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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE BIOLOGY OF LEADERSHIP


BY DENIAL GOLEMAN This article was presented by Denial Goleman in 1998 after his article emotional intelligence. It was said that emotional intelligent provide the base of social intelligence. Emotional intelligence concepts raised the importance of empathy and selfawareness in the business communities. Leaders were considering the emotional intelligence as crucial part of leadership. After the emergence of neuroscience the characteristics of good leader began to reveal. Neuroscience is the study of what happens in brain while interacting people. An important characteristic of a leader is how he or she show empathy and understand the emotions of others. The relationship between the leader and followers are always dependant as compared to individuals. Effective leader is one who uses his brain effectively in the social affairs. The leader who doesnt use these skills they suffer from social disorder like autism and syndrome. Effective leader do not always put their skills rather he induce followers or others to put forward their skills while solving a problem. For that we must have social intelligence. Social intelligence means a set of interpersonal competencies built on specific neurons circuit that inspire others to be effective. Many researches point out that social intelligence is very crucial in leadership. A research by Columbia university psychologist Edward Thorndike in this article tells that a best mechanic in a factory may fail when he was working as manager due to lack of social intelligence skills. Gender differentiation does not affect in the social intelligence while talking about most effective men or women leader. The social intelligence tells about the knowledge of mirror neurons, spindle cells and oscillation. The recent discovery about behavioral sciences is the identification of mirror neurons. The Italian neuroscientist while and experiment on the monkey cells observed accidently the mirror neurons. One day the lab assistant lifted the ice cream cone into his mouth, they observed the reaction in the cells of monkey which let the monkey observe and react in the same direction. So mirror neurons let people mimic or mirror the acts and then repeat the same. In the recent study of colleague of Denial Golman, Marie Dasborough observed the two groups. One group which was given the negative

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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
feedback in the positive way and the others were given the Positive feedback in the negative way. When the interview was conducted they observed that the group given positive feedback in negative way was feeling their performance worse as compared with the group with negative feedback in the positive way. So they concluded that the way of delivery is more important than the message. We know when people feel better they give better productivity. So if managers want to be demanding it should do that in the positive way to encourage the employees. At once, the CEO of University-Based Hospital in Boston was to be selected for the corporation running that hospital. There were two doctors between which selection was to be made. They were Dr. Burke and Dr. Humbold. They both were equally demanding and committed work. The only difference was that Dr. Burke was strict, task focused and impersonal. The Dr. Humbold was also not less demanding but his way was very friendly, playful and easily approachable who provides the people friendly atmosphere for work environment. Recognizing the socially intelligent leadership style the hospitals corporation board selected Dr. Humbold as a CEO. The leadership is also affected by the gut. It means the intuition which comes from the extensive experience. Leadership scholars advice that a effective leader should trust on your gut and intuitions. The finding in neuroscience suggests that intuitions are produced by the neurons named spindle cells. These spindle cells activates whenever we have to make decision in two or more options. Good leader understand the feelings of other through gut feelings because of lack of time and information. Oscillation is the coordination of people physically by regulating how and when bodies moves together. Like: Two Musicians play guitar together that is oscillation that combines their minds and movements. The social neurons activated daily millions of time. The Herb Kelleher a co-founder and former CEO of southwest air line set the example of this. We see him activating the mirror neurons, spindle cells in his social life in other peoples while he shook hands, pass smile to his clients as he appreciate the business with them moreover when he hugged his employee and got the same in return.

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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
Unfortunately its not easy to lean if you are not like Kelleher when you were born. The self-conscious attempt to show social intelligence does not work. These can be developed through hard work of changing your behavior, the individuals willingness to change, Vision of Change, Identification of Area of Social Weaknesses, Training and feedback and by Focusing on role models. Now the question is that how a leader make socially intelligent? To measure an executives social intelligence and help he or she develops a plan for improving your social intelligence. We have specialist administer our behavioral assessment tool called Emotional and Social competency inventory. It is a 360-degree evaluation instrument by which bosses, peers, direct report, clients, and sometimes even family members assess a leader according to seven social intelligence qualities. These are empathy, attunement, organizational awareness, influence, developing others, inspiration, teamwork. If a leader have all above skills, he is socially intelligent. What is the chemistry of stress? When people are under stress then their two hormones cortisol and adrenaline are activated and strongly affect their reasoning and cognitions. At low level of stress, the cortisol facilitates the thinking and other mental functions. It is the well time pressure to perform and criticized the subordinates that are in place. At high level of stress the level of cortisol increase and it kick the adrenaline hormone which can paralyze the minds critical abilities. When boss demand high from leader to handle subordinate, then the attention of leader on boss threat rather than work in hand, creativity, memory, and planning go out window. This is not suitable condition of leader for addressing challenges. Poorly delivered criticism and displays of anger by leaders are activating the hormonal level.. Through a laboratory research scientist study the highest level of stress hormones, they stimulate a job interview in which an applicant receives intense face to face criticism. Researcher also find that when an important person express his or her contempt toward him or her, his or her stress triggers an sharp increase in hormones and heart beat rate 30 to 40 in per minute. Because of the interpersonal dynamic of mirror neurons and oscillators, the tension spread to other people. The destructive emotions have effect on entire group and decrease the productivity. Leaders are not save form stress disease. All above reason they should take time to understand the biology of their emotion. We can learn social intelligence by putting a great effort and by continuous changing behavior.

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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
An example of a higher executive called Janice is given in this article that besides having so much business expertise is not able to perform well at higher level. She learned the social intelligence with the help of an organizational psychologist who continuously changed her behavior. She was lacking in empathy, service orientation, adaptability and managerial conflicts. Cavello the psychologist asked her to spend time with the leader having social intelligence. Janices mentor coached her on how to express her view point about contentious issues and how to talk to higher-ups in the meeting. Through continuous efforts Janice changed herself in another person. There is a debate available on stress in this article that stress affect your cognition and reasoning stress lessons a persons memory, planning and creativity. The negative feedback actually activates the stress hormones and it then affects someones performance. There is a large performance gap between socially intelligent and socially unintelligent leaders. Employees always rated high having social intelligence as compared to leaders who do not have social intelligence.

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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE MEANINGS OF DIFFICULT WORDS:


Enthusiastic ------ having or showing great excitement and interest Empathy -------- understanding and entering into others feelings Subtle --------- difficult to detect by the mind or analyze Attuned ------ bring into harmony Leverages ----- power to act effectively Interconnectedness ------ to be connected Potent ----- having great influence Notion ----- vague idea, inclusive concept Spades ----- offensive Biological underpinning ----- support from evidence to make confirm Oscillators ----- be undecided between same thing Triggered ----- A device that activate, releases Nimbly ----- mentally quick, moving quickly Contention ----- have within, hold or keep within limits Prestigious ------ exerting influence by reason of high status Relentless ----- never ceasing Combative tone ----- the act of fighting or struggle Gravitated ----- be attracted, move towards Instinct ----- an intuitive judgment Cautious ---- avoiding excess Spindle cells --- having single dendrite, large in size, have single apical axon in one direction with single dendrite in opposite Gauge --- determine the capacity

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SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
Cellist---- someone who play violin cello Unison --- occurring together Hemisphere --- half of the sphere Encountered ---- experience as a reaction Blurted --- utter impulsively Brimming with warmth--- filled to capacity Elusive--- difficult to desirable Akin---similar in quality Debriefed --- report of a mission or task Flounder ---- behave awkwardly Astuteness ---- the intellectual ability to penetrate into idea Blunt --- ill manner person Critique --- a serious examination of some thing Contentious --- disagree Emulate ---- compete with successfully Verge --- a ceremonial staff Surge --- rise or more forward Cortical ---- name of hormone Soar --- go or move upward Disgust ---- strong feeling or dislike Spike --- a sharp rise followed by sharp decision Unmet --- not fulfilled or achieve

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