Daniel Goleman, a psychologist, researcher and longtime columnist for the prestigious "New York Times", has spent long periods of time investigating the seductive topic of emotional intelligence. In fact, it is due to him, as it is recognized, the worldwide diffusion of this construct, thanks in large part to the publication of the book of the same name, of great publishing success.
Also, related to emotional intelligence, he has inquired about leadership and its practices, where within the organizational field he has distinguished 6 well differentiated styles. The North American researcher and author classifies them into two main styles, dissonant and resonant, and six styles derived from them.
For this author, the dissonant styles are the helmsman and the authoritarian, underpinned by the processes of protection, direction, restrictions and control. And in the case of resonant styles, the democratic, affiliative, visionary and coaching are appreciated, oriented to participation, relationships, optimism, creativity, innovation and learning.
It is appropriate to emphasize that these are not bad and good styles. It would be a simplicity to see it that way, since in Goleman's own opinion, the manager's ability will consist of moving from one style to another according to the purposes and the circumstance. In fact, he considers the best leaders to be those who use the "leadership repertoire" flexibly. Of course, he emphasizes that dissonant styles, while useful in very specific situations, must be used with care and prudence. Those with a resonant style are based on particular skills and have a different impact on the climate.
Because an excessive tendency towards dissonant styles could result in an excess of alertness that ends up suffocating the essential sense of freedom that is so necessary for creative thinking, a too premature or intense critical vision, an excess of control that promotes a feeling of oppression that stifles originality and overly strict programs that create panic.
Within his research, carried out on 3,871 executives, drawn from a Hay / Mc Ber base of 20,000, he found a correlation close to 0.4 between Executives who used coaching as one of their styles to lead, and 3 crucial dimensions of climate organizational (Standards, Rewards and Clarity) that strongly impact the "botom line" of organizations. In other words, executives who used coaching as one of their usual leadership styles, obtained better business results than those who did not use it.
One of the aspects to highlight found in the results of his research is the fact that leadership based coaching, being a process that promotes learning in organizations, does not necessarily require being in a classroom to carry it out. That is, you do not need to remove the worker from their workplace, since learning happens right there at the site where they work. Which tells us about the questioned effectiveness of classroom training. This is what Hoffmann (2007: 29) refers to when he states: “… Gallup research reiterates that training, that is, the academic or formal transmission of knowledge, skills or abilities, does not guarantee superior performance, since it depends on different variables to the simple knowledge or management of information "
One of the possible reasons for the acceptance of this way of leading is that coaching as a leadership style does not intend to “repair” what is not working in the organization, because it is more oriented to development processes. Alles (2005: 64) defines development as: "… actions aimed at reaching the desired degree of maturity or perfection depending on the job that the person occupies at present or is expected to occupy later".
And it is precisely, we insist, on the development of others, a competence described by the author of "emotional intelligence", where leadership coaching has its greatest strength. Goleman himself (1997: 199) reiterates its importance when he points out:
In a study conducted with supervisors, managers and executives of twelve large companies, the importance of the development of others was greater among supervisors, something that seems to suggest that it is a crucial skill to control people who are in the front line such as salespeople, assembly line workers and so on. Because, as the degree of influence of a boss or an executive increases, the opportunities to encourage the development of others can take a backseat and be replaced by others such as leadership, for example.
From this comment we can observe the relationship between development and leadership and its link with the style of exercising it called coaching, which could explain the results of the study published in the Harvard Business Review of March-April 2000 summarized in an article entitled «Leadership that gets results »
Bibliography
Alles, Martha. Development of Human Talent Based on Competencies. Granica Editions. Buenos Aires. 2005
Goleman, Daniel. Emotional intelligence in the company. Javier Vergara Editor. Buenos Aires. 1999
Hoffmann, Wolfgang. Professional Coach Manual. Norma Editorial Group. Bogotá. 2007.
