While the image of Taoiseach Brian Cowan warbling the lyrics of the Lakes of Pontchartrain to the amusement of an assembly of Fianna Fail parliamentary party colleagues in mid September may not bear the hallmarks of behaviour normally associated with an EU Prime Minister, surely we should reflect that he does not have a monopoly on such tactless conduct. Indeed those media outlets across the globe which have been quick to pillory Cowen over the so-called “Gargle-gate” affair, including The New York Times, BBC, Fox News, Washington Post and MSNBC, are all somewhat silent when it comes to comparisons or comparable gaffes by some of the ‘great and good’ among their own political elites.
Picture, for example, the immediate response of George W. Bush to the news of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. At 9:03 a.m. on September 9th 2001, fifteen minutes after it was clear to Federal Security agencies that the United States was under terrorist attack, President Bush sat down with a classroom of second-grade children at Booker Elementary School to listen to them reading about a story about a pet goat. Or consider Gordon Brown describing lifelong Labour supporter, 66 year-old Gillian Duffy, as “a bigoted woman” for tackling him on issues relating to immigration from Eastern Europe, on the campaign trail in Rochdale in April 2010. The list of similar gaffes among such political notables as Nicholas Sarcozy and Italy’s Berlusconi goes on.
So why is it that otherwise mostly intelligent, well-advised and generally articulate leaders fall into the trap of making such blunders and indiscretions and, why do they appear do so at times when they most need a personal and political uplift?
The answer, strangely enough, has recently been provided by one of the most media astute leaders of recent years. Acknowledging his successor as an individual possessing acute analytical intelligence, in his recently published autobiography, Tony Blair is adamant that Browne lacked political instinct "at the human gut level" and possesses zero emotional intelligence.
The ‘human gut level’ indeed! And it is here that we need to look to unearth the causes of leadership failure and the emergence of what can only be described as feeble leadership behaviours. It would be too harsh to judge the above cases in terms of what is commonly described as “Toxic Leadership” and it is unlikely that the individuals involved behaved with any malicious intent. However, the prospect of deficits in emotional intelligence (EI) appears to explain the errors of judgment involved and patterns of behavioural blunders that are associated with each of the individuals mentioned.
Defined as the effectiveness with which an individual observes and responds to one’s own and others' feelings and emotions, EI skills are key qualities of leaders that excel and are believed to contribute up to as much of 30% of the capacity of a leader to succeed in role. People with high EI are adept at understanding and properly responding in an appropriate way to the nuances of social situations. On the other hand, people with low EI often misinterpret, deny or fail to appreciate the impact of human emotion that is present in virtually every social situation.
A recent good commercial example is the response of BP’s CEO Tony Hayward to the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Accused by Greenpeace of “insulting… rubbing salt into the wounds” of those who had been affected by the spill through his failure to answer questions at a congressional hearing, Hayward further stoked US antagonism by taking time off to go sailing in the Solent instead of dealing in person with the disaster. As one disgruntled Louisiana local quipped “Man, that ain’t right… None of us can even go out fishing, and he’s at the yacht races”.
US researcher Susan Dunn provides the following examples of the impact of low levels of EI in diluting effectiveness:
- 75 % of careers are derailed for reasons related to low EI
- 50% of time wasted in business is due to lack of trust
- 70% of the reasons why customers and clients are lost are EI-related.
- Doctors with poor EI skills get sued more.
As a counterpoint, there is extensive research evidence pointing to the potential positive impact associated with high levels of EI:
- One Hay Group study of 44 Fortune 500 companies found that salespeople with high EQ produced twice the revenue of those with average or below average scores.
- In another study, technical programmers in the top 10 percent of emotional intelligence competency were developing software three times faster than their lower competency colleagues.
- An EI intervention at one Sheraton Group division helped increase market share by 24%
- At Coca-Cola, division leaders who developed higher EI competencies outperformed those who did not work on their EI development by 30% versus target
- At PepsiCo senior managers selected on the basis of EI generated 10% more productivity
So the news is good - EI has significant potential to contribute to successful business outcomes. More importantly, psychological studies have verified that EI can be learned, developed and improved over a lifetime and it is possible to start right away, no matter how old you are.
In any field, the potential for success lies within the capacity of every leader. The leadership challenge is not one of finding ways to get the best out of our people, but of learning how to develop ourselves so that we can help them to achieve success.
And as for those politicians who may be socially and emotionally dysfunctional, the message is even clearer - ignoring the lessons from gaffes is no longer good enough. In difficult times, people’s tolerance of such indiscretions has worn thin and the power of the ballot box is significantly enhanced.
We all have our own Lakes of Pontchartrain.
It's up to each of us us to make sure we don't fall in!
