Nurse leaders and nurses require emotional intelligence that comprises five elements, including self-awareness. Self-awareness is the capacity to recognize and understand one’s emotions, motivations, strengths, and weaknesses. Through self-awareness, one can do introspection evaluate their emotional state, and understand the effects of these emotions on thoughts, behavior, and decision making. Self-awareness implores one to appreciate the emotions of others and their effects on well-being, including interactions (Cavaness et al., 2020). Emotional intelligence is essential for effective leadership because of its benefits. For instance, emotional intelligence helps leaders to be self-aware and understand the effects of their emotions on their relationship with others. Therefore, emotional intelligence helps leaders to manage relationships and deal with others, especially in conflict situations. Emotional intelligence helps leaders make better decisions as they consider all possible outcomes (Landry, 2020). Furthermore, through emotional intelligence, leaders exercise empathy which helps in understanding and sharing the feelings of others leading to developing teamwork approaches to conflicts and problems within the organization.
A high degree of self-awareness is essential when leading and managing groups, especially for nurse leaders in healthcare settings. Self-awareness ensures that one can control their emotions based on the activities and reactions among the group members (Cavaness et al., 2020). A leader with a high degree of self-awareness would show self-reflection on their actions and decisions as they learn from their successes, failures, and mistakes. The leaders show emotional understanding as they appreciate their reactions and effects on performance. They also show a warm reception to feedback and changes wanted by employees.
Such leaders also demonstrate the ability to change based on their limitations and weaknesses (Northouse, 2020). They also leverage their strengths to become better and adapt their behaviors to meet organizational needs. For instance, project leaders undergo increased pressure to deliver to stakeholders. Therefore, they require high levels of self-awareness as a component of emotional intelligence to deal with and interact with different people and groups.
Cavaness, K., Picchioni, A., Mahajan, A., Islam, S., Schwartz, M., Cannesson, M., & Baer, D.
(2020). Linking emotional intelligence to successful health care leadership: the big five models of personality. Clinics in colon and rectal surgery, 33(04), 195-203. DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1709435.
Landry, L. (2020). Why Emotional Intelligence Is Important in Leadership.
Northouse, P. G. (2020). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.