By Kevin S. Groves, Kravis Leadership Institute
Claremont McKenna College

Academic Citation: Kevin S. Groves, “Executive Summary, The Contribution of Leader Social and Emotional Skills to Leadership Effectiveness During Strategic Organizational Change,” Kravis Leadership Institute Leadership Review, Winter 2003.

About the Author: Kevin S. Groves, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral fellow at the Kravis Leadership Institute at Claremont McKenna College. His research interests include the prediction of leadership effectiveness, the use of evaluation methodology for improving leadership training and development, and the ways in which charismatic leadership behavior affects financial and strategic performance.

Regulatory, economic, competitive, and global changes in the business environment force organizations to adapt quickly and effectively to ensure survival. While scholars and practitioners alike agree that the change process requires excellent senior leadership, much less is known about what type of leadership skills and abilities are critical for facilitating organizational change. Furthermore, the leadership competencies that are most important for effective implementation of strategic organizational change are even less well-known. The purpose of this study was to examine whether leader social and emotional skills are related to leadership effectiveness during periods of strategic organizational change and offer practical recommendations for organizations.

A total of 433 employees, both leaders (n=108) and their direct reports (n=325), from four organizations participated in this study. The participants included institutional leaders (e.g., president, deans, and functional vice-presidents) drawn from a professional health sciences university, engineering managers from a public services and works government agency, presidents of osteopathic medical colleges, and general managers from a community-based leadership development program. Leaders and their direct reports were administered separate surveys that included questions regarding leader social and emotional skills, type and degree of organizational change, and leadership effectiveness.

Results of the study suggest that two types of leader social and emotional skills are critical for implementing strategic organizational change: social control and emotional expressivity. Leaders with superior social control skills are able to adjust their leadership behavior to fit with what is appropriate for any given social situation, including the ability to act tactfully and display self-confidence. Emotional expressivity skills include the ability to express nonverbal communication and appear animated and emotionally charged when delivering important messages, such as the organization’s goals and vision. The importance of social control and emotional expressivity skills was exacerbated for leaders implementing strategic change, such as changes in organizational mission/purpose, core goals and objectives, or culture.

Findings from the present study suggest key implications for organizational selection, promotion, and training/development processes. Instead of relying exclusively on interviews for selection of managerial employees, the results of this study suggest that organizations would benefit from using social and emotional skill levels as selection criteria. Furthermore, social and emotional skill measurement may also improve assessment center techniques as a means to promote the best managers to executive-level positions. In addition to informing selection and promotion decisions, the findings of this study suggest that organizations stand much to gain by tailoring their executive development programs to the specific needs of participants, such as creating social skill profiles for executive personnel and corresponding training and development opportunities.