Introduction
This article describes a first research that has been set up[1] to verify whether emotional intelligence – seen as the main quality of an effective leader – can be improved not only with personal relational experiences, but also through the mental training provided by studying the science of negotiation[2].
Which competence is key to improve the quality of leadership?
More and more often what is required of people (by boards of directors, recruiters, as well as we ourselves …) to assume a leadership position is just the opposite of what it takes to be a leader. In fact, overconfidence, narcissism (often mistaken for “vision” and “creativity”) and the perception of charisma help people (especially men) to reach a leadership position. But once this position is acquired, they turn against the organizations themselves, negatively affecting the performance of the groups. According to conventional wisdom, managing people requires charisma[3], vision, and a commanding manner—but not negotiation competencies. This is a common misconception about the nature of leadership which, in fact, is viewed as a personality trait and not as a relationship. Equating leadership potential with negative personality traits (of men) has therefore created an imperfect system that keeps leadership standards low and ends up rewarding incompetent leaders[4]. To improve the quality of our leadership, we should evaluate “leadership potential” by verifying that candidates possess genuine leadership competencies. So, the question is: which kind of competence can be decisive for increasing the quality of leadership?
To find it out, let’s take a little step back.
What does emotional intelligence have to do with leadership?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s own and other people’s emotions and it includes all those competences that allow people to socially interact and to cooperate[5]. Scientific research has shown that all individuals with high emotional intelligence are much more effective in leadership roles and that there is a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational behavior[6]. This is because work – and, therefore, leadership – is about interacting with people, not things.
Leadership is based on human interaction. Negotiation is the science of human interaction. Leadership potential can be improved by studying the science of negotiation?
This research moves from the assumption that leadership is not a personal quality or a personality trait. It is a relationship between the leader and the followers[7]. Building this relationship involves knowing the other, “putting oneself in their shoes”. And the basic tool to build this relationship is the ability to learn about the emotions and interests of the followers (rather than trying to become more visionary or charismatic). In other words, establishing this relationship depends on our emotional intelligence and on our capacity for human interaction. Negotiation is the science of human interaction and studying the science of negotiation enables us to learn how to “learn” about others. Indeed, negotiation has nothing to do with “speaking to win”, with “attacking or defending our position” or with “getting what we want”. On the contrary it has a lot to do with “listening and learning from the other”. Negotiation is a learning process[8]. This process is based on a strategic communication with high emotional impact that has essentially to do with human being interaction. Despite the above, negotiation is not yet considered central to a leader’s competencies[9].
This is why we decided to better investigate the link between the ability to negotiate and the leadership potential. Moving from these assumptions, a research has been set up to verify whether emotional intelligence can be improved not only with personal experiences, but also through the mental training provided by studying the science of negotiation[10].
In particular, given that
- negotiation is the science of human interaction;
- studying the science of negotiation is based on the simulation of relational reality;
- the science of negotiation (just like art, novels, films, poetry, singing, theater, opera) provides a mental training about our’s and others’ emotions and interests,
the aim of the research was to verify whether this specific mental training – exactly like personal experiences – would help to developing the basic element of emotional intelligence and, among them, not only social awareness and relationship management, but also self-awareness and self-management[11].
The Research and the Results
As said, this research – carried out involving Luiss University students who attended the NegotiatingLab in 2020 – moves from the assumption that emotional intelligence is an essential quality for leadership. The results show that studying the science of negotiation enables people to develop all the basic elements of emotional intelligence. We have observed that studying the science of negotiation – being the science that enables us to learn about the interests and emotions of others (and, in turn, ours’) – is fundamental to developing emotional intelligence and is therefore a key leadership competence. Our observation showed that, after having attended a 48-hours course of science of negotiation, students’ emotional intelligence increased in total averages of 6.49 points (10.02%). We also observed an enhancement of the females’ emotional intelligence four-skills average of 10.60% and an 8.87% increase for males. In this respect, indeed, an improvement of the sample has been noted not only in terms of social awareness and relationship management (inter-personal skills), but also in terms of self-awareness and self-management (intra-personal skills).
The research results in detail are shown in Appendix 1.
Implications
The results of the abovementioned observation might imply that the science of negotiation should be recognized as a core competence to improve the quality of leadership because it provides a mental training that, helping to develop the neuronal pathways (neuroplasticity), enables people to develop basic emotional intelligence skills such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
Scholars argue that the more emotionally intelligent individuals are more effective as negotiators[12]. This research shows that the relationship is also inverse: those who study the science of negotiation become more emotionally intelligent.
On the basis of the above, we could say that people who have been studying negotiation are more emotional intelligent individuals and, therefore, they show a higher potential to be effective leaders. After all, if we carefully think about it, a negotiator must lead not only those on the same side of the table, but also those on the other side. A negotiator leads. A leader negotiates. Always
Final Considerations
Having said that, a confirmation, albeit on a theoretical level, that the science of negotiation is a key leadership competence also derives from these further considerations. The purpose of real leadership is to advance the interest of the group and not that of the leader. It follows that leaders have reason to exist – and can be defined as such – only if, and when, they act in the service not of their own interest, but in the interest of the group. Leadership is not a personal trait, it is a relationship[13]. As a consequence, the perspective from which to look at leadership cannot be that of the leader, but that of the group, that of the followers. That’s why, instead of focusing on him or herself (trying to achieve an abstract improvement in terms of confidence and communication skills), a leader should ask what tasks does he/she need to perform to let followers voluntarily move in a certain direction. Without using power or authority. This conclusion would confirm the principle according to which leadership is not an expression of power or authority, but a process of (constant) negotiation[14]. Indeed, real leadership, as we understand it today, implies that those who are shown the way proceed voluntarily in that direction. Followers are not sheep, they are human beings. With their views, their interests, their emotions, their ambitions and their will. And, as human beings, followers pursue, first and foremost, their own individual interest. In this sense, they are their own leaders. Followers, therefore, are first of all leaders of their own personal interests and, secondly, followers of the organization’s interest. It is like a follower is constantly asking – more or less consciously – to what extent he/she must cooperate with the leader to achieve the group’s interest and to what extent he/she must achieve his/her personal interest. Hence, leaders must always remember that they lead leaders of their own personal interests and must bring them to become followers of the organization’s interest. From this perspective it is easy to understand that the leader’s route is navigating to reach the group interest while trying not to frustrate individual interests. This might explain why leadership must be seen as a relationship and why this relationship occurs in an area of (constant and potential) conflict between the individual interest of the single followers and the interest of the group (which the leader upholds). The concept of conflict, therefore, becomes central. Conflict is the result of our diversity and it is what allows human communities to progress. It is simply a “divergence” of human interests. It is not a “pathological” fact, but a physiological fact. Therefore, it cannot (and should not) be avoided. It must be dissolved. Conflict is not in itself good or bad, but it is the way we decide to dissolve it that can turn it into a fierce and dramatic battle or a humanly rewarding experience[15]. Now, let’s ask ourselves: what are the ways to solve the conflict between individual interests? There are three ways.
Each of them is based on a “confrontation”:
- Force (confrontation between powers);
- Law (confrontation between subjective rights);
- Negotiation (confrontation between individual interests).
Negotiation, therefore, is the means to resolve conflicts through a confrontation between individual interests. To conduct this “confrontation”, the science of negotiation offers a way to learn about the other’s emotions and interests. It takes place through human interaction and is based on the study of three dimensions: relationship, process, substance. Let us now consider how to resolve the conflict between individual and group interest. You can choose between power, authority and leadership.
Power is to obtain obedience, even against the will of others. There is no dialogue between those who exercise power and those who are subject to it. This is slavery. Authority refers to the power that people accept to follow. It is therefore linked to rules and acceptance of legitimate decisions. In modern organizations, authority is represented by the hierarchy and, graphically, by the organization chart. It is a metareality made of “formal positions” (not of individuals in the flesh) which governs actual reality. Leadership refers to the ability to persuade and be followed without impositions. It has nothing to do with the hierarchy or the organization chart. On the basis of the above, it should be clear that, while negotiation is a means to resolve the conflict between individual interests, leadership is a means to resolve the conflict between individual interest (of the follower) and group interest. Notwithstanding the above most people think that leadership and negotiation are two completely different things. In economic and political science, leadership and negotiation have also given rise to two different fields of study. However, it is enough to compare the two concepts carefully to understand that a clear distinction between leadership and negotiation is groundless[16]. Indeed, there is a fundamental element that leadership and negotiation have in common: the creation of a personal relationship. It is precisely the existence of a personal relationship that activates leadership. This relationship is essential to facilitate the constant confrontation between the interest of the individual followers and that of the group because itself contains two forces that drive people to act: trust and personal interest. The existence of a personal relationship tends to create trust in the leader and trust reduces the risk perceived by the followers that their personal interests may be damaged by the leader’s actions. Other than trust, a personal relationship fuels the followers’ expectation of receiving a flow of benefits associated with their personal interests. In these terms, the personal relationship becomes a powerful incentive to accept the leadership of another individual. Now, to build a relationship, communication – which you can be more or less skilled at – is not sufficient. It must always be preceded by a “learning” phase. No one will ever be able to communicate effectively unless they have first acquired knowledge of the emotions and interests of the followers. In essence, listen to learn, before you speak. This learning process is nothing more than a negotiation. Negotiating, after all, is a process that always involves knowing and managing others’ emotions and a confrontation between reciprocal interests. And in order to engage in this confrontation (that is, to resolve a potential or ongoing conflict), the interests at stake must first be “learned”. And this must happen also when – as in the case of leadership – the confrontation is between individual interest and group interest. From this other perspective too, then, we might conclude that negotiation is the very essence of leadership and that there is a cause and effect relationship between the two, where the former is the (main) precondition of the latter.
In other words, the essential instrument of a leader is not hierarchical authority, but the capacity for negotiation: the capacity for human interaction. In this sense, the role of each leader will be intimately connected to the concept of “taking care of the other”. As is generally known, the action of “caretaking” resonates much more with the capabilities and feelings of women than with those of men. Only that, in a male-dominated and chauvinistic world, typical male traits are required as a competence for “leaders” instead of the ability to “take care” of the emotions and interests of others. That’s why, better assessing leadership potential asking for negotiating competencies and, then, improving the quality of our leadership, we should not only get better leaders, but also more women in leadership positions. After all, there is absolutely no conflict between promoting quality leadership and promoting gender equality[17]. A leader must not “take care of others” as if it is a “price” to pay to exercise authority, but because the leader coexists and shares projects with the followers … who are human beings! Those who, if a leader wants to make things happen, are not the main obstacle, but the main resource. Leadership must therefore precede management. A true leader will work with other people at the same level and this will allow achieve the group’s interest together: that is because the real advantage is always to get the best out of people and enable them to anticipate and embrace change, regardless of their position on the hierarchical scale. And this, as said, from an effective leader’s perspective involves knowing followers’ emotions and interests to constantly solve the conflict between individual interest and the interest of the group: in other words, this involves negotiating. All the time. That’s why, moving from the idea that human life is an endless negotiation, the studying of the science of negotiation should be integrated into our school and university education systems. It will be the key competence for leadership for the future.
Appendix 1
Data and Methods
To conduct this study we enrolled a cohort of 23 students attending the Laboratory of Negotiation (NegotiatingLab) at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome between September and December 2020. The course took place one day a week (Saturday morning) from 9 am to 1 pm. The sample was formed by 15 females and 8 males. The same test was administered before and after the NegotiatingLab. We will refer to the first test as phase one, or P.1 and to the re-test as phase two, or P.2. The survey aimed at measuring students’ degree of emotional intelligence before and after the NegotiatingLab. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we were forced to use a survey available online. This survey is accessible at https://dentrolatanadelconiglio.com/test/intelligenza-emotiva-test. The survey includes questions from 4 different emotional intelligence tests and questionnaires (up to a total of 60):- Emotional Intelligence Quizdesigned by the Istituto per la Salute e il Potenziale Umano (Institute for Health and Human Potential);
- Emotional Intelligence Questionnairedesigned by Mindtools;
- Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT)designed by Schutte and colleagues in 1998 and based on the Mayer-Salovey model;
- Emotional Intelligence Test(2019) designed x Psychology Today.
Empirical Results
The Table 1 shows the average values of the four emotional skills for each student sorted by phase and the increase, or decrease, from phase 1 to phase 2.
Table 1: Averages Phase 1 and 2 and Comparison
At the bottom of the table, we see the Total Averages of each column, where the P.1 marked a 64.83 score and the P.2 marked a 71.33 score. The difference in total averages is 6.49 which means a rise of 10.02% of the students’ emotional intelligence. The results are confirmed by the T-Test performed and they are statistically significant with a p-value of 0.0002982.
The Graph 1 and 2 plot the female and male averages of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness and Relationship-Management and the average of these four emotional intelligence skills, respectively for phase 1 and phase 2.
Graph 1: Female and Male Averages in Phase 1
As we can see from the Graph 1, on average the females have better results for Self-Awareness (66.26) and Relationship-Management (71.77), while the males, on average, have highest marks in Self-Management (62.43) and Social-Awareness (70.40). Considering the four-skills average (64.39 female average, 65.73 male average), males overperformed females by 1.34 points, but the result is not statistically significant (p-value = 0.3481). Nevertheless, the self-management difference between females and males has a p-value of 0.05447, thus the difference in the means here is very close to be statistically significant (0.05).
Graph 2: Female and Male Averages in Phase 2
The Graph 2 shows that, on average, the females have better results for Self-Awareness (72.40), Social-Awareness (76.19) and Relationship-Management (76.31) while the males have a highest score just in Self-Management (68.40). Nevertheless, considering the four-skills average, males outperformed females by 0.35 points, but the result is not statistically confirmed
(p-value = 0.4265). We see an enhancement of the females’ four-skills average of 10.60% and an 8.87% increase of the males’ four-skills average. However, males still present a higher self-management score compared to females. In other words, the difference between males’ and females’ means in self-management is still present and it is statistically significant with a p-value equal to 0.02381.
At the beginning of the NegotiatingLab we had a gap between the females’ and males’ average values of each skill, while at the end of the laboratory we discovered values closer to each other. The males scored 1.34 more than females on average on phase one, but at the end of the phase two the males scored just 0.35 more than females.
Lastly, the Graph 3 shows the comparison of the four skills, and their average, between the two phases.
Graph 3: Comparison Between Phase 1 and Phase 2
As we can see from the Graph 3, there is an enhancement of each skill and the one that had the greatest improvement is the Self-Management with an increase of 16.14%.
The variation (%) of the averages is 10.02% (6.49 points). The p-value of the difference in means T-Test (0.0002982) indicates that the null hypothesis can be rejected for the alternative hypothesis (H1: μ(avg p.1) – μ(avg p.2) < 0), thus the result is statistically significant.
Bibliography
[1] For the collection of data and the analysis of the results, a special thanks goes to Dr. Lorenzo Di Luzio.
[2] D. T. Malhotra – M. H. Bazerman, Negotiation Genius, Harvard Business School, Bantam Books, 2007, p. 19: “Under the false assumption that negotiation is “all art and no science,” most people fail to prepare adequately for negotiation.
[3] As pointed out by Prof. T. Chamorro-Premuzic charisma – as a personality trait– does not exist. It is only a perception of the followers. When a leader is confident and narcissistic, followers perceive him or her as charismatic. Charisma is like love at first sight. It makes us blind to the dangerousness of the other. In fact, we tend to defend the choices of a person whom we perceive as charismatic without requiring evidence to support his or her grand visions. And we will not be objective even when we have to evaluate his or her performance. History teaches us that a leader who is perceived as charismatic can use charisma to gain power, manipulate followers and pursue his or her own personal interests. In spite of this, we continue to choose charismatic leaders. And we do not realize that the most effective leaders in the world, on the contrary, are humble people; people who are excellent not at promoting themselves, but at increasing the ability of their followers to work together in the interest of the group (see T. Chamorro-Premuzic Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (and how to fix it), Harvard Business Review Press, 2019).
[4] T. Chamorro-Premuzic, Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (and how to fix it), Harvard Business Review Press, 2019.
[5] T. Bradberry, J. Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, TalentSmart, 2009; D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ, Bloomsbury, 2020.
[6] T. Chamorro-Premuzic, Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (and how to fix it), Harvard Business Review Press, 2019; D. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ, Bloomsbury, 2020; D. Goleman, The emotionally intelligent leader, Harvard Business Review Press, 2019.
[7] J. W. Salacuse, Real Leaders Negotiate! – Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation, Palgrave mac millan, 2017.
[8] A. MONORITI – R. GABELLINI, NegoziAzione – Il Manuale dell’interazione umana, Giuffrè, 2018.
[9] J.W. Salacuse, Real Leaders Negotiate – Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation, 2017, page 1: “According to conventional wisdom, real leaders don’t negotiate… For many executives, negotiation is a tool to use outside the organization to deal with customers, suppliers and creditors. Inside, the organization, it’s strictly “my way or the highway”…That’s because most people think that leadership and negotiation are two different skills that don’t have much to do with one another. For them, strong leaders command and weak leaders negotiate…The conventional wisdom is wrong …”.
[10] The full program of a science of negotiation course is shown in the table of contents of A. MONORITI – R. GABELLINI, NegoziAzione – Il Manuale dell’interazione umana, Giuffrè, 2018.
[11] We must never forget, in fact, that, also in order to gain self-awareness, it is essential to understand how our actions are perceived by others and what others think of us. Our emotional stability cannot depend only on the attempt to self-regulate our relationship with ourselves (as if the brain were a “closed circuit” system), but also depends on our ability to understand our relationship with the external environment and is, in particular, linked to interaction with other people.
[12] M. Gavin, The impact of emotions in negotiation, Harvard business School online, 2019 https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotion-in-business-negotiation; E. Kelly, N. Kaminskienė, Importance of Emotional Intelligence in negotiation and mediation, International Comparative Jurisprudence, 2016.
[13] J.W. Salacuse, Real Leaders Negotiate – Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation, 2017.
[14] J.W. Salacuse, Real Leaders Negotiate – Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation, 2017.
[15] G. Cosi, L’accordo e la decisione. Modelli culturali di gestione dei conflitti, UTET, Torino, 2017.
[16] J.W. Salacuse, Real Leaders Negotiate – Gaining, Using, and Keeping the Power to Lead Through Negotiation, 2017.
[17] T. Chamorro-Premuzic, Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? (and how to fix it), Harvard Business Review Press, 2019.