The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Performance - Essay Example

?Critically discuss the relation between emotional intelligence and employee performance Introduction The necessity to enhance an employee’s performance has led to the need of understanding the physical, mental and emotional competencies of a human being. Understanding the emotional intelligence then becomes critical as it refers to the human ability to perceive, evaluate and control the state of emotion of oneself, others and groups. Performance of an individual is dependent on a lot of factors such as competency, motivation, organizational perception and cohesiveness. An individual who does not find the above issues aligned to the organizational objectives would thus suffer from lack of performance, at least to what the organizations consider necessary. (Matthews, Zeidner, and Roberts, 2004, 9). Is this therefore a direct cause effect relationship to the emotional intelligence of a human being? Emotional Intelligence – the concept Individuals who do not perceive well and are incapable of understanding and managing emotions are expected to perform lesser in organizations. Issue such as co ordination and group conflicts become more. Such can be harmful in cases where the organization is closely knit and works in small or medium capacity.  Similarly individuals who have the trait of being averse to power and control are also less likely to do well in a highly hierarchical organization. Their performances are more likely to increase in situations of autonomic groups and teams who are given the liberty of taking their own decisions. The assessments of individual’s emotional intelligence can also be helpful for organizing methods of employee empowerment and training curriculum. Although traits of individuals are difficult to change, the abilities can be worked upon. These abilities are often a reflection of the emotional intelligence of people and hence assessing these factors of emotional intelligence will help organizations to develop the abilities of its employees, which in turn would result in better performance of individuals. (Hersen, 2004, 203) Critical Literature Review In the 1940s, David Wechsler was the first to suggest that associated components of intelligence could play a crucial role in the success of a life of an individual. Later in 1985, Wayne Payne introduced the word emotional intelligence as a concept in his doctoral thesis. Since then it has become a subject matter of many researchers with respect to their quantification as well as the various effects they may have in different aspects of human life. However to understand the co relation between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Performance, it is necessary to understand the concept of performance for an employee both from his point of view as well as the organizations’. The study of performance has derived from an organizational need to manage activities to ensure that goals and objectives are met effectively and efficiently. Various motivational theories have also stated the importance of motivation in enhancing the performance levels and efficiency of an individual. Studies on organizational behavior also indicate the importance of social and mental structure of an individual in understanding how the person will adapt, align and perform under the organizational framework. High emphasis is put on perception, values and ethics of an individual. Thus is it very clear that an individual’s emotional quotient is a factor as to how the individuals respond to situations and whether they can perform. In such scenario therefore measuring the emotional intelligence can be a critical reflective as to the overall performance of an employee. (Shields, 2007, 180) Three main models currently used to calculate the emotional intelligence: Ability Models: Claims Emotional Intelligence includes four types of abilities such as Perceiving Emotions, Using Emotions, Understanding Emotions and Managing Emotions. Each of the above factors represents the emotional outlook of an individual towards his/her performance. An individual who can perceive the right emotions is more likely to understand the key towards success and can perform better than the one who does not. An emotionally intelligent person who has the ability to harness and use the emotions inside him is more likely to capitalize upon the changing moods and best fit the task required. Similarly understanding and managing emotions properly would help humans to understand the complexity of relationships and adjust according that allows them to be sensitive to critical issues, These could help in developing coexistence, interpersonal relationships and team work all of which are necessary to enhancing the performance. It also implicated that a person who is emotionally intelligent would be able harness even the negative emotions and use it constructively to achieve goals.  The model is based on the idea that individuals vary in their ability to process information of emotional nature, which relates to their ability to relate.  Then question then arises is whether the play and control emotions are the only factors affecting human performance? Is emotional intelligence only confined to measuring one’s ability to perceive and manage emotions? The critique of the ability model was it ceased at predicting validity in the workplace. It could be representation of human emotion but lacked the credibility to predict how such would affect organizational performance. (Sternberg, 2000, 396) The Mixed Model, developed by Daniel Goleman, however focuses Emotional Intelligence as an array of skill and competencies that lead to performance and leadership. The main constructs were focusing on: Self Awareness- Relates to be able to read emotions and recognize the impact of gut feeling in decisive matters. Self-Management: Involves organization of sentiments and impulses while adapting to changes in circumstances. Social Awareness: Concerned with the ability to understand and react to others emotion in a social network. Relationship management: It implied the ability to inspire, influence and develop others while being able to manage conflicts. This model brought out the importance of the social structure surrounding an individual’s emotional intelligence related the patters to how individuals would behave and react, thereby getting a better understanding of human performance. Considering the structure of an organization where the organization serves as a social structure, the emotional responses to such a structure would be a factor in how employees perform. They at all times would be subjected to various issues and concerns that would test their ability to manage themselves, manage their emotions, manage their social relations and manage leadership. Thus under such framework, the emotional intelligence plays a crucial in determining the employee performance levels. (Bronwynne, 2007, 208) The model also mentioned that the emotional competencies were not inborn talents but were more of a learned capability, which required developing to achieve better and outstanding performances. Such clearly emphasizes the association between emotional intelligence and employee performance.   However the above two models were both ability based. They derived their relativity from the employee’s ability to perceive, behave, react and adjust that determined how employees’ performances could vary. The Trait Model highlighted the significance of traits on how such could affect the emotional intelligence. The traits under the Big Five Model (“extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism”) could therefore also be deciding factors on how employees performed in certain structures. It directly implies the need to ascertain not only the functional competencies of an individual but also evaluate the social and emotional attachments that determine their emotional quotient. Thus emotional intelligence could serve to be an evaluating platform for organizations to decide which employees were more likely to perform and which were not. (Murphy, 2006, 241) The concept of employee performance is a part of Performance Management that is aimed at improving and maintaining the standards of performance within an organization. In performance management it is not only necessary to find out the lesser performing employees, but a substantial focus also goes towards assessing the causes and finding ways to improve standards. For organizations it is necessary that they understand what the needs of their employees are. Some employees may be in need of more emotional and mental support. In such cases organizations have to play the role of a nurturer. To nurture their employee’s organizations must understand their employee’s mental and emotional state. These factors play a huge role in how individuals shape up in the organization and how their performances are coming. In the study of human behavior, it gets importance to find a co relation between every attribute of the individual to the organizational structure. (Mitchell, 2007, 24) There are also critics of the foundations of Emotional Intelligence that are against considering Emotional Intelligence as a type of intelligence. Researchers are also concerned with the extent of the measure with which Emotional Intelligence is co related with personality dimensions. However more recent researches’ have found definitive connection of emotional intelligence to job performance. They conclude that higher emotional intelligence helps in stronger job performance, or in other words emotionally intelligent people tend to be better workers. While there is still a lot of debate amongst scientists and researchers about the true identity of emotional intelligence, a growing awareness is being created that it does exist and makes a difference as to how people approach their work and how their performances turn out. A number of studies support the contention of higher emotional intelligence leading to higher performance. Some researchers have made a model, which states that Technical Knowledge and Skill combined with Intelligence can only create an average performance. Only when both are combined with Emotional Intelligence competencies, a superior performance is created. A study of many call center agents in South Africa showed that high performance levels of customer service and sales were co related to high levels of self-confidence, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, initiative, and influence and conflict management. Also a study in a Turkish Business school, a high self perception of Emotional Intelligence was related to greater job satisfaction, rise salaries, further career development, greater interpersonal and life satisfaction. The overall results from these studies indicate that emotional intelligence competency behavior is linked to the levels of performance in a many jobs, organizations and cultures. (Wright & Tweedy, 2006)  Evaluation But how does Emotional Intelligence actually affect the performance levels of an employee? In the concept of Performance Management, academicians have mentioned that an employee’s performance is not only affected by his/her inter competencies but to a large extent is also dependent on how the organization lets the employees work and behave. To a certain extent the influence of work culture is also seen on the performance levels of employees. Issues such as hierarchy, communication, role analysis, job fit and power structure also determine how well the employees perform within the organizational framework. There can be individuals who are not competent enough emotionally to cope up with the pressures of a certain type of job. Similarly the organization work culture can also take its toll on some individuals whose personality traits are not aligned to the rest of the co-workers. Conclusion Thus one can see that Employee Performance is in a lot of ways related to how the emotional intelligence of an individual works. These personality traits often determine the way individuals treat themselves, their work as well as their co-workers. This has a direct effect on how these individuals perform. The better an individual is emotionally competent, the better are his chances of having a superior performance at work. Humans are social beings, which make them prone to their state of emotions, traits and personalities. Hence Emotional Intelligence is important in understanding the factors affecting Employee Performance. The stream of study helps is associating cognitive factors in the performance evaluation and human resource issues. The concept opens up further dimension to unravel the different sides of performance and the business functions relevant to human resources.              Bibliography Bronwynne, Bates. 2007. Managing People:Fresh perspectives. South Africa: Pearson. Hersen, Michel. 2004. Comprehensive Handbook of Psychological Assessment. USA: John Wiley & Sons. Matthews, Gerald, Moshe Zeidner, and Richard D Roberts. 2004. Emotional Intelligence:Science and Myth. Massachusetts: MIT Press. McKenna, Eugine. 2001. Business Psychology & Organizational Behaviour. Sussex: Psychology Press. Mitchell, Donna. 2007. Performance Management. New Delhi: Global Media. Murphy, Kevin R. 2006. A critique of Emotional Intelligence. USA: Routledge. Nadler, Reldan S. 2011. Leadng with Emotional Intelligence. USA: McGraw Hill. Phal, Nadine. 2009. The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership. Germany: GRIN Verlag. Sala, Fabio, Vanessa Urch Druskat, and Gerald Mount. 2006. Linking Emotional Intelligence and Performance at work. USA: Routledge. Shields, John. 2007. Managing Employee Performance and Reward. UK: Cambridge University Press. Sternberg, Robert J. 2000. Handbook of Intelligence. UK: Cambridge University Press. Wright, Cheryl, and Frances Tweedy. September 2006. "The Link Between Emotional Intelligence & Performance." Capabiloty Group. http://www.capabilitygroup.co.nz/articles/performance.htm (accessed April 14, 2011).  Read More