The Correlation of Emotional Intelligence to Job Performance - Literature review Example

The Correlation of Emotional Intelligence to Job Performance More than ever in the history of business, competition today is so fierce that the old ways of making “business as usual” will no longer apply if an enterprise has to remain viable. It has to think of new ways and approach of how to do things and how to optimize performance to remain competitive. It needs new set of skills and aptitude that stimulates higher productivity from its human resource and be able to retain them while attracting the best talent to join the organization. Such, organizations has to transcend beyond the traditional thinking and should explore other facets of its human resource to optimize employee job performance. Employee’s Job performance is so important that it can spell the difference between the success and failure, viability and demise of an organization in a competitive business world. Job Performance involves quantity and quality of outcomes from individual or group effort attainment (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005). Robbins (2005) described job performance as the amount of effort an individual will exert in his or her job. Moreover, the essence of the job performance relies on “the demands of the job, the goals and missions of the organization, and the beliefs in the organization about which behaviors are most valued” (Befort&Hattrup, 2003, p. 17). Job performance is defined as the aggregated value of the discrete behavioural episodes to the organization that an individual performs over a standard interval of time (Motowildo, Borman and Schmidt, 1997) 54 One facet that it needs to explore for the possibility of enhancing employee performance is emotional intelligence. To determine if emotional aptitude has a bearing in enhancing employee performance, and if there is, on what specific occasion does it prove beneficial to the organization. To elucidate Emotional Intelligence and“in a continued attempt to understand the differences in abilities and competences among people, researches have begun to focus on theories of intelligence other than the traditional, ability based general intelligence. Beginning under the label of social intelligence, Thorndike (1920) proposed that other types of abilities existed and needed to be differentiated from general intelligence. His main focus was to suggest that the understanding and perception of our own feelings as well as those of others was a distinguishable difference to that of general intelligence”. Gardner (1983), expanding on the concepts presented in early intelligence work as well as social intelligence theory, developed a theory of multiple intelligences. ...one of the seven areas of intelligence discussed in multiple intelligence theory, personal intelligence, corresponds to earlier theories such as social intelligence. Two domains or divisions exist within the theory of personal intelligence. Intrapersonal knowledge or intelligence describes the ability to access and express personal inner emotions while interpersonal intelligence focuses on a person's ability to recognize and process emotion in others. By separating intelligence into intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence, Gardner's theory of personal intelligence provided a context from which emotional intelligence as a conceptualization would later be developed. From this definition, the theory of emotional intelligence was suggested to involve three process, appraisal and expression of emotion, regulation of emotion, and utilization of emotion as intelligence (Salovey& Mayer, 1990). The importance of emotional intelligence in organization is now gaining ground among managers and theoreticians because emotions are an integral and inseparable part of organizational life and that more attention should be given to the employees' emotional experience (Ashforth and Humphrey, 1993). There are two areas of which the undersigned believes that emotional intelligence has a very significant influence on performance of which this paper will discuss; one on organizational level and one on individual level. Emotional intelligence has been found to be a predictor of work performance. This study has demonstrated through empirical analysis the relationship between emotional intelligence and work performance(Mishra, Priti& Das, 2010). On an individual level, emotional intelligence is likely to improve the interpersonal relationship of employees within an organization as people with high emotional aptitude tend to get along well with people. This is specifically important because conflict, especially when pervasive in an organization, can debilitate if not bog down the organization. Internecine intramural can be counter-productive as employees waste their energy and attention to non-job related activity not to mention a counter-stimulating activity which does no good to the employee except to exacerbate stress. This may be a known fact that every manager strives to avoid it but conflict is just part of an organizational life. This implies that at a certain stage within the organizational course, grudges and rifts do come about amongst the employees . . . (Curhan, 2006, 89). Such that the bigger question is not anymore on how to avoid it but as to how to effectively manage it to a minimum. This is where emotional intelligence comes in “because emotional intelligence enables one to control impulses and manage distressing moods well. It helps one remain hopeful in times of setbacks and develops empathy and social skills. . . foster harmony, productivity, innovative behavior and team building(Mishra, Priti& Das, 2010). According to Hogan and Shelton (1998), we think emotional intelligence can be considered an individual difference that will facilitate motivation to achieve, to get along with others. Thus, emotional intelligence contributes to employee performance by fostering harmony, productivity, innovative behavior and team building. It minimizes and handles conflict well and enables its employees to focus on core activities that enhance the company’s bottom line. High emotional intelligence among managers also lessens the incidence of attrition and contributes to the retention of its employees.The senior and middle level managers' behaviour and treatment of their people determine turnover and retention... Being both firm and caring at the same time causes many to feel inadequate for the role. Most of the turnover is reportedly due to an inadequate relationship between the employees and their direct supervisor. Where trust is lacking, performance suffers. Enhancing EI skills enables managers to regulate their emotions and motivate themselves more effectively(Mishra, Priti& Das, 2010, 55-56). Example could be of a manager who is fun loving and gets his work done through humor and wit and is liked by his sub-ordinates for his comforting mannerism related with work (Keane, 2006, 112). Weiss &Cropanzano (1996) revealed that managers having high emotional intelligence exhibit optimistic work attitudes and unselfish behaviors which resultantly lead to employees’ higher satisfaction and performance at job. Managing attrition is critical to the company’s bottom line and longevity as perpetual hiring of talents costs the company time and resources to train new employees. Clearly, an organization that has managers who demonstrates high emotional aptitude towards its subordinates results in a more motivated and motivated workforce that is more likely to stay with the company in the long run. Emotional Intelligence on Handling Stress There is another area of work dimension that emotional intelligence plays a significant factor. That is the handling of work-related stress. Job stress is often seen as dysfunctional effect in that it decreases both the quality and quantity of job performance. Job stress also wastes the time and energy that an individual spends dealing with the stressor, limiting concentration on the task at hand and thereby affecting performance (Siu,2003). Job stress is a condition in which job-related factors affect employees to the extent that their psychological state deviates from normal functioning (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008). Stress undermines employee performance and as such also needs to be addressed for an organization to maintain the performance of its employees. The results of the present study also show that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between job stress and job performance. . . stress does not always directly result from the source of the pressure itself, but rather, from the individual's perception of the pressure and it was also suggested in this study that highly emotionally intelligent employees are more likely than are employees with low emotional intelligence to reduce or transform the potential negative effects of job stress on performance, or at least moderate them to a certain degree(Yu, 2011, 29) Such, emotional intelligence plays a significant in enhancing employee performance as this emotional aptitude makes employee cope and deal better with negative stress that could undermine productivity. Conclusion Emotional intelligence has been found to be a predictor of work performance. This study has demonstrated through empirical analysis the relationship between emotional intelligence and work performance. So, hiring individuals with higher levels of emotional intelligence is associated with financial gain(Mishra, Priti& Das, 2010). Goldmaneven asserted that more than IQ, it is Emotional Intelligence that can be more of a predictor of success both in organization and career. While early management theorist disregarded if not overlooked the emotional aspect of an organization, as they likened the organization to well-oiled machine1 it is however inevitable to deal with it as organization is composed not only of structure and procedure but of human beings who has both physical and psychological needs and capable of subjective evaluation whether to perform and cooperate with the management or not. This human component of an organization needs to be given importance as it can affect the company’s bottom line. When employees do not perform, the bottom line will suffer. Such, in addition to testing task competence in hiring employees, it is equally important to consider the emotional competence of a newly hire. While earlier studies cannot clearly establish the relationship of emotional intelligence to employee performance as manifested in the earlier studies of Côté& miners (2006) concluding that “these studies have found no relation or an inconsistent relation between emotional intelligence and performance”, recent studies however as elaborated in this paper has concluded that emotional intelligence has a direct impact not only on the employees performance, but on the organization as a whole. One most important thing to consider on how it affects performance is the ability of the employee with high emotional quotient to get along well with others. This attribute, though may sound trivial to early management theorists, is very important as this minimizes, if not totally eliminate conflict which can debilitate and bog down organization. Without conflict, employees are left without negative distraction so that they can focus on the core activity of an organization of enhancing productivity. Emotional intelligence is also equally important for managers and supervisors to have. As previously discussed, it appeared that managers and supervisors who have high emotional aptitude tend to have a contented and motivated subordinate who are likely to stay in the company for the long run. This is important not only that motivated employees has better performance but also saves the company from employee attritionwhich would cost time and money. In a same manner, emotional intelligence enables employees to better job related stress. While stress can be said to be a natural phenomenon in a person’s life, inability to effectively handle it can undermine employee performance and the organization as a whole. People with high emotional aptitude are able to cope with stress better and are less likely to underperform because of job related pressures. Finally, emotional intelligence is as important, if not more significant predictor of determining employee performance than task competence as organizations now requires coordination and teamwork to get things done. While task competence is important for the cognitive aspect of understanding one’s job, it is but only a part of getting things done in the whole plethora of organization while emotional aptitude encompasses all, including the attitude towards cognitive learning. REFERENCES Ashforth, B E and Humphrey, R H (1993). "Emotional Labour in Service Roles: The Influence of Identity," Academy of Management Review, 18(1) 88-115. Befort, N., Hattrup, K. (2003). 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JOB STRESS AND JOB PERFORMANCE AMONG EMPLOYEES IN THE TAIWANESE FINANCE SECTOR: THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 2011, Vol. 39 Issue 1, p21-31, 11p; DOI: 10.2224/sbp.2011.39.1.21 Read More