Leadership and emotional intelligence

Engineers like to plan and complete tasks. They are thorough, meticulous, and systematic. Engineers regularly work either in production or as project managers. They are like beavers who will die rather than leave their dam half built.

Hustlers are led by the desire for material success. They are realistic, shrewd, and astute. The acumen of Hustlers often leads them to become successful business executives. Hustlers remind people of foxes.

Normals are governed by the desire for social approval. These people are logical, ethical and conservative. Normals tend to work for professional organisations such as lawyers and accountants. Because Normals tend to follow group norms assiduously and dress in white shirts and dark suits, many people think of them as penguins.

What then are the emotional drivers of the ideal leader? The first is the Mover or M component. The M component provides two characteristics of the ideal leader, energy and team spirit. Movers have far more energy than any other component and their desire to meet and communicate with people makes them good team players.

The second key component is the Politician or P component. This provides two more characteristics of the ideal leader, conflict and focus. P style people naturally like to argue, they debate well and are usually forceful and articulate when expressing their views.

In addition, P style people see life as a competition, and more importantly as one they have to win. Thus when they join an organisation they soon set themselves the goal of working their way to the top. They commit themselves to that aim and generate much emotional energy getting there.

The final key component is the Hustler or H component. This provides the empathy and flexibility so necessary for a leader's success. H-style people spend a lot of time trying to work out what other people are thinking and planning to do. They put themselves in other peoples' shoes, which, of course is what empathy is all about.

While empathy can be a learned skill, Hustlers do it naturally. In addition to natural empathy, H-style people have natural flexibility. Grahame Richardson, who had a lot of Hustler component in his personality, defined it well when he said the key to political success was "doing whatever it takes." If that includes having to be flexible about the truth, well that is a necessary evil.

The most successful Australian Labor leader has been Bob Hawke. Under his leadership, Labor won four elections. Hawke is an excellent example of an HMP personality.

Bob Hawke has demonstrated many of the characteristics of the Hustler component with his love of gambling, name-dropping and financial opportunism since he left politics. His energy and desire to meet and talk with people was the stuff of legend and also a strong indicator of high Mover component. Finally even after winning four elections he still believed he would win a fifth. This compelling desire to win is a good indicator of the Politician component.

Bob Hawke was one of those rare individuals who combined all three key emotional components and in turn, these emotional drives were a strong reason for his political success.

Tony Abbott definitely has two of the three core drives, the M and the P. Julia Gillard on the other hand only has the P. It is stronger than Tony's P but if anything, it is too strong. She has learned to appear to listen, but is not really paying attention.

Great leaders know that they must only fight battles they are going to win. They also do not talk about history being on their side. They have learned that such language speaks of hubris and arrogance.

The contrast with Hawke is stark. His government made a number of historic decisions yet he rarely talked about the judgement of history during his period of leadership. Afterwards yes, like all politicians do trying to rewrite history in their favour, but not during his period of leadership.