Emotional Moods, Part II

Daniel Goleman has set forth four key factors about emotional moods:

1. Self-Awareness. The ability to understand your own emotions, know your strengths and limitations, and have high self-esteem. Self-awareness helps to measure personal moods and understand how they affect others.

2. Self-Management. The ability to control emotions and act with honesty and integrity in consistent and adaptable manners. Self-management helps prevent temper tantrums when things don't go as planned. The occasional bad mood does not ruin the day.

3. Social Awareness. Empathy for others and intuition about organizational problems. Social awareness allows leaders to show they care and to accurately size up political forces in the organization.

4. Relationship Management. The ability to communicate clearly and convincingly, disarm conflicts, and build strong personal bonds. Relationship management helps leaders spread their enthusiasm and solve disagreements, often with kindness and good humor.

Thus, if you wish to discover the most effective leadership style, perhaps you should first look at the key role that mood plays in what you do best. Moods--good or bad--apparently matter just that much.