International Journal of Academic Management Science Research (IJAMSR) ISSN: 2643-900X Vol. 6 Issue 1, January - 2022, Pages:24-31 www.ijeais.org/ijamsr 24 Emotional Intelligence in Business Leaders a tool for Workforce Motivation Amanawa David Ebiegberi Ignatius Ajuru University of Education Abstract: This research examines the impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in business leaders and its application as a tool for workforce motivation. An attempt has been made to explain what leadership is, considering that everyone talks about leadership and only a few have a grasp of what it truly means and this can simply be described as the ability to influence people around you towards achieving a cause. The conceptual review subscribed to is hinged on the four core areas of E.I competence which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, existing literatures and surveys shows that business leaders are known to set the standards for their organizations, therefore a leader that lacks emotional intelligence can have an all-round negative effect and result in lower employee engagement and a higher turnover. The findings show that the application of emotional intelligence positively corresponds with improved product and service delivery, also that managers who have a high competence in emotional intelligence enjoy a more dedicated and effective workforce. In conclusion, recommendations have been made that organizations should enact corporate policies that require an EI test before employing of managers, web links have also been made available for business leaders to take a self-assessment of the state of their EI. Keyword: Emotional Intelligence, Intelligence, Emotions, Leadership, Workforce, Motivation. INTRODUCTION The word ‘business’ is certainly one of the most used words in human interactions, this is largely so because every single day we naturally engage in form of business activity or specifically explain another to someone. With preference to this research work let’s take a look at what a business is. According to Maitrayee (2021), a business is an organization comprising of people who strive together to achieve common objectives and goals. It is important for a business organization to have a vision that implies what it intends to achieve in the future and values that represent the organizations integrity. Furthermore, Hooper (1961) suggests that it is the whole complex field of commerce and industry, the basic industries, processing and manufacturing industries, the network of ancillary services, distribution, banking, insurance, transport and so on, which serve and interpenetrate the work of business as a whole, are business activities. Business generally refers to organizations that seek profits by providing goods or services in exchange for payment. However, businesses don’t need to turn a profit to be considered a business as the pursuit of profit in itself, makes an orga nization a business (Ward, 2020). A business can broadly be categorised into services, manufacturing or retail. A business can also be made up of individuals having a side hustle or large corporations having hundreds of employees. This brings us to the issue of leadership; to successfully run a business someone must be put in a position to take charge at all levels of operations and such a person can be seen as the business leader. But before we go around throwing titles let’s take a look at who a leader i s and the myths surrounding leadership. Pretty much everyone knows what leadership is about, but it is only a handful that really have a grasp of what it truly means. In a book titled “The Future Leader” by Jacob Morgan, the author interviewe d more than 140 CEOs around the world and asked them each to define leadership. He explained that people struggled and had to pause to think because the word business was used so frequently without really defining. We often take the concept of leadership for granted simply by assuming that we all know what leadership is and what a great leader looks or should like. Interestingly, once the CEOs found their definitions, their answers ran gamut as the over 140 people did not give back a single duplicate response. Some CEOs defined leadership as possessing business acumen, such as the ability to set a company's vision or achieve its objectives. Others concentrated on human characteristics such as empathy, humility, and variety. Every response was unique, but they were all correct. Every leader has their own concept of leadership, which determines how they lead as well as their company's culture and direction. (Morgan 2020). For the purpose of this research we have adopted the following as definition of a leader: “A leader is someone who can see how things can be improved and who rallies people to move towards that better vision. Leaders can work toward making their vision a reality while putting people first. Just being able to motivate people isn’t enough, leaders need to be empathetic and connect with people to be successful” (Morgan, 2020).