What are the verbal emotionally intelligent behaviors of highly effective leaders?

The higher the EQ of leaders, the higher the effectiveness of those leaders is (Rosete, & Ciarrochi, 2005). The increasing amount of interest in emotional intelligence and effective leadership literature, did not yet seem to reflect in research on actual observable emotionally intelligent leadership behaviors. This paper develops and tests a new coding scheme for verbal emotionally intelligent leadership behaviors. The new coding scheme allows a shift in the current focus in the literature on ability-, competence- or trait-based emotional intelligence self-tests, towards actual observable and trainable leadership behaviors. The newly developed scheme was tested by two coders, with a video observation of three effective leaders during staff meetings in a public organization. In total 480 minutes of video and audio were used to pilot-test the new EI codebook. The resulting four mutually exclusive categories for observing EI behaviors during team meetings are: ‘Expressing emotions’, ‘Utilizing emotions’, ‘Understanding emotions’ and ‘Regulating emotions’. The recommended new EI codebook can be used for future research to measure EI, without reliance on self-tests. Besides, the list with EI behaviors can already help improve EI trainings in firms, due to the already practical value of these EI behaviors.