Emotional intelligence as the basis of leadership emergence in self-managing teams

We present and test a theory on leader emergence in self-managing teams that highlights the emotional and cognitive skills underlying selection as an informal team leader. Existing theory and research reveals that informal leaders are selected because they display constructive task and team manageme...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Leadership quarterly Vol. 13; no. 5; pp. 505 - 522
Main Authors Wolff, Steven B, Pescosolido, Anthony T, Druskat, Vanessa Urch
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Elsevier Inc 01.10.2002
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Emotional intelligence
Emotions
Group dynamics
Leadership
Organizational behavior
Studies
Task analysis
Teams
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Summary:We present and test a theory on leader emergence in self-managing teams that highlights the emotional and cognitive skills underlying selection as an informal team leader. Existing theory and research reveals that informal leaders are selected because they display constructive task and team management behavior. We contribute to existing theory in two ways. First, by proposing that specific cognitive processes and skills precede the appropriate enactment of those behaviors by facilitating an accurate analysis of the task situation. Second, by proposing that empathy, an aspect of emotional intelligence, precedes and enables those cognitive processes and skills by providing an accurate understanding of team and member emotions and needs. We test our theory in a longitudinal study of 382 team members comprising 48 self-managing teams. Our theory is partially supported and implications are discussed.
ISSN:1048-9843
1873-3409
DOI:10.1016/S1048-9843(02)00141-8