Abstract
Thinking Political Leadership “Emotionally”: Perceptions of University Students about the Emotional Intelligence of Political Party Leaders
Emotional intelligence, which is defined as the ability to direct thoughts and behaviours by being conscious about emotions, is also addressed as an art of influencing and guiding masses. The most distinctive feature of political leadership is the ability to influence the ideas and behaviours of masses, which is emotional intelligence. The aim of this study is to determine the perceptions of university students about emotional intelligence of political party leaders. To this end, students were asked to answer questions about the emotional intelligence dimensions that they find important in the political leaders that they have voted or plan to vote. Thus, the most effective emotional intelligence characteristic in choosing a leader was determined. The research was carried out with the participation of 182 students attending the Faculty of Communication at Karadeniz Technical University. In the research, Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence Model with Five Dimensions” was employed, and the results were discussed along with the literatures on emotional intelligence and political leadership. The participant students were generally male, aged between 19 and 22, staying in houses, earning low income and coming from low-income families. Goleman’s model has two headings: Personal Competencies and Social Competencies. The first three dimensions are placed under the former, while the other two dimensions are placed under the latter. The participant students mostly had the following perceptions about leaders for the dimensions of the scale: “Confident” for the dimension of “Self Awareness”, “Ethical” for the dimension of “Self Management/Self Regulation”, “Committed to His/her Goals” for the dimension of “Motivation”, “Very Successful in Understanding Emotional States of His/her Party and Supporters” for the dimension of “Empathy”, and “Influential” for the dimension of “Social Skills”. Among all dimensions, the highest agreement was on the characteristic of “Commitment to One’s Goals”.
Keywords
Political Leadership, Political Communication, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Goleman Emotional Intell