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3:20 p.m., March 26, 2003--“R-E-S-P-E-C-T…find out what it means to me.”
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| Richard Boyatzis: “If you’re not inspirational, you’re not a leader.” |
The voice of the queen of soul opened organizational behavior expert Richard Boyatzis’ lecture, “Developing Leadership Without Emotional Intelligence is Like Dancing without Rhythm,” Friday, March 14, in MBNA America Hall.
Then, Boyatzis, chair of the department of organizational behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, asked his overflow audience to stand up and get down to Aretha Franklin’s hit.
There were so many people in the room that chairs had to be brought in to accommodate everyone wanting to hear the first speaker in the 2003 Spring Chaplin Tyler Executive Leadership Lecture Series, sponsored by UD’s Lerner College of Business & Economics.
Boyatzis, who received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard, told the audience that “great leaders move us through a very basic human process—our emotions. We feel before we think.”
These leaders understand the importance of emotional intelligence, which is nurtured by “an atmosphere of hope and possibilities.” Those positive emotions stimulate the left prefrontal cortex, the left side of the brain, creating new nerve connections in the adult brain, Boyatzis said. But, he said, stress can inhibit that development by diverting blood away from the brain to other organ groups that start to shut down under stress.
“Over 50 percent of people in management positions detract from the value of their employees,” he said. “If you hate to go to work in the morning, everyone around you will hate work, too.”
An atmosphere of defensiveness, of lying and cheating set by demagogues and dissonant leaders is toxic to the human organism creating a negativity that causes employees to shut down in order to deal with the stress they are experiencing, he said.
What leaders have to do, Boyatzis said, is make work exciting so that employees want to use their talents. “If you’re not inspirational, you aren’t a leader,” he said.
To demonstrate, Boyatzis asked everyone to recall the people in their lives who have helped them the most and how they feel when they think of that person. Later, he asked everyone to describe a leader they would gladly work with again and one they wouldn’t and to recall the characteristics of each.
Members of the audience said the people who helped them made them feel empowered, respected, valued, trusted and cared about. They had similar feelings when describing a “good” leader.
But, when they recalled “bad” leaders, members of the audience said they felt defensive, lied-to, untrusting, used, isolated and overlooked.
“Leadership is not a person, it’s a relationship in which you feel part of something important and that you and your leader are singing the same tune,” Boyatzis said.
Leaders displaying emotional intelligence are self-aware, recognize their emotions and their effects on employees and know how to exercise self-control.
Boyatzis warned that employers are in a “war for talent” that will only get more intense. By 2045, employers won’t be able to find enough people for the jobs they need filled, so it will be vitally important that managers learn to motivate people to want to work for them, he said.
Boyatzis urged students who want to lead to look inside themselves, find their dream and follow it.
“When we tap into our dreams and stimulate our left prefrontal cortex, we are tapping into the greatest source of energy we have. We owe it to ourselves to make the most out of life, to live life to the fullest and with passion,” he said.
Barbara Garrison
Photo by Duane Perry
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