Project Leadership

MPM7002

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Week 4
 Emotional Intelligence & Personality Traits

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Schedule
Sunday, 8.30
Introduction to Project Management to 12.30 –
Session 1 Chapters 1 & 2 November 05,
Leadership & Governance with Ethics
2023

Project Leadership and Leadership November 19,

Session 2 Chapters 3 & 5 2023
Behaviours and Skills
December 3,
Session 3 Leadership Theories and Styles Chapter 6 2023
December 10,
Session 4 Emotional Intelligence & Personality Traits Chapters 9 2023
December 17,
Session 5 Power to influence and Resistance to Change Chapter 7 & 8 2023

Chapters 12 & January 7 ,

Session 6 Project teams & Teams Vs. Groups 2024
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Chapters 14 & January 14,
Session 7 Team Development Phases & Team Building 2024
15
Chapters 22 & January 21,
Session 8 Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving 2024
23
Session 9 Discussions on Assessments
3
Emotional Intelligence - defined
 The development of social skills and
intelligence regarding the emotions,
especially in the ability to monitor one’s
own or others’ emotions.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
 Has been brought into the popular and
management arenas through the work and
writing of Daniel Goleman.
 He asserts that when working in teams or
closely with other people, our emotions play
a significant part in shaping our behaviors
and the quality of our relationships.
 This adds a new dimension to the skills that
are necessary for successful collaboration;
skills that are not usually taught in schools
or colleges.
 It is these skills that relate to how we deal
with people at a personal level
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
 Goleman et al. (2002, p. 39) offer four
dimensions or domains of Emotional
Intelligence.
 The four domains are grouped into two
overarching capabilities: personal and social.
 For each of the overarching capabilities, the
EI domains are:
 Personal: Self-Awareness and Self-
Management.
 Social: Social Awareness and Relationship
Management
The Four Emotional Intelligence
Domains
 Self-Awareness: Is having a developed
understanding of how people respond
emotionally to events and situations.
The Four Emotional Intelligence
Domains
 Self-Management: Is a significant challenge
for some and develops from Self-
Awareness. If we do not know what or
how we are feeling, how can we eff
ectively manage those emotions?
The Four Emotional Intelligence
Domains
 Social Awareness: Is another term for
empathy or the ability to read another’s
body language and facial expressions, and
to hear their voice and consequently be
in tune with their emotions in the
moment.
 When we are able to synchronize with
another’s feelings in this way, we achieve a
‘resonance’ that encourages us to be ‘on
the same wavelength’.
The Four Emotional Intelligence
Domains
 Relationship Management: Is the collation of
the other competencies where the leader is
able to manage other people’s emotions.
 If a leader is not congruent; that is, they are
acting disingenuously, manipulatively or their
actions do not align with their personal
values or beliefs, the emotional radar of
followers will sense this falseness and they
will instinctively distrust the leader
Emotional Intelligence Domains and
Associated Competencies
 Personal Competence - How do we
manage ourselves?
 Self-Awareness:
 Emotional self-awareness: Reading our
own emotions and recognizing their
impact; using instinct to guide directions
Accurate self-assessment: Knowing our
own strength and limits Self-confidence: A
sound sense of our own self-worth and
capabilities
SELF-AWARENESS:
 Emotional self-awareness: Leaders recognize how
their feelings affect them and their job
performance. Often, they can see the best course
of action through a complex situation.
 Accurate self-assessment: Leaders know their
strengths and limitations and see the humorous
side of their own behavior. They welcome
constructive criticism and work to develop
themselves, knowing when to ask for assistance.
 Self-confidence: Leaders exhibit self-assurance and
welcome difficult tasks. They know their strengths
and abilities.
Emotional Intelligence Domains and
Associated Competencies
 Personal Competence - How do we manage
ourselves?
 Self-Management:
 Emotional self-control: Keeping disruptive
emotions and impulses under control
 Transparency: Displaying honesty and integrity,
trustworthiness
 Adaptability: Flexibility in adapting to changing
situations or overcoming obstacles
 Achievement: The drive to improve performance
to meet inner standards of excellence
 Initiative: Readiness to act and seize opportunities
Optimism: Seeing the positive aspects of events
 SELF-MANAGEMENT
 Self-control: Leaders stay calm and clear-
headed under high stress or in a crisis
 Transparency: Leaders openly admit
mistakes or faults, representing an authentic
openness to others and demonstrating
integrity through living up to their values.
 Adaptability: Leaders can juggle multiple
demands and are comfortable with
ambiguities in new challenges.
 SELF-MANAGEMENT
 Achievement: Leaders have high personal
standards that drive them to seek
performance improvements for themselves
and their followers.
 Initiative: Leaders seize or create
opportunities, not hesitating to remove
blockages or bend the rules when
necessary to create better possibilities for
the future.
 Optimism: Leaders see opportunities rather
than threats in a setback.
Emotional Intelligence Domains and
Associated Competencies
 Social Competence - How do we manage
relationships?
 Social Awareness:
 Empathy: Sensing others’ emotions,
understanding their perspective and taking
an active interest in their concerns
 Organizational awareness: Reading the
current decision networks and politics at the
organizational level
 Service: Recognizing and meeting follower,
client or customer needs
SOCIAL AWARENESS
 Empathy: Leaders are able to sense a range of
emotional signals from others. They listen
attentively and can perceive another’s point of
view.
 Organizational awareness: Leaders are aware of
social networks and power relationships. They
understand the political forces, guiding values and
unspoken rules that operate in organizations and
projects.
 Service: Leaders value relationships with clients
or customers and carefully monitor customers’
satisfaction to ensure their needs are being
fulfilled.
Emotional Intelligence Domains and
Associated Competencies
 Social Competence - How do we manage
relationships?
 Relationship Management:
 Inspirational leadership: Guiding and
motivating with a compelling vision
 Influence: Wielding a range of tactics for
persuasion
 Developing others: Bolstering others’
abilities through feedback and guidance
Emotional Intelligence Domains and
Associated Competencies
 Change catalyst: Initiating, managing and
leading in a new direction
 Conflict management: Resolving
disagreements
 Building bonds: Cultivating and maintaining
a web of relationships
 Teamwork and Collaboration: Cooperation
and team-building
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
 Inspiration: Leaders have a compelling vision
that creates a sense of common purpose that
makes work exciting and inspires others to
follow.
 Influence: Leaders are persuasive and
engaging, finding the right way to address the
listeners to create buy-in from the key people
and a network of support for an initiative.
 Developing others: Leaders show a genuine
interest and understand the goals, strengths
and weaknesses of those they are helping.
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
 Change catalyst: Leaders recognize the need
for change, and are strong advocates of
change even in the face of strong opposition.
 Conflict management: Leaders are able to
understand different perspectives in a conflict
situation and find a common ideal that
everyone can agree with.
 Teamwork and collaboration: Leaders
establish a helpful, supportive, cooperative,
respectful and friendly atmosphere in a team.
Leaders Need Emotional
Intelligence (EI)
 Though emotional competencies are not
specifically learnt or taught, effective
leaders exhibit significant abilities in these
areas.
 Leadership abilities are often tacitly learnt
over time and through many experiences.
 Evidence suggests that people naturally
tend to develop EI competencies over
time; competencies that get stronger as
their career progresses.
Leaders Need Emotional
Intelligence (EI)
 However, the leader needs to ensure the
right competencies are acquired at the
right time, so a plan for development is
crucial.
 Indeed, because of the nature of
emotional development, the learning
process has demands that extend beyond
those provided by traditional training
programs
Richard Boyatzis (in Goleman et al., 2002, p.111)
suggests a five-stage discovery process
 The first discovery: What kind of leader do I want
to become? What will be my ideal self?
 The second discovery: What kind of leader am I
now? What are my strengths and where do I want
to develop?
 The third discovery: What is my learning agenda?
How can I build on my strengths and develop my
weaker competencies?
 The fourth discovery: How can I experiment with
and practice new behaviors, thoughts and feelings?
How can I develop these into real competence?
 The fifth discovery: Who can help me to identify
my strengths and development needs? How can I
develop supportive and trusting relationships?
Perception of Emotional
Competence
 Senior executives and leaders appeared to
give a high rating to their own emotional
intelligence abilities.
 When those around them were asked
about their view of the leader’s EI abilities,
the score was much lower.
 The reason for this is that senior
executives are less likely to seek or be
provided with honest feedback about
their leadership style.
Perception of Emotional
Competence
 ‘Those at the highest levels had the least
accurate view of how they acted with
others’ (Goleman et al., 2002, p. 95).
 To effectively develop leadership
capabilities, we need to find a trusted
adviser who can support our learning in
an honest and positive manner
Personality and Profiling (Northouse,
2019)
 Traits
◦ Personal characteristics that distinguish one
person from another

 Personality
◦ Combination of traits

 Profiling
◦ Method of classifying and
measuring traits
Personality and Profiling (Northouse,
2019)
Personalities are developed
 Genetics
◦ Hereditary genetics from parents
 Environment
◦ Peer groups, family, school, work
 Situation
◦ Can change according to the context
The Big Five (Northouse, 2019)
 Personality trait theory (most common)
 Unusual academic consensus
 Particularly applicable to leadership
◦ Building self-awareness
◦ Understanding others
◦ Taking informed action
◦ Engaging in more effective
communication
The Big Five (Northouse, 2019)
Categorises all traits into five dimensions
 Surgency

 Agreeableness

 Adjustment

 Conscientiousness

 Openness to experience
The Big Five
 Surgency
 Includes characteristics such as
◦ Excitability
◦ Sociability
◦ High emotional expressiveness
 Captures how one feels about relationships
and social interaction
The Big Five
 Surgency
 Individuals high in surgency are
◦ Outgoing
◦ Competitive
◦ Decisive
 Individuals low in surgency
◦ Prefer working alone
◦ Avoid competition
The Big Five
 Agreeableness
 Includes characteristics such as
◦ Trust
◦ Kindness
◦ Affection
◦ Pro-social behaviours
 Is about getting along with others, as opposed
to leading them
The Big Five
 Agreeableness
 Individuals high in agreeableness are
◦ Approachable
◦ Sensitive
 Individuals low in agreeableness are
◦ Insensitive, callous
◦ Distant to others
The Big Five
 Adjustment
 Includes characteristics such as
◦ Resilience
◦ Self-control
 Reactions to adversity, such as
◦ Pressure, and stressful situations
◦ Failure, and disappointments
◦ Personal criticism
The Big Five
 Adjustment
 Individuals high in adjustment
◦ Remain calm
◦ Avoid negative outbursts
 Individuals low in adjustment tend to
experience more

 Anxiety  Irritability
 Moodiness  Sadness
The Big Five
 Conscientiousness
 Includes characteristics such as being
◦ Thoughtful
◦ Goal-directed
◦ Prudent
 Concerned with how one approaches
work and life in general
The Big Five
 Conscientiousness
 Individuals high in conscientiousness
tend to be
◦ Organised
◦ Mindful of details
 Individuals low in conscientiousness tend
to be
◦ More creative
◦ Spontaneous
The Big Five
 Openness to experience
 Includes characteristics such as being
◦ Imaginative
◦ Insightful
◦ Trailblazer
 Concerned with how one approaches
problems or learns from new
experiences
The Big Five
 Openness to experience
 Individuals high in openness tend to
◦ Have a broad range of interests
◦ Seek change
 Individuals low in openness tend to
◦ Have a more specific skill set
◦ Be practical people
◦ Seek mastery
The Big Five
 Dimensions are not personality types
◦ Most people fall somewhere in between
the two extremes
 Job performance is correlated with
High
 Surgency
 Agreeableness
 Adjustment
 Conscientiousness
 Openness
Cognitive Differences
(Northouse, 2019)
 Many ways to measure cognitive style
 Two major dimensions of cognitive style
dominate the research
◦ Information gathering
◦ Information analysing
 Based on the work of Carl Jung (1923)
◦ Swiss psychiatrist, influential thinker, and
founder of Analytical Psychology
Cognitive Differences
Two different approaches to each
 Information gathering
◦ Sensing
◦ Intuiting
 Information analysing
◦ Thinking
◦ Feeling
Cognitive Differences
Information gathering - Sensing
 Focus on details and on individual parts,
rather than relationships between them
 Approach decisions rationally
 Meticulously gather specific data
 Prefer concrete evidence
 Prefer structured situations
 Make few errors, can be slow
Cognitive Differences
Information gathering - Intuiting
 Focus on similarities, patterns, and
relationships in the data or information
 Approach decisions holistically
 Gather more general data
 Prefer possibilities and theories
 Prefer unstructured situations
 Innovative, may be bored by details
Cognitive Differences
Information analysing – Thinking

 Objective approach

 Systematic, methodical, empirical

 Based on logical reasoning

 Prioritises truth/accuracy

 Values justice
Cognitive Differences
Information analysing – Feeling

 Subjective approach

 Intuitive, impulsive, instinctive

 Based on personal values

 Prioritises people/discussion

 Values harmony
Cognitive Differences
Summary
 People are different along each of the four
dimensions related to information
 Gathering Sensing vs. Intuiting
 Analysing Thinking vs. Feeling
 No one style is better or worse than
another – fit is more important
 Strength through diversity,
especially in teams
 Assessment 2 – Individual report
Identify your own personality type using Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator and explain the effects of strengths and weaknesses of
your present leadership style in comparison with the
Transformational Leadership traits needed for an effective
Project Manager. Explain the identified weaknesses and what
action you would take to improve them. The report should be
planned according to the following order.
• Explain and interpret your results of the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator
• Identify the primary Transformational leadership traits of an
effective Project Manager with justification through literature
• Compare your results and explain strengths and weaknesses of
your own traits with the above traits of an effective Project
Manager
• Explain how you are planning to improve on your weaknesses to
become an effective Project Manager 49
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
 Well known personality framework
 100 item survey
 Individuals respond to how they feel or
act in particular situations
 Builds on Jung’s two-dimensional
cognitive model
 Understanding your type and others’
will help you lead and develop
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
 Individuals are classified as either
◦ Extroverted (E) or Introverted (I)
◦ Sensing (S) or Intuiting (N)
◦ Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
◦ Perceiving (P) or Judging (J)
 Classifications are then combined into
16 possible personality types
◦ e.g. ESFJ or INTP
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Extroverts (E)
 Focus their attention outwards

 Prefer a fast-paced environment

 Energised in social settings

 Talkative

 Outgoing
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Introverts (I)
 Focus their attention inwards

 Prefer a slower pace, time to think

 Prefer to withdraw and observe

 Contemplative

 Reserved
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Perceiving (P)
 Avoid structure
 Keep their options open
 Prefer exploring multiple solutions
 Make choices only when necessary
 Curious knowledge-seekers
 Tolerant and adaptable
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Judging (J)
 Approach life in a structured way
 Create plans and are well organised
 Achieve goals in a predictable way
 Take charge by making choices early
 Self-disciplined
 Decisive
www.careerfitter.com
www.practicalpie.com
Have a great week
 Next week Session 5
 Power to influence and Resistance to
Change
 Chapter 7 & 8

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