Emotional Intelligence - Essay Example

?Emotional Intelligence Introduction Individuals vary among themselves in their competencies and their abilities to fulfill the working needs. An individual needs to be mentally satisfied with the work that the person is performing or needs to perform and for that they require a proper working environment, a mental peace and the ability of the individual in handling the working pressure. In increasing the competency of the individual a mental support and guidance on the part of the employer is very much in need in the days of increasing work pressure in each and every sector and industry. Since the mental state and the ability of handling the work pressure varies among individuals there is the need to understand the support they require from their own individual perspectives, hence there arises the need on the part of the employers and the management of the company to understand the emotional intelligence of each and every employee. Emotional intelligence refers to the process involved in recognizing and understanding the emotional status of their own as well as of the others that will in turn help to overcome the problems of human life that are mainly related to the abstract sense of individual emotion and also help in regulating the behavior of the individual as a social person. Emotional intelligence differs from general intelligence which arises from the cold instincts of individuals. Emotional Intelligence, unlike general intelligence, has the responsibility of creating as well as destroying a proper social relation. The research works related to the psychology of human beings that started mainly in the late eighties show the path towards the study of emotional intelligence in order to study the interactions between emotions of individuals and their thoughts. With the introduction of the new path of human research the emotional intelligence gained the attraction of the media houses, as well as the interest of the general public. With time the term emotional intelligence broadened itself to include the skills required in achieving success as believed by the human resource professional in the changing business environment. Every individual are born with certain balanced emotional intelligence which needs to be polished with their life. (Salovey, Brackett, and Mayer, 2004, 1949-1950; Wharam, 2009, 4) Emotional intelligence- the concept Bar-on in the year 1997 defined emotional intelligence as “an array of noncognitive abilities, capabilities and skills that influence one’s capacity to succeed and cope with the environmental demands and pressures”. (Jaeger, 2003, 615) According to Salovey and Mayer (1990) emotional intelligence refers to the ability of the individuals in monitoring their own and others’ feelings, discriminate them and in guiding the action and the thoughts of the individual using those derived information. (Salovey and Grewal, 2005, 281) Emotional intelligence is an integrated part of the positive psychology of individuals. The concept and the framework of the emotional intelligence gained the importance from the theory of emotional expression in survival and adaptation by Charles Darwin. Emotional intelligence considers the self regards of individuals which are the basis of self awareness, the understanding of individuals about others’ feeling that arises from the sense of empathy and altruism and compassion for others. The capacity of individuals to interact in the social environment determines their social skills which again is a part of the emotional intelligence of the individual. Emotional intelligence also determines the ability of individuals in controlling their emotions through the ability of taking the right decision at the right time and achievement of performance based functioning. Emotional intelligence also consists of the general happiness of the individuals in achieving the desired outlook to life and a subjective well being thus being able to create a positive environment for themselves and also for their surroundings. According to Golemon (1995) emotional intelligence consists of two significant sub domains; one is the personal competencies and the other is the social competencies. The personal competency of individuals determines the efficiency of the individual managing them and the social competency determines the individuals’ ability in handling the different social relations and their interactions. (Bar-on, 2010, 58: Liptak, 2005, 172). The ability of individual in understanding the behavior of different people, their attitudes and their potentials as well as their interpersonal skills of individuals has been newly defined with the phrase emotional intelligence. It has also facilitated the management of distress and conflicting circumstances in many instances of daily life. (Morrison, 2008, 975) Critical literature review Emotional intelligence gained its importance among the general public mainly after the publication of the book Field of emotional intelligence by Dr Daniel Golemon in the year 1995 but still the term has remained a bit confusing among the general people and they consider the field as restricted to the researchers and the psychologists. The main reason behind it is the many different ways that are in use for measuring the emotional intelligence of individuals and they appear to be confusing to the general public. There have been three generally accepted approaches for measuring and defining emotional intelligence. The first one of the three is the Trait model of Bar-on which mainly focuses on the concept of the psychological well being of individuals. The model used the existing measures of evaluating the personalities of individuals that are mainly used by the mental health professionals and an inventory is created on the basis of those applied measures. This model uses the reports provided by individuals based on their self assessment to evaluate the individual. The second type of model is the competency model that considers the various emotional competencies among individuals and also within themselves and the interpersonal competencies that are mainly derived from the various ‘leadership competency models’ like the one used and introduced by Golemon in the year 1998. A method of 360 degree assessment is generally used in operating the models. The third model is the intelligence model. Empirical studies support the facts that these three approaches differ from each other hugely in their way of measurement as well as in the areas of their use. The three methods are not correlated with each other in the results they provider after the assessment of the emotional intelligence. In order to overcome the area of confusion among the general public in defining and understanding emotional intelligence because of the different approaches, Salovey and Mayer (1990) developed the Ability model of emotional intelligence which is mainly based on the intelligence framework of measuring emotional intelligence. In this model emotional intelligence is considered to be in the same path of the analytical intelligence generally known as the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). According to this model in order to facilitate the better action, thinking and the functioning of individuals, emotion interacts with the thought and intelligence. The intelligence level of individuals and their emotions have the same importance in the evaluation of this model. (Emmerling, Shanwal, and Mondal, 2008, 1-2; Epstein, 1998, 3-4) Emotional intelligence has been proved to have significant impact on the performance of individuals, their happiness and well being and also in finding the true meaning of living a fruitful life. Bar- on in the year 2007 summarized the four studies that conclude the existence of a relationship between the emotional intelligence of individuals and their academic and occupational performances. The ability of the individuals in managing their emotions and stress effectively and achieve the personal goals through optimism is the basis of the existing correlation between the two. The impact or the influences of emotional intelligence on the happiness of individuals have also been proved to be significant. Emotional intelligence and happiness of individuals both monitors the well being of individuals in their ability to cope up with the challenges and the pressures individuals face in their daily demands of life. It provides a motivational value to life of individuals. According to the study made by Bar-on the correlation between emotional intelligence and happiness among individuals appears to be as significant as .78 which supports the relationship between the two very strongly. Study of the relationship between emotional intelligence and general well being of individuals reveal that individuals possessing high emotional intelligence also possess enhanced sense of well being. (Bar-on, 2010, 58-60) The framework of emotional intelligence facilitates the management system of business firms and industries in order to understand the importance of individual emotions in determining few desired qualities in the work place like motivation, enthusiasm and the commitment towards the work. It also helped in influencing the affecting abilities of the employees for enhancing the desired qualities in the work place. Moreover the system of emotional intelligence provide the employers the basis of identifying the proper skills of the individual employees through the implementation of competencies among them and it also helps the management to deal with the different emotions of different employees in the business environment. The emotional intelligence gained its importance in the business environment mainly because of the need of different ways of improving the performance as desired by the business organizations and the prediction of the behavior of the employees as desired by the managers in order to be able to create a proper and well functioning management system in the firm. (Stough, Saklofske, and Parker, 2009, 171-172). Thus most of the studies have concluded significant relationship between emotional intelligence and other positive psychologies of individuals but since each and every study made are on selected groups of individuals from the total population the result may be different if studied with some other sample as human beings differ among themselves in their feelings and their behavior patterns. Evaluation Emotional intelligence gained increasing importance in the business and work environment of increasing work load mainly because of the belief that it helps in the reduction of the work stress of individuals (Contrada & Baum, 2009). According to Salovey (2002) higher level of emotional intelligence has a relation with low levels of psychological stress and lower social anxiety among individuals. Studies made by Slaski and Cartwright at the managerial levels of business firms reveal that the managers of high emotional intelligence reports lower psychological stress and also a negative correlation to exist between the distress at the work place and the emotional intelligence of the employees but a positive correlation to exist with the quality of the work life enjoyed by those individuals. (Stough, Saklofske, and Parker, 2009, 176) According to some researchers emotional intelligence combined with the rational abilities of individuals boost the ability of the individuals in performing better with the improvement in their skills and their self awareness, their innovative ideas and also their creativity in performing their subscribed works. The study also reveals that the emotional intelligence of individuals have conceptual similarity with the ‘thinking orientations’ of the individuals (Misra and Dhar, 2001, 323). Thus proper counseling of the students who would be the job aspirants in the near future need to be made in order to guide them with the emotional intelligence and the importance of the relative field in the working environment. According to Salovey, Mayer and Caruso emotional intelligence mainly consists of four important aspects that need to be learned. They are the emotional expression and perception, emotional understanding, emotional management and use of emotional intelligence through the facilitation of emotional thoughts. (Liptak, 2005, 172-173; Singh, 2006) Thus different measures of emotional intelligence can help in determining the extent of potentiality of an employee and help in forecasting the future trends of performance of these individuals. Conclusion The quality of the work life of individuals depends significantly on the emotional intelligence of the individuals that is on the behavior with their co workers, their ability to handle the work pressure and take significant decision regarding their life even in situations of extreme mental stress. Thus emotional intelligence is gaining increasing importance among the human resource management of business organizations in order to provide their employees with the required working environment and the mental support they required at times. The concept of emotional intelligence when thought in simple terms indicates an association between cognitive components and emotions which in turn affect one’s ability to grasp new lessons and information (intelligence). The problem might therefore be psychologically addressed by a human resource manager. In fact, one cannot deny the role of emotional intelligence in the arena of human resource management and the 360 degree feedback method could try to incorporate this component in formulating their assessment processes. A little support to the psychological aspect of an individual can improve his performance in the workplace. References 1. Contrada, R.J. & A. Baum, (2009), The Handbook of Stress Science, London: Springer Publishing Company 2. Salovey Peter, Brackett Marc A and John D Mayer, (2004) Emotional Intelligence, New York: NPR Inc 3. Bar-on Reuven, (March 201 0), Emotional intelligence, South African Journal of psychology, 40(1), 54-62 4. Salovey Peter and Daisey Grewal, The Science of emotional intelligence, Current directions in Psychological science (Yale university, 2005), 14(6), 281-290 5. Jaeger Audrey J, (2003), Job competencies and the curriculum, research in Higher education, 44(6), 612-715 6. Emmerling Robert J, Shanwal Vinod K, and Manas K Mondal, (2008), Emotional Intelligence, New York: Nova publishers 7. Epstein Seymour, (1998), Constructive thinking, New Jersey: Greenwood publishing group 8. Stough Con, Saklofske Donald H and James Donald Alexander Parker, (2009), Assessing Emotional Intelligence, New York: Springer 9. Singh, D. (2006), Emotional Intelligence at work, London: SAGE 10. Misra Prashant and Upinder Dhar,(2001), Emotional intelligence as a correlate of thinking orientation among the future managers, IJIR, 36(3), 321-330 11. Liptak John J, (dec, 2005) Using emotional intelligence to help college students to succeed in the work place, Journal of Employment counseling, 42, 171-179 12. Morrison Jeanne, (Nov 2008), The relationship between emotional intelligence competencies and preferred conflict handling style, Journal of Nursing management, 16(8), 974-979 13. Wharam Jane, (2009) Emotional intelligence, U.K: O Books Read More