Emotional Intelligence as a Behavioral Model - Essay Example

Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence is a behavioral model that provides a new way of understanding people’s behaviors, management styles, potential, and interpersonal skills. It is important in several aspects of interviewing, selection, management, customer service, and development resource planning. A person with high emotional intelligence is familiar with what makes individuals human and unique (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004). The role of emotional intelligence as a motivational strategy for cross-cultural leadership in individuals and organizations management around the world is conducted differently from the way managers in the United States do it.

Management practices and even the entire concept of management may differ in a large way from what is thought of as normal and desirable in the United States (Hofstede, 1993). Emotional intelligence, therefore, offers a way in which managers working in different cultural settings than their own can adapt and achieve success in their new setting. For example, Deirdre who works as a broadcast director for a London-based company was tasked to ensure all units adopt a single negotiating strategy. Instead of fighting it out with the managers who resisted this change, she had one-on-one meetings to find out their reasons for resisting.

Later, she shared ideas with them and revised her negotiating methods to incorporate the approaches the managers had found successful. The managers chose to co-operate other than resist. Strength and weaknesses of emotional intelligence as a motivational strategy in cross-cultural leadership effective leader exhibits five components of emotional intelligence. These are self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, and motivation (Hofstede, 1985). He further explains that emotional intelligence is necessary for building trust, solving problems with others, participating productively in a group, and creating a sense of identity and efficacy.

Emotional intelligence, however, has its weaknesses as shown by Earley & Mosakowski (2004). They give an example of an American expatriate engineer working with two German counterparts. After some time of the Germans shooting down other people’s ideas, the American mistakenly equated the action of the two as that of all Germans. With emotional intelligence alone, the manager is unable to show how much of the behavior of the engineers had been idiosyncratic and how much was culturally determined.

He did not know how to influence their actions (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004). Cross-cultural leadership transcends geographical boundaries. How is emotional intelligence used for motivation in these scenarios? Earley and Mosakowski state that human actions, speech, and gestures that a person encounters in a foreign setting are subject to wide interpretations that may make misunderstandings likely and cooperation impossible (Earley&Mosakowski, 2004). Hofstede states that management practices are seldom replicated across borders of one nation to another.

For example, in Holand leadership presupposes modesty, as opposed to the American ideals of promoting assertiveness (Hofstede, 1985). Indeed, when American students were asked to describe their ideal job after graduation, they attached more importance to earnings, advancements, security of employment, and benefits, as opposed to their Dutch counterparts. The Dutch are inclined to seek freedom to adopt their own ways, utilize fully their skills, and help others in the work environment (Hofstede, 1993).