Psychology of management

Practical strategies of leadership.
Great leaders inspire us. They invigorate us arousing our best feelings. When we try to 
explain why these people are so effective, we start speaking of strategy, far-sightedness, great 
ideas. But all this has in fact a far more ancient basis: genius management touches our emotions. 
No matter what leaders are going to undertake – to develop a strategy, or mobilize a 
group for a labor feat – their success depends primarily on how they will do it. Even if 
everything is organized perfectly, but the leader does not fulfil his/her main task – directing 
people’s emotion in the right channel – it will not take him/her far, the way (s)he wanted. 
Throughout human history in the most diverse cultures that person became a leader to 
whom people turned to for support or explanations when facing threat or uncertainty, or if they 
had a serious work to do. Leader acts as an emotional curator of the collective. 

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Even in a modern organization this task – though not so obvious already – remains one of 
the most important tasks. The leader has to direct collective’s emotions in the correct channel, 
create an atmosphere of friendliness and skillfully fight negative spirits. This task is equally 
important for leaders of any level – from the board of directors meeting hall to the shop-floor. 
Simply speaking, the leader possesses the maximum possibility of influencing every 
collective member’s emotions. If people are instilled with enthusiasm, work productivity may 
increase nearly instantly; and if people are irritated and offended on purpose to unsettle them, the 
matters might just come to a standstill. This regularity indicates another important aspect of 
emotional leadership: its influence is not limited by only the guarantee of good work 
performance. People are attracted to a leader, expect emotional support from him, look for his 
compassion. Anyway, leadership as such contains just this aspect. 
No matter who the groups emotional leader is, (s)he in all probability possesses the 
capability of playing the role of limbic “gravity center” causing a considerable impact on 
emotional state of the people surrounding him/her. Watch, for instance, a gifted actor at work, 
and you will see how easily he draws the audience into his emotional orbit. Be it sorrows of 
treachery, or joy of a triumph that he communicates – the audience experiences the same 
feelings. 
That is why the ease with which we adopt a leader’s emotional state depends on how 
emotional their faces, voices, and gestures transmit their feelings. The better a leader masters the 
art of expressing his/her emotions, the better they will be the strength of their proliferation. The 
transmission of feeling does not, of course, depend on leader’s stage skills. Because people listen 
to him/her attentively, even slight emotions expressions may cause tremendous impact. But even 
in these conditions, the more open leaders are – or, in other words, how openly they can express 
their enthusiasm, – the sooner these strong feelings overtake other people. 
Leaders with such talent act like emotional magnets, and it is quite natural that people are 
attracted to them. Mind, with what kind of leaders people prefer working – they probably radiate 
optimism. It is mostly to this effect that leaders with high emotional intellect attract talented 
people – it is pleasant for gifted specialists to work in such environment. An on the contrary, 
leaders with a negative charge – irritable, petulant, despotic, and cold – repulse people. Nobody 
wants to work for a grumbler. It is confirmed by research that optimistic, captivating, leaders 
hold their employees easier than executives prone to bad moods. 

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A sincere emotional response doesn’t appear in reply to manifestation of leaders’ good 
mood or their ability to say good words – it appears thanks to the whole set of coordinated 
actions which are used by an executive. These actions form peculiar styles of leadership. As a 
rule, effective leaders use one or a few leadership styles and skillfully switch from one to another 
depending on situation. 
Four of the six known styles of leadership – idealistic, teaching, companionate, and 
democratic – are able to inflame, inspire people which leads to productivity growth, while two 
others – ambitious, and authoritarian – though needed sometimes, should be turned to, as we 
shall show further on, with great care. 
To understand how an organization’s emotional climate is influenced by different styles 
of leadership, we used the global database on 3,871 executives. Specialists evaluated some key 
factors influencing the working environment. 
The research showed how the working climate having been formed by different 
leadership styles affected a company’s financial results – sales income, profit, effectiveness, and 
profitability. The conclusions suppose that at any other equal conditions, leaders who used the 
styles with positive emotional impact got higher financial results than those who didn’t followed 
these styles. It is probable that in practice the leaders gaining the best results didn’t limit 
themselves to only one specific leadership style. Most probably they used several styles 
depending on situation, combining them harmoniously in various proportions. Generally 
speaking, the totality of leadership styles can be imagined like a sports-bag wit a set of golf-
clubs. In the course of the game the club fitting best for the necessary strike is selected and taken 
out from the bag. Sometimes a player has to thin his choice over, but usually (s)he acts 
automatically. A professional feels in advance what (s)he has to do, quickly picks the necessary 
toolout, and brings it into play. Wise leaders act in the very same way. 
All these styles have been described more than once, though sometimes they were named 
differently, but the novelty of the model of leadership we offer is that that we show which basic 
skills in emotional intellect are necessary for each style. And the main thing, we have discovered 
the cause-and-effect relation between an executive’s behavior and organization’s work results. In 
other words, the research data enabled seeing the real impact of one or another style on the 
organization’s climate and, consequently, on productivity. For executives who day after day 
struggle for improving financial results the information on this relation will be quite useful, for it 
adds a needed “dose” of science to the most important craft of leadership. 

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Let’s view for a start the four styles of leadership which enhance emotional resonance, 
and then turn to describing the styles which, to the contrary, cause much too easily dissonance if 
applied untimely and inappropriately.