[FOUNTAIN]With wings of emotion and reason

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[FOUNTAIN]With wings of emotion and reason

“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles but no personality,” Albert Einstein said. While intelligence and logic might be necessary attributes of a leader, reason itself cannot quite make one a leader. A true leader needs the power to captivate others, not with the brain but with the heart.
Daniel Goleman, who first came up with the idea of an emotional quotient, or EQ, claims that emotion-oriented leadership is more important than guidance or direction-oriented leadership. In the complex web of an information-oriented society, it is difficult for a leader to command an organization by personally giving directions or orders. Instead, today’s organizations need empathic leaders who can understand emotions and motivate people. Mr. Goleman proposed four qualities for a next-generation leader: self-awareness, self-regulation, recognition of a situation and social skills.
It is an established theory that men and women have different brain structures and functions. Only a few thousand years ago, males were out hunting and females stayed at home taking care of offspring. Men developed spatial skills and females developed facility in speech and social skills. A three-year-old girl has a vocabulary twice as large as a boy of the same age. Boys grow up competing; girls grow up collaborating. Everything originates from the genetic differences between the “hunters on the plain” and the “keepers of the habitat.” Women have more qualities of emotion-oriented leaders.
“In the modern management of globalization and networks, women are at an advantage. The female learns foreign languages faster, accepts foreign cultures without rejection and better reads the minds of the members of a group,” the German sociologist Claudia Enckelman wrote in her book, “The Strategy of Venus.”
Female lawmakers make up 13 percent of the new National Assembly, the first time they have numbered over 10 percent. Female participation in politics made a leap from an Islamic nation’s level, 100th among 180 countries, to the level of France and Italy, about 60th place. During the campaign, political parties were criticized for “using” female politicians to play on emotions. But if female politicians fly with wings of both emotion and reason, they deserve half the Assembly.


by Lee Kyu-youn

The writer is a deputy city news editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.
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