According to the Goleman EI survey, 80% of employees become disengaged, and 50% leave their jobs due to poor leadership. At a time when layoffs and attrition are high, dissonance in leadership is the last thing organizations want to deal with. That’s why organizations need resonant leadership to engage and retain employees.
Coined by Daniel Goleman, resonant leadership is a leadership approach in which the leaders develop an emotional connection with their teams, engage them, and guide them toward achieving a goal. It is built on the tenets of emotional intelligence and relationship building. Resonant leaders are empathetic, authentic, democratic, and inspiring. They create an environment that fosters a sense of belonging among team members.
Resonant leadership can help improve employee loyalty and engagement, boost morale, reduce attrition, and create a psychologically safe space for them to express and grow.
Let’s understand the different types of resonant leaders, why emotional intelligence and relationship building is crucial, and, more importantly, how organizations can develop resonant leadership.
The Four Types of Resonant Leadership
In his book Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman discussed the four types of resonant leadership that could positively influence employees and organizations and deliver positive outcomes. The four types include:
- Visionary: Visionary leadership involves envisioning the big picture of an organization’s future and inspiring the teams to work towards achieving it.
- Coaching: Coaching leadership is focused on employees’ personal development. Leaders have one-to-one interactions with every team member, foster relationships, and coach them to achieve better results.
- Affiliative: Affiliative leadership is based on empathy and high emotional intelligence. Affiliative leaders collaborate with employees, value their contributions, and boost their confidence to improve performance and achieve goals.
- Democratic: Democratic leadership focuses on collaborating with employees, listening to their opinions, reaching a consensus, and making decisions. Democratic leaders demonstrate high emotional intelligence, empathy, and the ability to build strong connections with others.
To become a successful resonant leader, the leader must have high emotional intelligence and the skill to build relationships with others.
The Need for Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Building in Resonant Leadership
Leaders with high emotional intelligence display better control over emotions, allowing employees to freely share their opinions and concerns with the leader. They can understand the needs and concerns of their team members, resolve conflicts, and function calmly under stressful situations. They can empathize with their employees better than other types of leaders.
A leader with emotional intelligence makes employees feel valued and boosts their morale to achieve goals. That’s why emotional intelligence is so crucial in resonant leadership. It focuses on creating a conducive work environment that helps everybody grow together.
The other key element of successful resonant leadership is building long-lasting, sustainable relationships with employees. A leader who shares a strong bond with the team can delegate responsibilities efficiently, improve collaboration between the members, communicate and coach the team, and create a sense of belonging among the members. Such leaders promote innovation, encourage team members to achieve goals faster, and create a positive impact on business.
How Leadership Coaching Can Help Build Resonant Leadership?
As we know by now, resonant leadership is essential to positively influence employees and encourage them to work towards a shared organizational goal. Leaders need to possess high emotional intelligence and build long-term, sustainable relationship with their teams to boost their morale and keep them invested in achieving the goal.
However, only a few leaders display high emotional intelligence or can naturally build relationships with team members. Organizations must cultivate these traits to build a pool of resonant leaders who can steer their teams toward achieving their goals. One way to do that is through leadership coaching.
Leadership coaching introduces managers to resonant leadership and nudges them to transform from a reactive manager who works in silos to a democratic leader who collaborates with everybody to take the organization ahead. Leadership coaching can help organizations nurture and build a pool of successful resonant leaders. It can aid leaders in developing high emotional intelligence and cultivating strong team bonds. The coaching will help leaders build empathy and strong communication skills, coach their teams, and create a positive work environment that meets the organization’s goals.
What’s Next?
At Numly, we understand the need for resonant leadership in modern workplaces. It helps organizations quickly meet their goals.
That’s why we offer various solutions and services to help organizations create an emotionally intelligent, close-knit community of resonant leaders.
NumlyEngage™, for instance, is a cloud-based coaching platform that offers in-built coaching programs, curated learning, pulse surveys, and real-time engagement analytics to prepare managers to become resonant leaders and build a successful team that consistently performs and achieves shared organizational goals. We provide a 60-day pilot program for organizations to try the platform and improve resonant leadership.
Numly’s ImpactCoach Certification Program 2023 is a series of live, virtual sessions conducted by ICF-certified expert coaches that train managers to become coaches and improve employee engagement and productivity among team members. It’s a foundation for managers to become more impactful and resonant leaders.
Platforms and solutions like these empower resonant leaders to cultivate a highly motivated team and propel the organization to grow and maintain a competitive edge. To know more about our solutions, contact us. We will be happy to help you build resonant leaders within your organization.
