Significance of Emotional Intelligence - Research Paper Example

 Emotional Intelligence Introduction In today’s business world emotions play an important role in creating an environment that is beneficial for the organisation. Emotions are part of human nature and one cannot ignore the emotional element of humans while they are at workplace. Some employees are sensitive and some may not be sensitive and this issue is an important one to be handled by the management of the firm. The dynamic nature of the industries has forced organisation to become extremely flexible in order to deal with these situations tactfully. The firms which are now always on the look of creating collaborations within the employees and the departments have realized that the emotion management is the key to achieve this goal. Once employees nature and emotional ability is analyzed, it may become easier for leaders to handle them. The sense of belongingness will always enhance the performance of employees because when they feel secured they will perform to their highest level. According to Blell (2011), the ability of the people to do work with others at a work place generates authentic power which is the most competitive asset that any organisation can have. The authentic power is a great source of enriching the environment with trust, belief, integrity, and honesty which are the cornerstones of ideal working environment in any business. Different organizations in the world are on a constant search for a strategy that can fill their business environment with these elements so that they can smoothly move towards their goals and objectives. Honesty and trust are crucial elements that should be part of the leaders and when employees believe in their leader's ability and credibility, they tend to perform their job roles well. An effective environment in the organisation in which employees are always looking to collaborate with others can be the biggest competitive advantage for any firm. This competitive advantage can allow organizations to be at the top most level in the industry. Mostly, the resources and product line of the firm are viewed as major competitive advantage of the firm, but most people forget that the environment within the organization is the main driving factor in creating an innovating culture within the organisation (Cassady and Eissa, 2008). The authentic power mentioned above is more commonly known as the emotional intelligence within the organisation. Emotional intelligence is the main factor in creating an environment of trust, honesty, integrity, and innovation that are essential elements for any business. All these elements will create strong relationships among employees and most importantly with the company creating satisfied internal customer. The satisfied internal customer provides the basis of the satisfied external customers. Importance of Emotional Intelligence The emotional information is an important aspect of the professional life as the relationships that develop at the work place are ruled by the dominance and cooperation of others (Mayer and Cauruso, 2002). Being a manager it is imperative that one understands the importance of creating and enhancing relationship with the subordinates. Having a good relationship with the subordinates would foster creativity and productivity in the performances of the subordinates which furthermore would lead to profitability of the firm. The manner with which relationships are created with employees differentiates between the leader and the manager. A leader will always have a relationship of trust with its followers and they will be following his / her directions with close eyes. The followers would believe in the fact that the guidance provided by the leader regarding the organizational tasks can be trust and must be followed to attain success. This is because the leader better understands the level of feelings one has and hence he / she acts accordingly. On the other hand the manager may not be able to create the relationship that is considered as an important part of creating an environment of trust. That is why the subordinate of the manager follows him / her with less dedication and commitment which results in unsatisfactory performance. The focus of the manager may be at times to just focus on getting the task done with quality and on time, they may ignore the emotional aspect of the employee and hence the employee's main aim is also then just to get the task done without any sincere dedication or commitment. Everyone is unique in his / her own way which means that the level and nature of emotions is completely different among different individuals. This asks for a separate treatment with everyone in order to get the best out of him /her. The major reason behind the strategy of tackling everyone according to his / her emotions is because of the fact that everyone has a unique preference. Dealing them according to the preferences of the individual may lead to fruitful results both for the organisation and the individual as well. For example, one individual may take criticism as a feedback which can help him / her improve in the future while the same criticism for the other might further damage his / her performance. The major reason of difference is the attitude towards the different situation and everyone has the same thinking process and approach towards challenges or criticism. On a further note, criticism should be taken positively by all individuals as this helps them to construct their behavior and attitude. Positive criticism allows the employees to groom their personality and performance at workplace and also prepare themselves to deal with the upcoming challenges in future. There have been many research studies conducted that reflect upon the importance of organizational learning. Challenges of different types emerge in the settings of organizational learning and having emotionally intelligent leaders and employees is one of the few challenges faced by organizations. Each employee possess their own level of intelligence and intelligence level of employees is an important factor to be considered by the management. It has been denoted by various academicians as well as practitioners that the intelligence of the employees at workplace should be understood from the perspective of emotions and cognitive ability (Dulewicz, Young & Dulewicz, 2005). Intelligent leaders will make a difference in the organization due to their ability to envision things beyond the obvious. Emotionally intelligent leader handle employees in a successful manner due to their empathetic behavior. They understand the nature of the employee at workplace and then accordingly deal with the employees (Castro, Gomes and de Sousa, 2012). The Ability Model of Emotional Intelligence According to Mayer and Salovey, emotional intelligence consist of four branches namely perception, facilitation, understanding and management. According to them the emotional intelligence is a cyclic process and all these four elements occur step by step. In the first stage emotions are identified or distinguished based on the thinking process of the individual which leads to the resulting behavior. It reflects upon the aspect that the individual's though process can be reflected in the behavior of the individual at work. The resulting behavior is a result of emotions’ entrance into the thinking process affecting the thinking process of the individual and the process is named as facilitation. These emotions are then understood according to the understanding level of an individual keeping in view how it can affect the situation and relationships. At this stage the consequences of the emotions are considered realizing their importance and meaning. In the last step, the personal growth is supported by the thoughts which eventually shape the personality of the individual (Mayer and Cauruso, 2002). The model helped in understanding the value and meanings of emotions within different contexts. The emotions are the driving force in the building and destroying of relationships. So, it is important that the emotions are understood and the reactions should be according to the situation. This will help in building strong relationships and ultimately create trust within the organisation. As we know that all individuals possess different types of nature and the perception ability of all individuals is different. Some may view certain things from a positive perspective and others may view it from a negative perspective. An emotionally intelligent leader will ensure that the right message is sent across the concerned party and the message is perceived in the right manner as well. Competency Model Goleman in 1996 pioneered the idea of emotional intelligence especially its implementation in the business world. He defined the emotional intelligence in a slightly different manner as he believed that the emotional intelligence is the ability to motivate yourself and persist when the odds are against you, in a manner that the distress is not shown and the hope remains intact. So for him the emotional intelligence had nothing to do with the other in fact it depends on ourselves i.e. how we control our emotions in different and tough situations where the problems are not getting resolved. So, rather than getting frustrated by the situation, the will of the individual to fight the problem is termed as emotional intelligence by the author Goleman (Brown, 2005). The more the competencies in the individual are of handling the situations and his emotions, the more the individual would be considered as emotionally intelligent. There has been great criticism in the past on the Golemen’s theory about emotional intelligence. Some experts believe that the model explained is nothing new and moreover, deviates from the original subject under discussion. They believe that the author Goleman has described the personality traits of an individual rather than the perception a person might have. Leader Member Exchange Leader Member Exchange is an important concept in the business world which describes the relationship that is developed between the leaders and their subordinates. It also states that all types of relationship between the leaders is different from the other leader member relation and most importantly it is prevalent within the boundaries of the company (Karim, 2008). The leader member exchange theory is based upon two elements namely social exchange and role making. The element of social exchange defines the motive of individuals which is based upon the returns they might bring in the culture. On the other hand the role exchange describes about the individuals who voluntarily devote themselves for enhancing mutual work relationships. A simple example in this regard can be considered when a leader asks his / her subordinate to perform certain duties and responsibilities and the one who fulfills the criteria set by the leader will and in most cases exceed the expectations, create an image of trustworthiness in the mind of the leader. This trustworthiness than becomes a major factor in the strong relationship between them more famously known as leader member exchange relationship. The strength of relationships between the leader and followers are of two types including in group and out group. In the in group, the relationship is considered to be of extremely high quality which leads to a strong bond between the two. They share information with relative ease due to the element of having mutual trust and understanding in between them. In comparison the in group relationships are based on a low level of trust and less understanding which ultimately leads to difficulty in information sharing. They are less motivated followers and more often than not are unable to perform extra or exceed the expectation of the leader. Emotional Intelligence and Leader Member Exchange Emotional intelligence is decisive factor in creating a high level of leader member exchange. The leader member exchange that is based upon the high standards is always a profitable one for the company as it is the most economic way of motivating employees to perform something extra for the company (Karim, 2008).. The emotional intelligence plays a big role in the development of high level of trust eventually creating a strong bond between the leader and the follower. The ability of the model of emotional intelligence can be utilized in order to enhance the understanding of the emotional intelligence role in creating a strong quality relationship between the leader and the follower. The first stage of the ability model i.e. identifying the emotions is the first step towards the creation of the strong bond between the follower and the leader. This allows the leader and the follower to understand their feelings and the most importantly understand the fact that how their counterpart perceive things to be. If one of them is able to understand this fact they are said to have put their first step towards each other. The understanding of the feelings and emotions of each other will help understand the manner in which they are to act and which will consequently start to win the trust of the others. The steps that ensure the minimizing of the communication gap between the leader and the follower will depict that they have started to win the trust of each other and are now in process of building a strong relationship with each other. The employees who depict the characteristics of emotional intelligence utilize their emotions to enhance their thinking process which ultimately results in a positive approach towards their roles and responsibilities. The positive frame of mind is always considered to be the best problem solving tool as it compels them to think with an open mind which is pivotal for solving the problem effectively. They become creative in their approach as they are willing to take suggestions and guidance from anywhere and from anyone. This helps them fulfill the criteria of the role exchange of leader member exchange theory in which they exceed the expectations of their leader. This will then allow them to start winning the trust of their leader and ensure that they have put another step in the right direction. The emotional intelligence allows the individuals to understand the feelings and emotions of others. They have the tendency to better judge the feelings and thinking of others which helps them in deciding in what way to react appropriately (Jordan and Lawrence, 2009). When they both start to work together and decide the roles and responsibilities an emotionally intelligent employee would start analyzing the emotions of the leader and vice versa. This allows predicting with more accuracy on the area of what next is to be expected from each other. In this way an employee can change his / her behavior accordingly and in case of the leader, he / she can know how to treat each and every employee. In the last stage emotionally intelligent people are able to control their emotions in tough situations and are able to make decisions based according to what they think rather than their feelings. Studies have shown that people who have more control over their emotions are generally more effective in creating strong relationships with others. In case of employee and leader relationship, the quality of the relationship is enhanced when the employee is able to control his / her emotions (Ashkanasy and Zerbe and Härtel, 2002). The employee have to face certain tough situations in which the behavior of the leader may sometimes be rude with the employee, but if the employee is able to control his/ her emotions in this situation and react accordingly then this will ensure that a long term quality relationship has been developed between the employee and the leader. Conclusion Emotional intelligence is an important factor for the successful business operation of any industry; be it product oriented or service oriented industry. It helps in creating a strong and healthy relationship between the leader and the employees which compels them to work together for better productivity of the firm. Whenever there is cooperation and coordination amongst two concerned parties then it always leads to successful and productive result for the parties. Moreover, it also enables employee and the leader to better understand the needs of each other and hence brings out the best from everyone. In today’s competitive business world, the removal of the communication gap between the leaders and the followers is an important factor in the growth of the business. Positive communication allows the understanding of tasks to take place in a clear and consistent manner. Employees then are clear about their job roles and the required results from their performances by the organization. It enables them to formulate strategies that can help them achieve competitive advantage. So, if an organisation has an emotionally intelligent employee and leader, then the chances of having success for the business becomes extremely high. It also reflects that the leader and the employee understand each other's emotions and are caring towards the emotional aspects of each other. References Ashkanasy, N. M., Zerbe, W. J., & Härtel, C. E. (Eds.). (2002). Managing emotions in the workplace. ME Sharpe. Blell, D. S. (2011). Emotional Intelligence: For the Authentic and Diverse Workplace. Iuniverse Inc. 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(2008). The relationship between emotional intelligence, leader-member exchange, and organisational commitment. Euro Asia Journal of Management, 18(2), 153-171. Mayer, J. D., & Caruso, D. (2002). The effective leader: Understanding and applying emotional intelligence. Ivey Business Journal, 67(2), 1-5. Read More