perception, reason, understand and
manage. Emotional perception or perceiving emotions is the kind knowledge obtain
after observing the mannerism and body expressions of ourselves and others. To learn
and understand perceive one's own emotion one need to have the knowledge of
learned behavior. Learning it would help a person to handle his own emotion by
neutralizing it rather than allowing it to destroy himself. Reasoning emotions, on the
other hand, is the thought process as to why and how a person has those emotions.
This reasoning helps a person to deal with frustration, anxiety and anger within
ourselves.

The study of emotional intelligence has always become a subject of my interest as it

involve the study of human behavior and emotions. I constantly observe people’s
emotion when the socialize with people around them. The emotion that most people
have is anxiety. I believe emotion like anxiety need to be handle well. Too much of
anxiety will affect the work performance of a person and his social life. It is imperative
that a person understand his own emotions first so that he or she can plan on how to
overcome it. In my opinion a wise person should do self-reflection from time to time as
to why he is angry or sad. This to prepare themselves in dealing with that emotion
should it rises again in the future. For example, I have a friend who often offended
people around him with his comments without realizing it. He did not seem to care
whether people were offended by his words or actions what more to say sorry for
behaving that way. Ever since that people have started to distance themselves from
him. He had indeed created a bad impression of himself. He does not have the
emotional intelligence and professionalism in dealing with people around him in stress
working environment. As a leader one cannot let his frustration or anger influenced the
way he interact with others especially with his followers. When he behave in such a
way he is seen to others as someone who is emotionally unstable, unwise, immature,
rude and lack of the qualities in becoming a leader.
This kind of situation makes me realized how important it is for me to control my
emotion. Throughout my life I have always welcome any situation in which my
emotional intelligence is tested. I believe the best way to learn to control our emotion
is through practice and experience. I know people will take advantage of my weakness
if I were to show I lack emotional intelligence. Hence, I constantly feed myself with a
positive attitude and mindset in any situation.

My interest in the study of human behaviour has helped me to understand people

around me better. This is reflected during my employment at Petronas Refinery
Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project where I was provoked by the
engineers from the refinery and cracker project site. The engineers' question as to why
they are being micro-manage by my department in doing their work. They raised their
voice and throw provocative questions at me and my team. I had to explore all possible
ways on how to break their ego and convince them. After a lengthy discussion they
tone down and able to understand my reasoning. Ever since that meeting, I have
earned respect from my bosses and my colleague as I was able to control the situation
professionally.

Effective and Diplomatic Communication

Other than having emotional intelligence ability, having effective

communication skill is equally important as well. According to Wong & Law (2002),
how leaders communicate with his follower have an impact on the follower's perception
towards a leader. Furthermore, it would also affect the followers’ job satisfaction. An
employee who has good communication skill would not only help the organizations to
achieve success and growth in the long run but also himself. Vice versa lack of
communication skill may lead to confusion, different interpretations, misunderstanding
and might impact his or her career growth.

In my personal view a person may have leadership qualities however he may

not be able to lead if he cannot communicate well. A leader must be able to
communicate convincingly, clearly and have the skill to persuade others. Effective
communication opens the door to understanding what the leader stands for. Besides
that it would lead to success if a leader able to articulate his idea well and what is
expect from his followers (Frese. et.al. 2003, Deborah J. Barrett, 2006)
 My leadership experience in Ambank has taught me the importance of giving
clear direction. I realized the importance of communicating clearly to my team
members. Their understanding of how the task is to be carried out is important as it
determines the result of the task. When I instructed my team to perform any task, I
structure my words so that they able to understand easily as to how I expect the task
to be carried out. I have always tried to be clear and concise in giving instruction. I
understand that I have the responsibility to ensure all of them understand what needs
to be done to complete the task.

My communication skill is best reflected in the way I manage my team

members. There were times I had to exercise diplomatic communication in managing
conflict, such as when managing a team member who has a disciplinary issue. I used
to have a team member who often arrived late to the office most of the days. I had to
approach her and ask if she has any problem that requires my attention. I advised her
that she needs to be punctual as it would affect her own year-end performance
assessment. However, despite the friendly advice she keeps coming late for work.
Despite the frustration I did not let my emotion influenced the way I communicate with
her. I knew the way I interact with her would have an impact on her impression on me.
Furthermore, her determination to help the organizations to achieve its goal would also
deteriorate. Hence, I had to exercised diplomatic communication in order to influence
her to change. After months of coaching, I manage to mold her into becoming a good
employee.

Arguably dealing with difficult employees are inherent in every organizations or

companies. Most employers have become cautious during an interview for recruitment
to avoid hiring people with lack of leadership qualities and disciplined. In most
interviews, employees are assess with their ability to answer technical and critical
thinking questions. The underlying issue is whether is it effective and reliable? It can
be argued that merely relying on the technical interview questions that is inherent to
job description are insufficient. Employers should also explore other effective ways
such as colored brain test and dope test to understand their employee better.

According to Arthur F Carmazzi, the Colored Brain Communication Inventory

(CBCI) is a practical assessment of how people are distinguished from others by their
own specific way of processing the world around them, processing information,
learning, problem-solving, communicating and relating to others. The test scores is
divided into four colors green, red, purple and blue all of which have different
characteristics. The CBCI is believe to allow people to understand others at a deeper
level and unleash greater potential within them upon knowing themselves.

Besides that, the employers also have the option to adopt the Big Five
Personality Traits Test. It is widely used among human resources professionals during
the hiring process. This is because the five personality traits are considered to be the
underlying traits that make up a person's overall personality. Big five test is considered
to be a reliable test to assess an individual's overall personality on the aspect of
openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. This test
could facilitate employers effort in seeking an employee with leadership traits.

This test has help me to discover my strength that is unknown to me. I knew I
could remain calm after I took the big five personality traits test. The test shows that I
have low neuroticism. Neuroticism refers to the tendency to experience negative
feelings. My ability to remain calm is best reflected in one of the participated activity
under the leadership module. In that activity I was chosen to be Chief Commissioner
for the press conference. We were woken up at three am to prepare for the press
conference. During that press conference I was bombarded with provocative
questions. I knew at that time how I react to all the provocative questions would reflect
my level of emotional intelligence to the crowd. Despite being provoked I managed to
answer all the questions calmly. This justifies my ability to remain exceptionally calm,
composed and unflappable in a provocative situation and stress environment.

Conclusion

In the nutshell, leadership skills are indeed important in leading an organization for
better growth in terms of performance and productivity. If an organization lack of
people with leadership skills leading a department would lead to dysfunction to the
operation of an organization, as a result it would affects the company's performance
in the long run. I believe leaders should have prevalent skills such as knowing how to
manage people, manage conflicting of ideas, communicate with clarity and exercise
diplomacy. Based on my past working experiences people tend to choose and follow
those who has leadership skill to be their leaders. When they choose a leader they
have full confidence that he or she knows how to guide them in achieving their goals.
It is accepted that leaders must first be seen to portray their ability to guide others in
order to gain their follower’s confidence before they are choose as a leader. During
that process the leaders’ aura would resonates to others and once their followers are
convince with their ability it pushes them to decide who should be their leader. Hence,
it is important to have develop emotional intelligence and communication skill for better
career growth. I hold firmly the notion “When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion’’ (Carnegie).