Background and Context

Your will be required to write an integrative paper that synthesizes the learning experience.

Integrative leadership is becoming the emerging leadership approach which fosters collective action across different types of boundaries to gain the common good. As state by Higgs & Aitken (2013), integrative leadership is basically a shared leadership approach to address the significant issues of leadership which cannot be addressed by the just single individual. In this study, the issue of emotional intelligence in leadership is chosen which affects the productivity and retention rate within Fonterra Australia organisation. Therefore, the leaders are trying to take the holistic approach to lead the employees and organisation. In the second part of the study, a literature review is conducted in order to present the leadership issue. This literature review is the theoretical foundation of this study. In the final section, recommendations related to the leadership issue are explained along with self-reflection in the area of integration of faith and leadership.

Identification of a leadership issue in an organisation and analysis of the issue

Global demand for dairy-based products is growing and Fonterra Australia is positioned itself to meet the growth. The leadership board is focused on building the strengths and securing the future growth of the organisation. The organisation follows the structure of cooperative limited. Leadership is a significant function of management that helps to maximise the efficiency of the organisation in order to achieve the organisational objectives. Leadership in Fonterra has potential to drive and influence the group efforts to accomplish the goal.

Fonterra Australia has its main office is in River Boulevard, Richmond Victoria. In the main office, the leadership has been facing the challenge of emotional intelligence. The leaders within the main office of Fonterra do not follow emotional intelligence; however, emotional intelligence is one of the key components of the effective leadership. Emotional intelligence is the ability of the leaders to tune with themselves and their emotions; the leaders have to have a sound situational awareness of their team as well. In Fonterra Australia, the team leaders do not have an idea of the team members’ emotional state and the leaders do not show sympathy to the employees. The team members of the organisation have not been getting the emotional help and the motivation of the employees is degrading. The attachment between the team members and team leaders is not making fruitful for the organisation. The team leaders behave rudely with the employees and the team members’ queries are not solved. There are five components of the emotional intelligence and these components allow the employees to identify and connect between employees and the team leaders; self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy for others and social skills like proficiency. As stated by Brown & Reilly (2018), today’s employees do not accept the style of autocratic leadership and leadership has had to evolve to match a growing sense of democracy and independence workforce. The employees now have more options and choices than the previous time. In Fonterra, the leaders want the employees to listen to what management is asking them to do. Therefore, the leaders in Fonterra Australia are criticised for not communicating with the employees with compelling vision along with purpose. The leaders in this organisation believe in autonomy vision and freedom.

Theoretical Foundation

Therefore, the leaders within an organisation lack the emotional intelligence for their failure of not effectively gauge the desires, needs and expectations of the employees. Leaders sometimes react from their emotions and they avoid the filtering process; this comment sometimes make the issue for the employees and it can make jeopardise the working relationship between employees and leaders. As stated by Li et al., (2016), if leaders react on the erratic emotions; it can be detrimental for the overall culture, positive feelings and attitudes toward the organisational mission and vision. Therefore, the leaders in Fonterra Australia are not self-aware and they fail to understand how the non-verbal and verbal communication affects the team members. The leaders lack the emotional intelligence due to the failure of acknowledging the feelings of the people and the leaders fail to show their care to the employees. In Fonterra Australia, power problem is predominant; therefore, the leaders cannot validate the emotions to move forward without hindrance.

The concept of emotional intelligence in leadership

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise and control individuals’ emotions, investing emotions appropriately as the situations want. Emotional intelligence also dictates one’s awareness of sensitivity towards other people’s emotion and sympathy. As opined by Parrish (2015), in their article that leaders’ emotional intelligence has a far-reaching influence on the relationship between team members and team leaders. The critics also further stated that the leaders within an organisation must be aware of the emotional intelligence that comprehends the pride and self-esteem of the employees. According to Spano-Szekely et al., (2016), the leaders should reign the feelings of themselves and emotional intelligence can make easier to respond and anticipate the sentiment of others within the organisation. Emotional intelligent leaders are needed within multinational organisations that can assess the psychological and emotional state of the employees. The leaders take care of team members’ anxiety, depression, trauma, grief and suffering. In addition, the leaders can do the cultivated communication with the team members to understand others’ respond to their actions and words. Emotional intelligence can make it easier for the leaders to listen to what other employees, management and team members clearly saying without judgement.

Components of emotional intelligence

The emotional intelligent leaders must be self-aware about what they feel about their emotions. The emotional intelligent employees know the actions that can affect the people around them. The leaders within an organisation must be self-aware about their strengths and weaknesses along with behaving with humility to people (Gardner & Stough, 2013). The leaders who do not aware of them; they can use the journal to improve the self-awareness as deep down to the thought of self-awareness can improve emotional intelligence. As opined by Palmer et al., (2015), in their article that leaders who regulate themselves do not attack the team members verbally or they do not rush to take emotional decisions. Leaders within an organisation can be flexible in order to share the values, hold accountability and practice to be the clam. One of the most important qualities of the emotional leader is that the leader must motivate the employees to re-examine the work. In order to get high standard work; the team members must know where they stand. The leaders must be optimistic about the issues within the organisation (George, 2017). Empathy is another component of the emotional intelligence and leaders can put themselves in someone else’s position. The leaders acquire the body language in a way that must help the team members a positive vibe. Leaders respond the feeling of the team members to appreciate what the team members achieve. Emotional intelligence requires the social skills elements so that they can support the team members. Learning conflict resolution can help to get along with the situation and improving communication skill can assist to provide feedback. 

Leadership Issue at Fonterra Australia

Issues arise from lack of emotional intelligence in leadership

In large or middle-sized organisations’ leaders frequently fall into the stressful situations and if the leaders do not have the emotional intelligence; they will not be able to control the stressor their own emotional intelligence. According to Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee (2013), the leaders in the stressed situation can get into the behaviour of blaming, yelling and being aggressive. Therefore, this situation can bring out the more stressful atmosphere where the employees must face issues as they always walk on the egg shell. The leaders’ failure of not being emotional intelligence can inhibit partnership within the organisation. If the leaders do not control their behaviour; they will react inappropriately and the team members will be nervous to share their ideas. The responses on the team members’ shared vision should be judged willingly; otherwise, the team working process will be hampered. As contradicted by Kerr et al., (2016), lack of emotional intelligence means inability to respond to the situation and these types of leaders cannot deal with conflict.   

Benefits of emotional intelligence in leadership

In an organisation, the leaders need to have a solid understanding of their actions and emotions that would affect the employees around them. As stated by McCleskey (2014), the better emotional intelligent leaders relate the works with others with getting the success they get within the organisation. The emotional intelligent leaders can foster the safe-environment where employees can feel comfortable to take calculated risks. The employees can work collaboratively to be woven into organisational culture (Hurtley & Barron, 2018). In large organisations, leaders can leverage the emotion when the need to play the role of the change agent. The leaders’ emotional intelligence can be planned in the most appropriate way to bring out the change within the organisation. In addition, emotionally intelligent leaders provide the advantage of not taking anything personally when the team members ask any queries to the leaders (Mittal & Sindhu, 2012). The team members do not worry about the egos of the team leaders as this is not the trait of the leaders.

Assigned reading relate to the organisational context

Fonterra Australia does not have the leaders who have the understanding of the emotional intelligence and the leaders treat the employees like the subordinates only. Prior developing the skill of emotional intelligence, leaders of Fonterra Australia need to make aware of the feelings of the employees. Emotional intelligence makes the leaders stay in control and the leaders will not take the hasty decisions. It is very important to keep the emotion check of the employees who work in Fonterra so that they can stay in respected position (McCleskey, 2014). In addition, in order to resolve the issue of emotional intelligence, the leaders can use the conflict resolution strategy to handle the conflicts. In case of any disagreement, the leaders can show the sympathy to the employees. This process instils the inspiration and the leaders can motivate the employees to earn the respect and loyalty. Goleman brought the idea of emotional intelligence as the personal characteristics of self-confidence, drive with results and initiative. Other critics respond to emotional intelligence as personality dimensions like emotional stability and extroversion. Therefore, Fonterra management can aware the leaders so that they understand the importance of recognising the emotion of the team members as it is the vital skill of the leader in recent time. Better leaders can perceive the emotions of the team members arise in response to the situations.

The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Leadership

Recommendations related to the leadership issue

Therefore, in Fonterra Australia, the leaders should develop the self-awareness; this will motivate and make the leaders understand themselves as well as other team members. Self-awareness will enable in Fonterra Australia leaders to think of the activities to develop their capabilities of the organisation and encourage the peers. Self-awareness leaders become self-confident with strong executive presence. Therefore, the Fonterra leaders can work on the feeling, emotional impulse and moods of the employees. The leaders in Fonterra can develop self management; the personal values, execute the personal strategy, demonstrate the authenticity and manage and overcome complexities. In addition, the leaders in Fonterra Australia can enable the leaders to think before they can take the action. The leaders must have strong desire to achieve the objectives and determination. The leaders, therefore, need to be prioritised the time management, emotional self-control, transparent, optimist and achievement oriented. Moreover, the leaders in Fonterra Australia can improve social awareness; the emotional intelligence through enable the leader to sense others’ emotion. The leaders can have the organisational awareness to watch the future issues. The emotional intelligence can make aware of the team needs’ feeling, perspectives as well as the concerned. Therefore, the leaders should demonstrate empathy, build trust, collaboration, motivate and inspire the employees. Lastly, the leaders should work on relationship management with the employees guiding the motivation with the compelling vision. In addition, emotionally intelligent leaders can influence use range of tactics to influence others within an organisation. The leaders should have excellent acumen in business; they fetch cooperation and initiate the proactive team.

Weekly discussions and lessons learned     

This integrative leadership programme introduces the organisational leadership programme at an advanced level. Weekly discussion makes me understand about Kouzes & Ponser model of leadership as applicable to a business organisation. Therefore, we got the opportunity to evaluate our own leadership styles in the light of different leadership theories. The aim of the weekly discussions is to make able our own approach to leading. In the weekly discussions, we have been taught about the challenge the process as a leader as the leaders are the risk taker. The leaders are the early adopters of innovation. The leaders seek challenges and they love to experiment. People in the workplace are mainly motivation by ideas that capture their imagination. A shared vision is envisioned that uplifts the ennobling future. The leaders enable others to act as encouragement and exhortation is not al. The leaders need to show their passion as well as vision. Fostering collaboration and promoting cooperative goal is needed. We have discussed many case studies as part of our leadership development programme and we learnt about the leadership behaviour. The leaders set the example for the employees through behaviour with stated values. The leaders also project the small win first through the building of consistent progress. The leaders enjoy celebrating the success and they recognise the individual contribution and celebrate them accomplishing regularly. 

Recommendations and Self-Reflection

Self-discoveries and self-reflections

Keeping the Biblical values, the leaders are becoming the challenge of their own faith. Leaders of Fonterra Australia have not been showing the emotional intelligence and I want to develop my emotional intelligence quality through showing sympathy to others. Faith and leadership can be integrated into creating a culture of transparency as the leaders need to be open and honest to show the understanding of the purpose. Through believing the leadership from the perspective of religious faith; it is important to lead with Christian mission statement. The leadership and the aim of the organisation will be inspiring to others. Showing emotion to others is very important and sometimes; the leadership can integrate the Christian values. I had my own understanding of leadership and after weekly discussions; I have learnt a lot of the leadership development. In addition, Fonterra Australia made me understand the emotional intelligence so that I can invest time developing the emotional intelligence which is equal to my faith as well.    

Conclusion

It has been observed that Fonterra Australia has been facing the issue of lack of emotional intelligence from the side of leaders. The employees have been leaving the organisation due to the passive-aggressive behaviour of the leaders. Emotional intelligence is the non-cognitive skills and competencies that assist to manage and control the emotional response of the pressure and events. Therefore, leaders in today lead through setting the examples by inspiring others not just to focus and drive the motivation. In addition, leaders must be confident, direct, honest and consistent. In addition, leaders can be decisive, clear and straight forward to show the self-regulation on themselves and for the others. The leaders in the workplace are influential and empathetic as being effective leaders are technical skill with knowledge.

Reference List

Brown, F. W., & Reilly, M. D. (2018). Emotional intelligence, transformational leadership and gender: Correlation and interaction possibilities. The Journal of International Management Studies, 3(2), 1-9.

Gardner, L., & Stough, C. (2013). Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers. Leadership & organization development journal, 23(2), 68-78.

George, J. M. (2017). Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence. Human relations, 53(8), 1027-1055.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press.

Higgs, M., & Aitken, P. (2013). An exploration of the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership potential. Journal of Managerial psychology, 18(8), 814-823.

Hurley, J. & Barron, D., (2018). Emotional intelligence and leadership. In Emotional Intelligence in Health and Social Care,  95-108.

Kerr, R., Garvin, J., Heaton, N., & Boyle, E. (2016). Emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 27(4), 265-279.

Li, Z., Gupta, B., Loon, M., & Casimir, G. (2016). Combinative aspects of leadership style and emotional intelligence. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(1), 107-125.

McCleskey, J., (2014). Emotional intelligence and leadership: A review of the progress, controversy, and criticism. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(1), 76-93.

Mittal, E. V., & Sindhu, E. (2012). Emotional intelligence and leadership. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 12(16), 34-37.

Palmer, B., Walls, M., Burgess, Z., & Stough, C. (2015). Emotional intelligence and effective leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(1), 5-10.

Parrish, D. R. (2015). The relevance of emotional intelligence for leadership in a higher education context. Studies in Higher Education, 40(5), 821-837.

Spano-Szekely, L., Griffin, M. T. Q., Clavelle, J., & Fitzpatrick, J. J. (2016). Emotional intelligence and transformational leadership in nurse managers. Journal of Nursing Administration, 46(2), 101-108.