IDEAL LEADERSHIP

Resonant Leadership

Resonance is a powerful collective energy that reverberates among people and supports higher productivity, creativity, a sense of unity, a sense of purpose, and results. Resonance comes from our ability to use our own cognitive and biological systems to master skills of self-awareness, awareness of others, empathy, and emotional intelligence.
Resonant leaders use emotional and social intelligence skills to renew themselves, create positive relationships, and foster a healthy, vibrant environment to engage others toward a common goal. They do this through mindfulness, hope and compassion.
Mindfulness: The awareness of what is really happening within your body, mind, heart and spirit, while paying attention to what is going on around you.
Hope: Charting a course of action on clearly articulated goals, believing the goals can be met and eventually reaching them with a sense of well-being.
Compassion: Compassion is empathy in action — not just caring, but helping others to discover their dreams and helping to achieve them.
As importantly, Resonant Leaders manage negative emotions, using them carefully, consciously and appropriately. Such leaders exude emotions that are contagious and affect all around them. These leaders are consciously attuned to people, focus them on a common cause, build a sense of community, and create a climate that unleashes peoples' passion, energy, and unified spirit. They are able to remain calm and stay focused in order to manage themselves and others effectively under stress and/or when dealing with ambiguous circumstances. Resonant leaders also facilitate empowerment, acting in ways that leave the people around them (colleagues, team members, employees, suppliers, community members, etc.) feeling stronger and more capable. They encourage participation and teamwork by staying intensely in touch with what those they lead are thinking and feeling to motivate and energize them.
Resonant work environments support health and well-being, encourage collaboration and innovation, engage and motivate employees, and ultimately lead to improved overall performance.

Resonant Basics

Resonant leaders have a higher degree of emotional intelligence and a greater ability to connect personally with followers. They show empathy for employees struggling with life challenges. They are more likely to create harmony in a group and motivate workers to follow direction, even in tense company situations. Employees typically believe that a resonant leader cares as much about them as people as he does about their work performance.

Styles

Goleman identified which common leadership styles are associated with resonant and dissonant leaders. Visionaries, coaches, affiliators and democratic leaders were noted as types of resonant leaders. Visionaries are often known as charismatic or transformational leaders. They use personal qualities to inspire employees toward a common goal. Coaches use a close, mentoring approach with employees. Affiliators want group harmony above all else. This is beneficial in developing a team environment, though it may lead to inefficiency and poor discipline at the extreme. Democratic leaders use various forms of participative leadership and actively seek employee input or feedback.

Dissonant Basics

Dissonant leaders tend to operate more on the authoritative side of leadership. They maintain a greater social and emotional distance from employees. This can aid in times when orders must be delivered and executed urgently. However, dissonant leaders can cause emotional frustration, stress, burnout and disengagement among employees. While a dissonant leader often intends to remain objective and logical in decision-making, his approach is commonly viewed by employees as cold and distant.

Styles

The two styles Goleman linked to dissonant leadership were pacesetting and commanding. A pacesetter focuses heavily on getting employees to constantly ramp up efficiency and performance in meeting deadlines. While this approach may work in crunch time, it can wear on employees as a constant leadership style. A commander simply operates with a highly authoritative style. He expects employees to complete tasks quickly and without questioning. This conflicts with contemporary leadership approaches emphasizing empowerment and employee involvement.