It is clearly understood and accepted that one can shatter glass with sound. I would argue that this is a misunderstanding of the basic forces that govern our world. The power is not in sound or amplification, but rather in resonance. It is the resulting vibration that should be credited for having shattered the glass. Effective leaders understand that resonance is one of the most powerful tools in the process of bringing vision to fruition.

The term resonance (for the purposes of this discussion) derives from the Latin term, resonare or “to echo”. This echo, within a structured team is a shared strategy and vision, but not necessarily shared tactics. It is a reverberation of sound, thought, and strategy that affords the team a unified objective albeit approached from many different angles. A leader works toward this sense of resonance by approaching team members individually and collectively within the audience’s dominant or accepted paradigm.

Resonance among leaders and team members is not defined or measured in terms of frequency or intensity as in sound or energy. It is more accurately defined through degrees of alignment to the team’s strategy, goals, and objectives especially when there is freedom to exercise individually defined tactics.

To create strong resonance environments leaders must communicate clearly from a macro perspective and must exercise few to no command and control policies. Team members must be empowered and instructed on their specific strengths that are most valuable to the team. Through this instruction team members can easily live up to their perceived roles or change their perceived roles within the context of the overarching strategy and objectives.

High levels of Emotional intelligence are common characteristics 
of successful leaders. Emotional Intelligence comprises several 
competencies. All competencies are based on aligning the wants, 
needs, interests or other emotional characteristics of others with 
the vision the group wishes to achieve. 

These competencies include:

the understanding of emotional motivations, desires, wants, and 
needs.

the ability to appeal to these on a consistent basis and in an 
authentic manner. 

the ability to marshal resources based on aligning needs with 
the leader's overall vision.

The ability to motivate others is a critical component of building 
a unified effort among your team members. High emotional 
intelligence makes this much easier to accomplish as it 
greatly affects the ability to build rapport and trust between 
the team leader and the team's members.

Another aspect of this very critical and useful competency is an 
understanding of one's own emotions and how one's presence 
affects others. Great leaders are able to use these abilities 
to affect change. Knowing how an audience member or team 
member will react to certain stimuli and using this as a means 
of motivating or invigorating them is a common technique 
for great leaders. It is often argued that one should thoroughly 
study Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I agree that there is value 
in understanding this, but there are infinite possibilities in real 
situations. An astute ability to interpret behavioral nuances will 
afford a leader the ability to uniquely tailor a message to 
different individuals and incorporate their specific emotional 
triggers without the appearance or existence of duplicity.

It is important for the leader to understand that these 
aspects of a team member's behavior and motivations 
may or may not be cognitive in nature and, as a result, 
addressing the member's motivation directly may cause 
dissent, distrust, or fear.

Effectively utilizing this ability can transform the types 
of results a leader can create. The ability expands the 
boundaries of team unity to help a leader build a more 
effective and more unified team that has mutual interests. 
This can help make the team highly collaborative and extremely 
effective. 

Warren Scott
www.social-lion.com