PAD 515 Week 2 discussion 1 – Bringing About Change in Public Leadership

Bringing About Change in Public Leadership

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Bringing About Change in Public Leadership

Public leadership opens the way for an individual to bring about change in the public sector and in the process, also bring change in the entire community. Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to understand and manage their emotions and the emotions of the people around them to facilitate a harmonious co-existence. It greatly determines the effectiveness of an individual as a leader and contributes to professional success. According to Daniel Goleman, an American Psychologist, the elements of emotional intelligence include self-awareness, self-regulation or management, social awareness and relationship management (Penceliah, 2003).

Personal mastery of these elements of emotional intelligence by a public leader, is in my opinion, possible and should be done by every public leader. This is because these elements are values which can easily be adopted easily and overtime by every leader, and are beneficial to both the leader in terms of career success and also to the community where the individual is a leader. Self-awareness is the ability of an individual to assess their emotions and know the impact they may have on others. Self-management is the ability of an individual to control their emotions which may have a negative impact and display those which may have a positive impact. Social awareness is also described as empathy and describes the ability of an individual to take time and consider the emotions of others and understanding their perspective. Lastly, relationship management is an element which describes inspirational leadership which represents the ability of a leader to guide and motivate and develop others through feedback and also, conflict resolution (Penceliah, 2003).

These elements of emotional intelligence when mastered by a public leader will enable the leader to be aware of and manage their own emotions and those of individuals under their leadership. This way, the public leader will be able to work effectively with people with different personalities and tolerate the negative emotions displayed by some of the individuals while putting into use the positive ones to facilitate the achievement of a common goal.

In conclusion, it is clearly evident that personal mastery of the elements of emotional intelligence by public leaders is possible. This mastery is also important for the improvement of public leadership skills. The elements of emotional intelligence should therefore be embraced and adopted by every individual in public leadership.

References

Penceliah Y (2003) Emotional Intelligence for Public Managers/Administrators to Meet the Challenges of the Future Public Administration: Challenges of Inequality and Exclusion

Miami (USA), 14-18 September 2003