Category: Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a relatively new concept in business terms – it was coined only thirty years ago by Salovey and Mayer and over time it has become recognised as a fundamental aspect of leadership (Owans, 2015). The importance of emotional intelligence in leadership is arguably more important than ever, with both current and emerging generations having very different working requirements to those of earlier years. This paper discusses the presence of EQ in leaders and how it enables them to navigate the changing desires of multi-generations, how EQ can impact individual and team morale and also affect the profitability of a business.

EQ has become particularly well-known due to the work of Daniel Goleman who published: Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ. His work highlighted the link between successful leaders and emotional intelligence. Goleman surmised that:

“The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but…they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions. My research, along with other recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive, analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader.” (Goleman, 2004)

Seemingly his findings have become even more relevant over time. The expectations of how employees want to be managed, supported and listened to in the workplace have evolved. The importance of individuality at work is becoming more prevalent with each generation particularly ‘Generation Y’ and the emerging ‘Generation Z’. Where the ‘Veteran Generation’ valued “sacrifice, hard work, conformity to the rules and had a respect for authority” (Tanner, 2016) the ‘Generation Y’ employees are open-minded, unafraid of change and prefer their boss to coach rather than manage them in the workplace (Tanner, 2016). These changes in expectations have resulted in the ever-changing landscape of leadership becoming more challenging and therefore leaders are required to adapt.

Goleman (2004), discusses five necessary components of emotional intelligence at work: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills (Ovans, 2015). Briefly looking closer at these components gives us a better understanding of how EQ can affect the working team.

• Goleman et al. (2017) considered self-awareness the foundation for the other components. It was stated that “without recognising our own emotions, we will be poor at managing them and less able to understand them in others” (p.30) suggesting that this component may contribute towards more fluid team relations as the leader is able to recognise when dynamics are off balance.
• Self-regulated leaders are able to “create an environment of trust and fairness” (Goleman, 2004) further creating a culture where employees have the opportunity to thrive in a mutually respectful workplace.
• Motivation can manifest in many ways but, in EQ this is a motivation to achieve rather than motivated by external reward. For example, working towards a common goal to achieve together with their team as opposed to dictating actions.
• Empathy is a valuable characteristic, particularly in the future of leadership. In EQ it is describe as “thoughtfully considering employees feelings – along with other factors – in the process of making intelligent decisions” (Goleman, 2004). This may contribute towards employees feeling they are being treated as an individual which is gradually becoming more important in the workplace.
• A leader’s role is to “get work done through other people” (Goleman, 2004) therefore social skills are perhaps the most important skills of all. Without them, employees and peers alike may not be inclined to work alongside their leaders to achieve their common goals.

The importance of EQ stems beyond the impact it has on teams. There is evidence that alongside IQ and technical skills, EQ can have a positive effect on financial performance. A study showed that companies with CEOs demonstrating high emotional intelligence, increased ROA by as much as five times compared to those with low EQ (Fred Kiel, 2015). This demonstrates that, with the presence of an emotionally intelligent leader, perhaps it motivates and enables employees to work towards objectives and goals in a more inspired way.

The ever-changing dynamics of leadership means that emotional intelligence continues to play a vital role in leadership. The presence of IQ and technical skills are required but must work alongside emotional intelligence. As the needs of the recent generations are significantly different to earlier generations, the ability to consider individual and team dynamics whilst making intelligent decisions, is more important than ever. This will not only improve team performance but also have a direct effect on the financial performance of a business. that affect a team is something that future leaders should not only be aware of but also work hard to practice these skills.

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others (Emotional Intelligence, n.d.). I will analyze the four key elements and how they apply to me in my career. Victor Vroom had an expectancy theory that emphasized on two things that motivated people. I will use this theory in order to explain my level of effort in my management class. I will finish up my discussion by showing the impact that globalization has on companies.

The four key elements of emotional intelligence are self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management (Kinicki & Williams, 2018). Self-awareness involves gauging my own moods and understand how others are acting towards them. Self-management involves controlling my emotions and not letting it affect my work environment. These two are the ones that I need to work on the most. Due to a very busy work schedule and home life they can sometimes be very hard to control. If I come to work being negative or showing frustration, then my group can feed off that and not have the motivation that they need to achieve their daily goals. Social awareness allows me to show empathy towards my employees and show them I care. Relationship management is me communicating clearly and building strong bonds with my group. Conflicts will be easier to disarm due to the trustful relationship that I have created within my group. The last two elements are strong skills of mine. I enjoy bonding with my group and creating a professional friendship. By doing this, it makes one on one discussions easier and more relaxed.

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory states that individuals are going to select their behaviors based on the outcomes that they expect as a result of those behaviors (Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, n.d.). This theory consists of valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. By setting my time aside each evening for my coursework, I have an expectation of making good grades and gaining good knowledge. My grades in this class reflects on how much I want this degree. Every time I get a good grade, it gives me even more motivation to keep staying up late at night and giving it 100%.

Globalization has impacted companies greatly and forced changes to policies and training. Companies need to evolve with the diverse workforce that exist in today’s world. The company I work for continues to open plants all around the world. I face challenges almost every day due to language barriers and different cultures. I’m very impressed in how the company has handled this change. By creating required classes, they have given me a better understanding and prepared me for a Globalized workforce. Companies can use classes like this to always keep employees trained and informed on working in a diverse work environment.

As companies continue to grow globally and create more diverse work groups, they need to adapt and have the emotional intelligence that it takes to manage and understand their surroundings. By applying Vroom’s expectancy theory and understanding employees’ efforts and what they expect, a manager can be successful in today’s workforce. It all comes down to a manager being able to connect with their employees no matter what culture or generation whether it’s a small company or global.

References

1. Emotional Intelligence, (n.d.). What Is Emotional Intelligence? Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/emotional-intelligence
2. Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2018). Management: a practical introduction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
3. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, (n.d.). Employee Motivation. Retreived from: http://www.free-management-ebooks.com/news/vrooms-expectancy-theory/

Abstract

Today’s highly competitive business climate requires organisations to rely on the workforce’s innovation to differentiate themselves from competitors and achieve business success. This longitudinal study will examine whether leader emotional intelligence (EI) is linked to staff creativity in the long-term. Leaders’ EI is hypothesised to positively correlate with their immediate staffs’ creativity over an 18-month period. Participants will be eight middle managers and 80 staff working in advertising agencies across Victoria. All will have at least 2 years of work experience in the marketing sector. Participants will complete a 3-wave online survey over 18 months. Managers will complete the Wong and Law emotional intelligence scale (WLEIS; Wong and Law, 2002), whilst staff will fill Zhou and George’s (2001) 13-item employee creativity scale. Highly emotionally intelligent managers will foster employee creative productivity to produce novel and differentiated products. This enhances the organisation’s ability to gain a competitive advantage and sustainably pursue business objectives.

The growing focus on marketing prospective audiences emphasises the need for organisations to achieve objectives through increased creative productivity. Theories surrounding creative stimulation by an individual’s emotional intelligence (EI) and that of others, have consequently risen in the past decade. However, few studies have focused on organisations in the marketing industry, where creativity has not traditionally been prioritised. Hence, it is essential to analyse leader EI’s correlation with employee creativity in professional selling, given the development of the business world where humans are considered an organisation’s most vital resource.

Considerable research has recognised EI as being a significant determinant of professional success compared to general intelligence (García et al., 2014). Hence, EI is broadly accepted as being an indicator of the ideal employee and is key to career progression. Mayer and Salovey (1997) describe EI as the ability to recognise, display and understand emotions, as well as regulate feelings in the self and others. In the business context, it allows employees to communicate with others effectively via conflict resolution skills, thus promoting individual and team productivity.

Creativity is defined by Amabile et. al, (2005) as a two-step process that involves generating novel ideas and implementing it to solve an issue. It is viewed as an invaluable asset in sales performance, allowing individuals to adopt judicial thinking styles to facilitate customer-employee interactions and adapt to changing conditions (Groza et al., 2016). For instance, such individuals are able to utilise previously used solutions to assist customers in different industries.

Several authors have proposed psychological frameworks linking elements of EI with creativity. For example, Cooper and Sawaf’s (1998) EI model includes emotional alchemy, a concept allowing individuals to seek new opportunities and build on current ideas. Zhou and George (2003) expand on this notion, proposing how employees’ creativity is influenced by their leader’s EI via identification, information gathering, idea production, evaluation, and implementation. Consequently, researchers have explored the relationship between employee EI and their creativity to promote organisational growth. Tsai and Lee (2013) found that EI promotes staff creativity among travel agency employees, such that EI dimensions were positively related to new idea implementation and job efficiency. The researchers attributed this to how different emotional states contribute to different mental processes and comprehension (Salovey and Mayer, 1997), such as employee happiness stimulating creative performance. Likewise, Khalid and Zubair’s (2014) study yielded similar results demonstrating EI to be a significant predicator of creativity, further accelerated by self-efficacy. They attributed this to an individual’s efficient ability to be mentally alert before developing creative solutions for overcoming issues, reinforced by a high internal locus of control. EI thereby aids in emotion management to allow for effective information processing.

Studies have also investigated the impact of a leader’s EI on staff creativity, rather than focusing on the individual employee. Castro et al. (2015) established a statistically significant link between leaders’ EI and employee innovation. They found that supervisors’ EI were positively correlated with creativity-centred variables in their employees. This can be explained by the employee’s interpretation of their environment based on EI trait-related cues instigated by their leaders. Further, Rego et al.’s (2007) suggested that leader EI’s positive relationship with employee creativity is a result of leaders’ restraint against criticism that would otherwise limit employee openness to seek feedback. Such self-control encourages a supportive organisational climate that stimulates innovative performance. A similar study conducted by Lassk and Shephard (2013) yielded findings indicating that highly emotionally intelligent leaders foster employee creativity. On an individual level, EI results in adaptive functioning capabilities, which assists leaders to socialise effectively in high emotional affordance situations with employees.

Whilst previous research has provided significant insights, limitations of these EI and creativity studies have also been brought to attention. The brevity of the studies’ duration means that there is limited insight on whether the positive effect of EI on creativity can be sustained over time. Adopting a longitudinal research design may be useful to investigate this concern. Studies have also been criticised for their methodologies. For instance, studies using a cross-sectional design, such as Khalid and Zubair’s (2014), have a limited ability to draw inferences on additional causes of creativity in their sample. This further highlights the benefits of conducting a correlational study to investigate leader EI impact on employee creativity.

The present study aims to address the lack of EI and creativity research focusing on advertising agencies. A longitudinal study design will also be used to explore the long-term and correlational impacts of leader EI on employee creativity. It is therefore hypothesised that middle-managers’ EI will positively correlate with their immediate staffs’ creativity over an 18-month period.

Method

The sample will include eight middle managers and 80 staff-level employees working in advertising agencies across Victoria. Through this, data from 80 leader-employee dyads will be drawn. All employees must have at least two years of work experience in advertising and must be at least 25 years of age (Segrest et al., 2010). Recruitment will occur on a volunteering basis from eight selected agencies. Ten followers per manager and organisation will therefore be collected through convenience sampling. All procedures will be approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee.

Procedure

Employees will be made aware of the study through email notifications to managers and their agency’s website for employees. Those interested will be contacted by study personnel via email and given a full description of the study, detailing the completion of a 3-wave online survey over 18 months. They will also be told of their withdrawal rights and assured that all responses remain anonymous. Online survey consent will be obtained before being redirected to the initial questionnaire.

At time 1, an email will be distributed to participants with a survey link containing the measures provided in English. Managers will be sent the WLEIS, whilst staff will receive the creativity scale. At time 2 (6 months later), both scales will be distributed in the same way to employees who responded to the first measure. At time 3 (6 months later), these surveys will be sent to those that responded to the second survey. Participants will be given one week to complete their allocated survey and will be emailed a reminder 24 hours prior to the due date. Code numbers will be used to match time 1, time 2 and time 3 surveys for each participant to assure confidentiality. Further, a gift coupon will be distributed to each respondent at every data collection point as financial incentive to participate. A summary of the study’s findings will also be distributed in exchange for their participation.

Expected outcomes and implications

If the hypothesis is supported, then the positive correlation between leader EI and employee creativity over an 18-month period may be mediated by the impact of self-efficacy. Previous research has shown that the intrinsic motivation developed along with high EI levels (Deniz et. al, 2009), amplifies the individual’s ability to achieve creative outcomes in the long-term (Khalid and Zubair, 2014). Hence, participants with a greater internal locus of control are likely to report higher scores on the WLEIS (Omoniyi and Adelowo, 2014) and thus, are likely to be able to organise emotions to facilitate problem solving and restrain negative extreme emotions to fixate on objective achievement. Studies have also suggested that leader EI’s positive relationship with employee creativity is a result of their self-restraint against employee criticism and empathy (Rego et al. 2007). This enhances employee dependency on managers to use EI to handle work issues and be receptive towards unconventional ideas.

If the hypothesis is not supported, then the lack of positive correlation between leaders’ EI and employees’ creativity over 18 months may be related to the absence of proactive personality as a mediating factor. Some studies have shown that proactivity must be a pre-existing condition for EI to be positively correlated with creativity (Farabohd et al., 2013). According to Bateman and Crant (1993), proactive individuals take initiatives and actively seek for new information to improve performance. It is considered a significant disposition to spark creativity in the work environment in response to EI cues (Kim, Hon and Lee, 2010). Hence, the absence of proactive personality in participants may result in inaccurate responses to certain survey questions. This is concerning when participants are responding to questions regarding the use of emotion (UOE) dimension of the WLEIS; particularly, “always sets goals for themselves and tries their best” (Wong and Law, 2002). However, given the scarcity of studies analysing the interaction between EI, proactivity and creativity, care should be taken in considering the results.

The proposed study has some potential design limitations. Firstly, collecting data from a relatively small sample size may affect the generalisability of results. Thus, future research with a larger sample is warranted. All performance measures that will be used are also self-reported, which could increase the likelihood of common method variance. Future studies are therefore recommended to use objective measures to assess employee creative performance like actual sales data. Another option may be to simply minimise the subjectivity of data collection by gathering employee creativity data as a supervisor evaluation, rather than a self-report. The use of a longitudinal study design also risks panel attrition as it cannot be ascertained that all employees will remain in the same job position or be willing to participate for the entire study duration. Future research should consider conducting a study to follow-up EI impact on creativity in the long-term, rather than conducting a longitudinal study.

Despite the potential limitations, results from the present study may suggest important implications for the marketing industry. Managements should attempt to develop greater EI in the sales workforce and identify potential employees with higher levels of EI during recruitment. Encouraging greater creativity in professional selling will likely lead to greater adaptability in delivering customer service and contribute to business success. Further, human resource management of advertising agencies should hire an organisational psychologist to collaborate on constructing EI development modules so employees can build EI.

References

1. Amabile, T. M., Barsade, S. G., Mueller, J. S., & Staw, B. M. (2005). Affect and Creativity at Work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(3), 367–403. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.3.367
2. Bateman, T. S., & Crant, J. M. (1993). The Proactive Component of Organizational Behavior: A Measure and Correlates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030140202
3. Castro, F., Gomes, J., & de Sousa, F. C. (2012). Do Intelligent Leaders Make a Difference? The Effect of a Leader’s Emotional Intelligence on Followers’ Creativity. Creativity and Innovation Management, 21(2), 171–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8691.2012.00636.x
4. Cooper, R.K. and Sawaf, A. (1997), Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organisations, Grosset/Putnum, New York, NY.
5. Deniz, M. E., Tras, Z., & Adygan, D. (2009). An Investigation of Academic Procrastination, Locus of Control, and Emotional Intelligence. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 9, 623–632.
6. Farahbod, F. (2013). The Relationship Between Trait Emotional Intelligence and Entrepreneurship Attitudes and Intentions. Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research, 5(3), 79–85. https://doi.org/10.5897/jpapr2013.0242
7. Groza, M. D., Locander, D. A., & Howlett, C. H. (2016). Linking Thinking Styles to Sales Performance: The Importance of Creativity and Subjective Knowledge. Journal of Business Research, 69(10), 4185–4193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.03.006
8. Haro García, J. M. D., & Castejón, J. L. (2014). Perceived Emotional Intelligence, General
9. Intelligence and Early Professional Success: Predictive and Incremental Validity. Anales De Psicología / Annals of Psychology, 30(2), 490-498.
10. Khalid, S., & Zubair, A. (2014). Emotional Intelligence, Self-efficacy, and Creativity Among Employees of Advertising Agencies. Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, 29(2), 203–221.
11. Kim, T.-Y., Hon, A. H. Y., & Lee, D.-R. (2010). Proactive Personality and Employee Creativity: The Effects of Job Creativity Requirement and Supervisor Support for Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 22(1), 37–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400410903579536
12. Lassk, F. G., & Shepherd, C. D. (2013). Exploring the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Salesperson Creativity. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 33(1), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.2753/pss0885-3134330103
13. Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In D. J. Sluyter (Ed.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (pp. 3– 34). New York, NY: Basic Books.
14. Omoniyi, M. B. I., & Adelowo, A. I. (2014). Relationship between Locus of Control, Emotional Intelligence and Subjective Happiness among Widows: Implications for Psychological Mental Health. British Journal of Arts and Social Sciences ISSN: 2046- 9578.
15. Rego, A., Sousa, F., Pina e Cunha, M., Correia, A., & Saur-Amaral, I. (2007). Leader Self-Reported Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Employee Creativity: An Exploratory Study. Creativity and Innovation Management, 16(3), 250–264. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8691.2007.00435.x
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18. Zhou, J., & George, J. M. (2001). When Job Dissatisfaction Leads to Creativity: Encouraging the Expression of Voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 682–696. https://doi.org/10.2307/3069410

When times are difficult, leaders are isolated and brought to prominence. A project manager’s push into prominence as a result of the change in the client requirements, the economy, technology, and so on.

The above can apply to project environments. An important concept that any project manager or organization has to comprehend is that people’s needs have changed as they are expanding and evolving their perceptions of what is meant to be human in this dynamic global economy. It would be costly and grave for a project manager to miss this concept and become complacent. It is generally understood that people are often more comfortable with old problems rather than new solutions. Today new problems have presented themselves and require new solutions and you best be aware of what is at the essence of them. Some Project Managers have no idea of the giant capacity they can command when they focus their efforts on core values and work to correspondingly align culture. The disconnection between employees and their company.

Great needs call forth great leaders. The emotional intelligence model is a tool for increasing Emotional Intelligence to assist a project manager in creating opportunities for both professional and personal satisfaction, autonomy, value alignment, and innovation, thus effectively and profitably defining, planning, implementing and closing down projects within time, cost and scope.

Model for Emotional Intelligence

There are five components in the model for understanding and raising EI to improve project performance: self-awareness, self-management, self-motivation, interpersonal management, and leadership.

Self-Awareness

Having a low self-awareness can be considered as a handicap. We can refer back to the person with the high IQ but just doesn’t get it. It is nearly impossible to make change without awareness. We can infer that with awareness comes responsibility. Self-Awareness is thus the ability to sense, identify and understand emotions. Historically, most of us are conditioned to leave emotions out of it such that when we feel an emotion, we push it aside, only often to regret not having used that knowledge intentionally. There are a number of things that can be done to increase self-awareness in order to unlock the ability to be in the here and now:

• i. Use the physical senses to warn you of your “feelings” such as tightness in stomach, tension in neck.
• ii. Name the feeling—you could be angry, upset, furious or disgruntled. By appreciating the extent of the emotion and the ability to name it helps with perceptive.
• iii. Journal—in the project environment, once a problem has been identified then you can plan how to handle it with some objectivity. It is encouraged to use a journal to monitor and express your feelings in a safe way.
• iv. Get input from others.
• v. It is important to take time to reflect upon the intentions behind your feelings.

It is imperative to not suppress the feelings but to understand then in order to make decisions and take action. The failure to feel the feelings through may result in responding inappropriately, and making poor decisions with unintended consequences. It is only when you acquire high self-awareness that you can fully be confident, authentic, receptive to feedback and able to maintain perspective during all project phases.

Self-Management

From knowing and understanding of ones feelings(self-awareness), the next step is to master the tools of managing ones responses to emotions to be able to use his/her IQ rather than merely reacting.

Even though thought is a relatively recent advancement in the evolution of mankind, the majority of us are more comfortable thinking than feeling. Many million years ago, along the continuum of evolutionary development, the human brain stem took over the responsibility of basic human survival. The urge to feed, to breed and to protect oneself by fighting or running away were reactions to threats instinctively. Million years later the limbic system emerged as a distinct part of the brain. The principle of emotional intelligence is the combination of the emotional centers of the brain called the limbic system and the cognitive centers called prefrontal cortex (Cherniss and Goleman, 2001). It is this “limbic system” that enables the organism to scan for meaning. It is also responsible for the allowance of learning and remembering, not just reacting, the implication being the enhancement of survival prospects. Million years later, the neocortex then developed, giving man the ability to process information and make sense out of his environment and situations. The neocortex is responsible for the management the higher brain functions of reasoning, awareness, voluntary movement and action, conscious thought, and the skill of language. When presented with information, the normal way that data moves is in a path to the rational brain and then to the limbic system in about six seconds. However, when under threat, impulse supersedes reason, retarding the normal process. It only makes sense because if it took six seconds for you to react to an emergency you wouldn’t be able to avoid the accident, the fire, and so on. The short circuit avoids the neocortex where reason exist by going directly to the limbic system to provoke an instant reaction and reserving the thinking for later. This situation is alright for emergencies only and not fit nearly all project circumstances.

Self-Management is about utilizing the understanding of ones feelings to reason well. Our reactions are primarily based upon our distinctive structure of reference rather than choosing our response based upon distinctive situations. However, there are ways to increase your ability to self-manage in order to make choices and to act intentionally:

• i. Identify your values. The guiding principles in life are the values that one holds. Writing them down in order to prioritize them is therefore very important.
• ii. Accept responsibility. We are all responsible for our behavior and responses to life. With this power over our behavior comes the responsibility of accountability. We get to where we are by most of the choices we have made along the way.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the study done on the relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical judgement for people in managerial roles. This study focuses on understanding the factors that contribute to the ethical challenges faced by today’s business environment. The researchers statistically analyzed data from two online surveys to examine the interconnection between emotional intelligence and ethical decision making. The research found that emotional intelligence and ethical judgement are strongly related to relativism and the age of respondents.

Ethical Judgement

This paper reviews Hopkins and Deepa (2018) research on emotional intelligence and its effects on decision making. In today’s global business environment understanding the factors that affect ethical judgement is important. The purpose of this study, the methods used, its outcomes, real-world applications, and conclusion are summarized in the paper.

Hopkins and Deepa (2018) conducted two surveys to measure emotional intelligence and the use of ethical perspectives in different scenarios. The participants of the survey were 100 students from the USA and India enrolled in an MBA program. Emotional intelligence was measured using the Emotional Quotient Inventory in the form of a questionnaire. Ethical judgement was measured using the multidimensional ethics scale (MES). Respondents were provided with scenarios and their judgements were recorded. These surveys were conducted online. The limitation of this research was that it primarily focused on MBA students and not corporate managers.

Outcome or Summary of Major Points Covered

The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) considered four ethical perspectives to measure the judgements of respondents. The four ethical perspectives were moral equity, relativism, utilitarianism, and contractualism. Moral equity is about fairness, relativism is morality based on culture, utilitarianism considers action or judgment right if it benefits the majority of people, contractualism is morality based on point of view (“Dictionary.com – The world’s favorite online dictionary!,” 2018). According to Hopkins and Deepa (2018), the result from the measured data states that decision making is strongly related to relativism. No direct relationship was calculated between decision making, moral equity, utilitarianism and contractualism. The respondents of the survey have developed a particular set of values and principles based on their country of origin and their cultures which is directly associated with relativism.

Real-World Applications of Study/Article

Ethical judgement is about being just or unjust, fair or unfair in making decisions. Unethical and improper practices in business could result in destroying the company. Some of the common unethical practices at workplaces are toxic workplace culture, bad leadership, discrimination, and harassment. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, “unethical practices spurred more than half of the largest bankruptcies in the past 30 years, like Enron, Lehman Brothers, and WorldCom, and can take a larger economic toll, estimated at $1.228 trillion.” (SHRM Foundation, 2013).

An ethical code of conduct at the workplace promotes transparency and helps to provide equal opportunities to all employees. This helps in the retention of employees and encourages positive teamwork. “An ethical workplace culture protects company assets, provides emotional security and promotes effective decision making.” (Hopkins and Deepa, 2008, p. 503). Organizations should encourage ethical behavior in the workplace. It promotes positive decision making and increases productivity.

Your Reactions to the Article

Emotional intelligence helps in managing emotions to make effective decisions. It can be explained as self-made guidelines that help to communicate, reduce stress, manage conflicts at the workplace and face challenges. Most of the time our decisions are based on gut feeling which affects our decision making. Our culture and background influence our decision making. In today’s global society, people in the workplace come from distinct cultures and backgrounds. It is important to consider ethics to co-ordinate and make decisions. American author and motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar has rightly said, “If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization.” (“Quotes by Zig Ziglar,” 2017). This skill set is significant to managers that help them retain employees, encourage loyalty to the company and promote honesty at the workplace.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence has a direct relationship with ethical judgement. “Ethical judgement is the central step in a multistep decision-making process.” (Hopkins and Deepa, 2008, p. 503). Ethical business practices result in a good reputation of a company, high retention of employees, increase productivity, maintain strong public relations, maintain brand loyalty from customers and balances the organization’s culture.

References

1. Dictionary.com – The world’s favorite online dictionary! (2018). Retrieved October 20, 2019, from Dictionary.com website: https://www.dictionary.com/
2. Hopkins, M., & Deepa, R. (2018). The impact of emotional intelligence on ethical judgment. The Journal of Management Development, 37(6), 503-511. doi: http://proxy.lccc.wy.edu:2145/10.1108/JMD-02-2018-0045
3. Quotes by Zig Ziglar. (2017). Retrieved August 22, 2019, from BrainyQuote website: https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/zig-ziglar-quotes
4. SHRM Foundation. (2013). Shaping an Ethical Workplace Culture (p. 11). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/Documents/Ethical-Workplace-Culture.pdf

Abstract

In the mid-1990s, the traditional buyer-seller sales style began shifting to a consultative relationship based model withan emphasis is on “satisfying the customers’ needs”and “not trading goods for money’. Understanding the perspective of the potential buyer and creating a potential need to buy the product started gaining importance.This in turn made good sales “being educating, consulting, solving problems, providing answers and helping”, the pre-requisites of a successful sales person. Emotional Intelligence which is based on these competencies, plays a very crucial role in performance of a sales person. This paper aims to study the role of an Emotional Intelligence in the successful performance of a sales person.

Introduction:

Ever since Daniel Goleman published his book on ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in 1995, experts in various fields have started realizing the importance of E.I. – emotional intelligence – as opposed to I.Q. – intellectual intelligence in various walks of life. The concept of E.I. has very strong natural link to the field of sales, besides the areas of general management and leadership.A strong causal relationship between ones’ emotions and success in the sales industry is proved by many research studies. Since sales positions demand that the sales professionals are required to relate to their customers, it is many times assumed that sales professionals have the ability to communicate effectively, empathize and respect their clients’ needs. The importance of employing emotionally intelligent salespeople becomes apparent today’s ever changing sales environment. (SojkaJ.Z. 2002)This research paper is based on the premise that one’s ability to be emotionally intelligent affects how one relates to and with others, especially one’s clients which in turn affects one’s performance in the sales position.

What is Emotional Intelligence

At the most general level, emotional intelligence (E.I.) refers to the ability to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others (Goleman, 2001). Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1990), who originally used the term “emotional intelligence” in published writing, defined it as “a form of intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions”. Mayer and Salovey (1997) created four components of emotional intelligence:

• SelfAwareness:It is the cognitive ability to accurately appraise one’s own emotions, feelings and behaviors. It also pertains to expressing one’s feelings. In short, this dimension relates to an individual’s ability to reflect self and understand his/her emotions.
• Empathy:It refers to appraising the emotions of others. This interpersonal skill is critical to the salesperson’s ability to establish a type of interpersonal relationship with clients.
• Social Awareness: It is the ability to perceive and understand the emotions and behaviors of others and to modify one’s own emotional response to such an understanding.
• Emotion Management:Itrefers to the ability to regulate emotions and behaviors according to their situational appropriateness. This requires cognitive reflection on the potential way in which an emotional behavior will affect and be affected within a specific situation.

In addition, theymentioned that their research showedthat the development of emotional intelligence skills in sales people is positively correlated to an increase in profits.

The need for emotional intelligence skills is growing, specifically for sales professionals as Boyless and Bellamy discovered in their work, Emotional Intelligence: Today’s Sales and Hiring Advantage (2005):“Selfawareness, empathy, social awareness and emotion management, the key elements of emotional intelligence are critical skills for executives and sales professionals in the emerging service oriented firm of the 21’st century”. Boyless and Bellamy believe that everyone hasn’t ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ of EI because the EI philosophy isn’t ‘tangible’ in addition to requiring “top executives to look ‘inside’ themselves which many aren’t willing to do”.

In an effort to create an integrated EI framework almost ten years later, Boyatzis and Goleman (1999)defined it as: “emotional intelligence is observed when a person demonstrates the competencies that constitute self-awareness, social awareness, and social skills at appropriate times and ways in sufficient frequency to be effective in the situation”. Daniel Goleman (1998) created an emotional intelligence model that speaks about Emotional Intelligence Competency Framework with five specific groupings:

• Self awareness – includes emotional awareness, accurate self assessment and self confidence;
• Self regulation – includes self control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability and innovation;
• Motivation – includes achievement drive, commitment, initiative and optimism;
• Empathy – includes understanding others, developing others, service orientation, leveraging diversity, and political awareness;
• Social skills – include the ability to influence, communicate, manage conflict, exercise leadership, be a change catalyst, build bonds, collaborate and cooperate and operate well on a team.

Developing the ability to empathize and perceive others’ emotions, in addition to one’s own, through self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation are few of the key areas of emotional intelligence that lead tohealthy interpersonal relationships. It is an established fact that relationships at work greatly influence one’s performance at workplace.

Employee Performance

For achieving organizational goals, one of the key factors that anorganizationneeds to manage is the performance of it’s employees. Assessing an employee’s competency and measuring his/her productivity is essential in the overall plan of the organization. Employee’s performance is mainly managed by using various formal performance management techniques such as self appraisal, supervisor’s rating, MBO, 360 degree appraisals, peer evaluations, etc. This helps in ensuring employees’ contribution towards their own and organization’s growth & development. However, for attaining outstanding performance, emotional competence which is “a learned capability based on emotional intelligence” is quiteessential.

Before we discuss the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and its impact on Performance of Salesperson, we need to understand what are the different sales positions that organizations offer and a brief discussion of each of these positions.

Different Sales Positions & Their Description

Sales Positions can be broadly classified into four groups:

No. Sales Position Description

• Deliverer or Delivery Salesperson A salesperson whose main responsibility is the delivery of a product to household consumers or to business customers. The salesperson also takes orders depending on customer needs, as well as reliability of delivery and personality of salesperson.
• Order Taker A salesperson acts mainly as an inside order taker, who responds to customer demands.

Another type is the telemarketing salesperson who takes customer orders over the telephone.

A salesperson acts as an outside order taker, by responding to customer requests, like a trade seller, who also performs other tasks like setting up displays, distributing samples to retailers.

3 a) Missionary Salesperson A salesperson is expected to build goodwill and educate the decider, instead of the purchaser or user of the product.

b) Technical Sales Support Person A salesperson with a high level of technical knowledge. He is as good as a professional consultant.

4 a) Demand Creator/Order Getter Order-getters are salespeople who actively seek orders, and use creative and problem-solving selling. Creative selling includes sales maintenance from existing customers and sales development (from new customers).

b) Solution Vendor A salesperson whose expertise is in solving of a business customer’s problem, with the company’s products and services. It is problem-solving selling.

Characteristics of a Good Salesperson:

In the mid 1990s, the traditional buyer-seller sales style began shifting to a consultative relationship based model. “Relationship selling is a vast improvement over product selling: that which we would normally call ’traditional’ selling” (Franke, 1988). In relationship selling, the emphasis is on satisfying the customers’ needs and not “trading goods” for money, therefore good sales people are “educating, consulting, solving problems, providing answers and helping” (Franke, 1988). “The consultative style will be the cornerstone of success in the next millennium.”(Ekern, 1997).

Bryan Tracy, author of Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods and Techniques Used by Top Sales People Everywhere(1995) believes that three universal characteristics are essential for a successful sales person. First is the ability to “work hard” as sales is a very difficult profession. Sales person should be more of an “action” person, who is a “doer”, rather than a “talker”. Thirdly,successful sales people are committed to personal and professional development. “Selling is more psychological than anything else”, Tracy observed.

Sales Performance & Emotional Intelligence

Bryant (2005) found a positive correlation between the components of emotional intelligence and sales performance. He defines (adaptive) selling as “the altering of sales behaviors during a customer interaction or across customer interactions based on perceived information about the nature of the selling situation”. Bryant opined thatsuch kind of sellingis related to emotional intelligence and thata sales person with high levels of emotional intelligence will perform better in the profession than someone who with lower EI.

Selling is a multifaceted process comprised of multiple skill sets (Churchill, Ford, & Hartley, 1997). Anthony (2003) says “emotional intelligence in selling begins with the recognition that one must meet emotional agenda beyond the buy-and-sell transaction for a buyer to be satisfied with the transaction”. He believes that there are two critical questions which a sales person shall meet with emotional intelligence in order to convert a sales call into a sales order: a) Do you know me? b) Do you know how to approach me? Awareness on many levels, is a crucial component for meeting customer’s agenda. Awareness in the sales process includes three basic rules as described by Anthony (2003):

• Prove and re-prove yourself:Customers have a tendency to be cautious and do not trust the sales process easily, therefore continually proving the worth of the product/service and validity of the salesman is essential.
• Customers expect you to understand their needs: Anthony opines that customers have “hidden emotional agenda” and it’s up to the sales person to decipher these agenda and approach them accordingly.
• This is not about you:People want to solution to their problems, want their needs and wants to be satisfied and “wishes” granted and it’s the salespersons responsibility to assure these expectations are met.

A study was conducted by Manna and Smith (2004) to determine if: a)Is emotional intelligence training necessary for success in the sale profession andb)If emotional intelligence and awareness training to be included in sales training programs.Sales persons were requested to respond to a series of questions concerning sales training and related sales experience. The studyshowed that there is an obvious relation between skills such as communication skills, negotiating skills, emotional intelligence, presentation skills, as well as the capacity to differentiate among personality type and the success of sales people. Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka (2003) explored a relationship between sales performance and EI. When combined with Cooper (1997) and Goleman’s (1998) work, their results suggest a strong correlation between the emotional intelligence and success in sales positions.

In today’s world, there is a dramatic shift in customer requirements. This coupled with intense competition has made sales peoplerealize that they must call on different decision-makers and buying groups, if they want to succeed in their roles. However, the needs and perspectives ofthe new about the products and services to be purchased, often make sales representatives confused, leading sometimes to feel inadequate and at their worst moments, get annoyed with prospective buyers.

Managing their emotions requires more than additional sales technique training. It requires learning to cope with stress and tensionas well as enhancing one’s personal capacityto adapt to challenging circumstancesThe traditional training methods are not designed to suit these requirements. It needstrainers who are capable of modifying their instructional pedagogy to include an “inside-out” process that equips salespersonswith:

• Developing awareness of their emotions “in the moment”.
• Managing emotions and developing their “emotional muscle” to enhance effectiveness.
• Sensing and responding to subtle customer non-verbal signals.
• Integrating emotional awareness with authentic behavior. (Mehnert, 2011)

A study by the Hay/McBer firm in Boston of Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, IBM and PepsiCo showed that top sales people of these organizationshad higher emotional intelligence than average salesmen. It revealed that the following five EI competencies were crucial in predicting the success among salespersons:

1. Intuition & Empathy: It refers to the salesman’s awareness of the prospect’s feelings, needs and concern. This competency is important in a sales role for the reasons mentioned below:

• Attitude towards others: One’s ability to look positively and objectively upon others.
• Understanding Others: An intuitive sense of a prospect’s and/or customer’s feelings and perspectives and showing an active interest in their needs.
• Customer service orientation: The ability to anticipate, recognize and meet customer’s needs.

2. Result Orientation & Decisiveness: This is the salesperson’s adeptness at inducing desirable responses from the customer or prospect.

• Communication: Sending clear and convincing messages that are understood by the customer or prospect.
• Influencing: Using effective tactics and techniques for persuasion and desired results.
• Gaining Commitment: One’s ability to develop a motivational act.

3. Self View: This is the salesperson’s level of courage and self-esteem that provides thick enough skin to persevere through various obstacles he/she encounters throughout the sales cycle. This competency is important to a salesperson for the following reasons:

• Handling rejection: One’s ability to handle a “no” or a non-sale and to not take it personally and be able to recover and restart quickly to try again.
• Self-esteem: The higher the self-esteem, the more passion and courage in the social arena.

4. Self Awareness: This is knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, strengths and limitations. This competency is important in a sales role for the following reasons:

• Self Confidence: One’s ability to believe in one’s own abilities and strengths to personally take charge of achieving and exceeding one’s goals.
• Persuasiveness: One’s ability to stand one’s ground in negotiations and in handling sales objections to exude to the customer or the prospect that the product or service meets their needs.
• Competitiveness: One’s desire to win and be perceived as competent in the eyes of other, as well as desire to be personally recognized for their accomplishment.

5. Self Expectations: This is the salesperson’s emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals and their sense of personal commitment t
responsibilities. This competency is important in a sales role for the following reasons:

• Achievement Drive: Striving to improve or meet a standard of excellence one imposes on oneself.
• Initiative: Readiness to act on opportunities without having to be told.
• Optimism: Persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks. (Poskey, 2006)

It is evident that these are the essential EI competencies for successful sales career. The salesperson however well he knows the product or services inside out, would not be successful in the long term, without possessing these essential EI competencies.

Conclusion

Emotional Intelligence is an important skill that has the potential to improve the performance of the sales-persons. Though people do not possess EI competencies at birth always, they do learn them in the course of life. All sales people have the ability and capability to improve both their Emotional Intelligence and their salesmanship skills for themselves as well as their organizations. An importance of Emotional Intelligence in the success of sales careers must be realized by sales professionals which will enable them to improve their career prospects..

Erin Brockovich, a frantic out-of-work divorcee and mother of three who persuades a legal counsellor Ed Masry to contract her and afterwards discovers a fantastic law body of evidence against PG&E company. Powered by a craving to accommodate her family and a consistently developing sympathy for the clueless casualties of a grave social bad form, the improbable Brockovich triumphs over the advanced ideal models of social standards, manners, and expert capabilities. This paper will look at how her character exhibited emotional intelligence.

Daniel Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence outlines five components of EQ: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. As mentioned by Bandura (2016), emotion is a wide scope of recognizable practices, communicated sentiments, and changes in the perspective and body. Sentiments, feelings, our preferences, and aversions give our individual lives significance and cause us to be upbeat or troubled, fulfilled or disappointed. Insight is the capacity to get and apply information and abilities. Enthusiastic insight is the capacity to manage other individuals effectively. By understanding one’s very own sentiments they can comprehend and assess others.

Self-Awareness

This is the capacity to perceive and comprehend one’s states of mind, inspirations, and capacities. Likewise understanding the impacts, they have on others. Goleman says to accomplish a condition of complete mindfulness, an individual must have the option to screen their enthusiastic state and recognize their feelings. Attributes that demonstrate a person as sincerely develops include certainty, the capacity to chuckle at one’s self and their mix-ups, and the consciousness of how one is seen by others.

At the start, Erin had a challenge on self-awareness, for example, she had no idea on how her dressing code was being perceived by her fellow workmates. She only gained awareness when her boss Ed mentioned it to her that her dress code was making the other employees feel uncomfortable.

The other challenge she had was that of not overlooking past the mistake of having bad relationships with men in the past, this made her create an emotional wall on trusting men and she acted towards men without realizing this as evidenced from the moment she met her neighbor (George). She did not trust her neighbor with her children because of her past mistakes.

Later on, Erin managed to make up for self-awareness through gaining confidence in herself. This came about as doing her job made her feel she had a purpose towards her clients. As a result, her confidence managed to do bring down her wall on trusting men. This is evidenced from when she gave her male clients her attention and trust, for example, Nelson and Charles who had previously worked for PG&E Company. Her trust also stretched into her relationship with her neighbor whom she left her children with. She now also had the confidence to justify her dress code towards her workmates and Theresa from the other firm.

Self-Guideline (Self-Regulation)

According to Jackson (2015), this is the capacity to control one’s driving forces, the capacity to think before one has to talk/respond, and the capacity to convey what needs be suitable. Goleman characterizes enthusiastic development in this segment as having the option to assume liability for your activities, having the option to adjust to change, and the capacity to react fittingly to other individuals’ unreasonable feelings or conduct.

Erin at the start also had some challenges on Self-regulation, she lost her accident case in court because she busted into anger and also shouted some provocative words at the lawyers and court officials. She also shouted at her neighbor (George) for taking in her children when her nanny had abandoned them at her house. This was not a proper way to treat him because he had felt for the children and helped well.

Later on, she gained some control over her anger out busts for example when she was at the park giving flyers and Charles impolitely asked for her number, she managed to remain calm. Even later on at the meeting when Charles gave her some creepy looks with his eyes and smiles, she never went to confront him but kept her distance. When she knew that the man at the library gave the threatening caller her details, she approached him calmly and expressed her position. When Charles finally confessed his story, Erin did not act without thinking. She asked for some time out and called Ed for guidance which she applied to handle Charles’s confession.

Inspiration (Motivation)

This is having an enthusiasm for learning and personal growth. It is having the solidarity to prop up when there are impediments throughout everyday life (Maddux et al., 2015). It is defining objectives and finishing them.

Erin was an internally motivated person she had looked for a job and never had any luck but she never lost hope. This internal motivation is what landed her a job at Ed’s law firm because she was determined she would get a job even though there was no vacant post publicized. Even when she was fired her internal motivation drove Ed into the corner to give her back her job at the law firm. When PG&E had asked for 90% of the clients to sign in favor of Ed’s law firm case, the other members saw it as impossible even the well-seasoned lawyers like Theresa. Erin’s self-motivation drove her to go the extra mile in reaching out to these clients and the 90% was successful.

Compassion (Empathy)

This is the capacity to comprehend different people groups’ feelings and responses. Compassion must be accomplished if mindfulness is accomplished. Goleman accepts that one must have the option to comprehend themselves before they can get others (Hiemstra and Sisco, 2017). Passionate development in this classification incorporates individuals having characteristics, for example, an impression of others, being keen on different people groups stresses and concerns, the capacity to foresee someone’s enthusiastic reaction to an issue or circumstance, and the comprehension of social orders standards and why individuals act how they do.

The first time that Erin met her neighbor (George) she was a bit harsh on him even thou he was polite to her. She said words without considering how it would make him feel and in front of his fellow friends who laughed at him on Erin’s words.

Through meeting her clients Erin developed empathy for people’s feelings. For example, when she heard that Dona was going to have her uterus and breast removed, she comforted her and promised her it would be well. Later on, Erin began to understand how her actions affected the people around her. When she said that her neighbor (George) could not tell her anything about jobs since he was unemployed it hurt his feelings. Erin realized this and she took back her words. When it came to her children Erin worked hard to provide for them and for the children not to feel the pain of being left by their birth father.

Social Abilities

This is the capacity to get on jokes, mockery, client assistance, keeping up companionships and connections, and discovering shared opinion with others. Goleman states that enthusiastic development in this part characterizes somebody who has great relational abilities, great time the board, the capacity to be a pioneer or deal with a gathering of individuals (Brockett and Hiemstra, 2016). The capacity to determine troublesome circumstances or clashes utilizing exchange or influence.

At first, Erin had some challenges with her social skills. This is evidenced when she first met her neighbor (George). On her first days at work Erin did not go for lunch with her fellow employees she remained behind on her own.

Later on, through doing her job she gained good social skills. The moment she went with Ed to meet the clients she advised him not to decline to have a cup of coffee with them when the meeting was over. Her social skills were admired by clients better than those presented by Theresa whom he visits almost turned some clients away from the firm. Erin had some social time with her clients before addressing business, for example, she complimented their houses and children .it made her bond with them; she even knew all their details by heart. She knew their contact numbers, addresses and sickness from the head when she presented them to Theresa.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it was Erin’s character that made the law firm have a strong case against PG&E Company. It was her interaction with the clients that won the plaintiffs’ trust and her interaction with the librarian and PG&E employees such as Charles that brought in strong evidence. It was also her strong guidance and motivation on ED that made him not to back away from the case. Getting Erin out of the picture would make the case a weak one. So, in conclusion, Erin had a strong sense of emotional intelligence in handling her life at work and also life at home.

At outset, I was more focused on the technical aspects of executive leaders. After reading the article ‘The Focused Leader: How effective executives direct their – and their organizations’ attention’ written by Daniel Goleman, I started to understand how important for leaders to master their attention. According to Goleman (2013), attention plays a fundamental role in leadership skills, such as emotional intelligence, willpower, social sensitivity, creativity and so on. I would like to discuss four essential leadership skills that are important for being a successful executive beyond technical aspects.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is one of the most crucial leadership skills for an executive to achieve success. Goleman (2013) indicated that leaders with emotional intelligence know how to acquire emotional information to make right decisions and guide own behaviours.

Emotional intelligence can be presented in different ways and one of them is empathy. Emotional empathy has an impact on communicating with clients, mentoring subordinates and reading group dynamics (Goleman 2013, p.7). Although empathy is necessary for emotional intelligence, it needs to be controlled. Goleman (2013) suggested leaders not only need to understand how people feel but also what they need from you. If executives are unable to understand what people need from them and simply carry too much sympathetic feelings towards some situations, that may lead to bad consequences and no one would be able to control (Goleman 2013, p.8).

To better understand the feelings of others, leaders need to understand own feelings. To do so, executives have to pay extra attention to their inner voices (Goleman 2013, p.4). By giving an example of a research, Goleman (2013) pointed out that failure to acknowledge internal feelings would lead to wrong decisions.

Willpower

In order to achieve leadership success, willpower is another key skill that executives will need. To decide if a person has willpower, you can often see that person handles well in a crisis, controls anxiety effectively, and stay positive after a defeat (Goleman 2013, p.6). As stated in Goleman (2013), willpower enables executives to strive for a goal without thinking of setbacks and temptations.

Over the past decades, lots of research has been done to prove the singular importance of willpower to leadership success (Goleman 2013, p.6). “Marshmallow test” conducted by Walter Mischel was cited in Goleman (2013) to show the level of willpower at early childhood would be a powerful indicator of financial success rather than IQ, social ranking and family circumstance. In addition, Goleman (2013) revealed that the willpower can be developed. What you can do is participate some daily sessions of mindfulness work. These sessions will need you to focus on your breath and practice your thoughts. When you realise your mind walks away, you need to take a deep breath.

Social Sensitivity

Social sensitivity is a skill that allows executives to manage relationships more effectively in those networks (Goleman 2013, p.9). Goleman (2013) provided a good example of why social sensitivity is important to leaders: The CFO who is technically competent but extremely harsh. He treats people unfairly and bullies others. When people bring up what he has done, he gets irritated and finds all kinds of reasons to justify his own behaviours. The worst thing is he might think you are the problem.

On one side, the example reveals that the CFO lacks social sensitivity and is totally not aware of his behaviours having bad influences on others (Goleman 2013, p.8). The same situation will be less likely happening to executives with social sensitivity, because they always act with manners no matter where they are and try their best to make comfortable conversations with others (Goleman 2013, p.9).

On the other side, the example reflects the CFO has higher social rankings than people around him and probably thinks others’ opinions do not matter. Dacher Keltner’s study cited in Goleman (2013) has found people with higher social status constantly ignore people with lower social status and are more often to dominate the conversation. Goleman (2013) suggested top executives need to pay attention to brilliant ideas from the lower ranks and respond quickly to situations where there is competition.

Creativity

As an executive, creativity is essential because it is also a good indicator to leadership success. Goleman (2013) stated leaders with creativity always have bigger vision and are able to recognize new possibilities that can happen in the future. Goleman (2013) quoted Melinda Gates from 60 Minutes when she was asked about her husband. Melinda Gates highlighted that her husband would spend a lot of time reading a book about fertilizer (Goleman 2013, p.9).

You may have a question in your mind. Why would Bill Gates choose to read about fertilizer? The answer seems pretty clear. Bill Gates is looking for an advanced technology that can help him develop fertilizer to save billions of lives (Goleman 2013, p.9).

As we are living in an era that the same information is public to everyone (Goleman 2013, p.10), it is much harder for us to come up with fresh ideas. What can executives do to develop creativity? They need open awareness to receptiveness. Goleman (2013) revealed that open awareness is closely related to creativity. It allows people to think more freely and at the same time the solution is emerged (Goleman 2013, p.10).

Last But Not Least

Emotional intelligence, willpower, social sensitivity and creativity are essential for success as an executive beyond the technical. There is no doubt that you will find out more leadership skills beyond technical aspects if you have time to read the article written by Goleman.

All four leadership skills I have mentioned above require executives to master their own attention. That is why Goleman (2013) claimed that attention lays a solid foundation for the most essential leadership skills. In short, as an executive, being technically competent is not enough, you need to build other leadership skills beyond the technical. To do so, remember to place attention at the centre of leadership skills you are trying to develop (Goleman 2013, p11).

Reference:

1. Goleman D, 2013, The Focused Leader: How effective executives direct their own- and their organisations’ attention, Harvard Business Review, Vol.91, no.12, pp. 1-11.

Introduction

”When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” A leader’s ability to manage own emotions and that of their followers during communication plays a crucial role in defining how successful a leader is. Emotional intelligence is required in each structure and dimension of human interaction in business, be it motivating the staff, or giving service to clients, or having any brainstorming season to take any decision (Cherry et al., 2013). Emotional intelligence is the ability to comprehend the emotional state of oneself as well as other people and the ability to investigate these emotional feelings as well as their impact. In a working environment, an Emotional intelligence individual can have control of his sentiments and channel them towards his objectives. Emotional intelligence can comprehend the emotional condition of others and can act in like manner (Mathew & Gupta, 2015). This enhances the relationship between colleagues and also maintains harmony in the workplace. An emotional intelligence manager can comprehend his subordinates well and team performance would progress. Thus, it is essential that a leader identifies the role of emotional intelligence in effective leadership (Antonakis et al., 2009). This paper aims at examining the critical roles that emotional intelligence plays in leadership and leadership communication in the workplace.

The Role of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace

Successful utilization of emotional intelligence can enormously decrease the tension and stress within the working environment condition. This should be possible through numerous available practical techniques to impact change. Empowering support as well as appreciative feedback towards colleagues is a better begin to ensure morale and also confidence among staff individuals (Krishnakumar et al., 2016). It enables employees to interact straightforwardly and strengthens a supportive and cohesive environment to flourish in. Positive relationships go far to lightening the pressures of work and negative emotions. This sort of working environment setting cultivates individuals to freely express their stress and emotions with no fear of embarrassment (Antonakis et al., 2009). This surrounding assists with practical help, colleagues helping resolve issues together or notwithstanding sharing the workload at hand to one another and fostering a shared trait. With regards to building better relations to help manage conflict and stress, employees can be encouraged to reflect upon their behaviors first, and after that set up where they remain in having an impact in either helping or harming the work environment pressures. Workers can identify whether they promote or harm the group cohesion to have an improved desired outcome. This practice teaches employees the significance of their role they play and furthermore identify how critical it is to have an awareness of their emotions and actions in the workplace.

Emotional intelligence enables leaders to listen to what their followers say without being judgmental (Cherry et al., 2013). Leaders with emotional intelligence have a great ability to gauge their follower’s response to their words or actions (Chen & Guo, 2018). This critical skill enables them to understand whether the employees really understood the intended message and thus enabling them to refine the message accordingly through developing an effective communication strategy that ensures effective communication with all the employees. Leadership is likewise about having better communication skills to convey thoughts to stakeholders and furthermore to propel colleagues. High emotional intelligence levels have been appeared to help enhance the communication skills of people, as it helps them listen to criticism from others and furthermore monitor their emotions. Subsequently, emotional intelligence is significance from managerial communication as well as leadership perspective.

Having enthusiastic knowledge empowers pioneers to fathom the impacts of their inclination when managing workers (Panait, 2017). This character is critical in empowering pioneers to settle on fundamental choices in a circumstance where pride and confidence are in question. All pioneers experience minutes where their feelings will in general impact their choices (Antonakis et al., 2009). Along these lines having passionate insight empowers pioneers to perceive minutes where their sentiments impact their choices consequently empowering them to make act quick to forestall potential unfriendly effects related with this.

Enthusiastic insight empowers representatives to utilize accommodating funniness in their initiative. It is difficult to think little of the estimation of diversion in boosting representatives’ assurance just as making them feel that you are a piece of them (Serrat, 2017). While insight is fundamental, enthusiastic knowledge is urgent to measure what individuals discover amusing and along these lines empowering pioneers to pick circumstances where funniness will be proper (Maamari and Majdalani, 2017). Furthermore, it will empower pioneers to strike an appropriate harmony among good cheer and genuine work. Laborers with higher passionate insight can have better capacities towards adjusting to work environment changes (Antonakis et al., 2009). In the globalization period, it is critical to have laborers who are adaptable and can adjust to changes.

Conclusion

Hence developing the capacity to oversee sentiments is pivotal in initiative correspondence. It empowers pioneers to put themselves in the circumstance of their adherents consequently empowering them to pick the best strategy to take care of issues and accomplish authoritative objectives. It is therefore basic that all chiefs endeavor to develop passionate insight and fuse it into their initiative to guarantee effective administration of representatives. A champion among the most fundamental things where passionate insight helps is in structure connections by dealing with any type of contention (Panait, 2017). At the point when individuals associate with people’s feelings and take a gander at things with their perspective close by sympathy, things get significantly more straightforward in settling clashes or even the likelihood of staying away from them before they start. This certainly adds to building associations with that person. People have a superior idea at the exchange organize with having the capacity to fathom the wants and needs of different people.

Individuals experience a wide scope of emotions. Terror, rage, desire, guilt, indignation, disappointment, entrancement, happiness is only a few of the emotions that influence our daily events. The anxiety of presenting in front of crowds, joy in helping someone else, satisfaction with the appearance of successful results, are only a few things that the person experiences at work. Each individual has the ability to react to such emotions. This is when an individual’s emotional intelligence is put forth, hence makes them understand their emotional impulse and directs them in behaving rationally. This essay will characterise and define emotional intelligence, clarify how it is measured, discuss the benefits it provides in educational and work environments and then how it can be improved.

The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ (EI) was invented by phycologist Peter Salovey and Scholar John D. Mayer in 1990, to describe “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour’ (Salovey and Mayer 1990). This is often further broken down as “one’s ability to identify and understand own behaviours, moods and impulses and conduct them to best respond to the requirements of a certain context” (Kasapi & Mikiotis, 2014). After the publication of bestseller Daniel Geman’s book in 1995, the concept of emotional intelligence has been a prominent topic that sparks the interests in scientific circles as well as the public and media. Goleman’s book focuses on emotions as mixed intelligence and how cognitive abilities and personality aspects of people lead to work environment success. However, Goleman, Salovey and Mayer were not the first to discover and understand the value of emotional intelligence as years before administrators, tutors and other experts, such qualities were more “colloquially referred to as people skills” (Ruderman et al., 2001).

In modern times emotional intelligence is viewed as the most significant aspect of a person’s performance. When contrasting IQ and emotional intelligence, Goleman indicates that whilst “IQ contributes to 20% of success, the remaining 80% of success is decided by emotional intelligence”. Salovey and Mayer released a four-branch model of emotional intelligence (1997). The model suggests that individuals differ in their ability to interpret information of emotional nature. This ability is shown to show itself through certain adaptative behaviours. The model states that emotional intelligence requires four forms of ability, perceiving emotion, facilitating thought using emotions, understanding emotions and managing emotions. Perception of emotion is the capacity of perceiving emotions between yourself as well as others. Emotional facilitation is the usage of emotions to encourage thinking and cognitive activity. Understanding emotion encompasses the ability to interpret emotional terminology and how emotions merge and transition over time. For example, understanding emotion allows the ability to comprehend the slight difference between emotion. It also encompasses how emotions can transition through time, like anger to grief. The last branch is managing emotions which include the opportunity to control your emotions and those of the individuals around you. Recent measures of Mayer and Salovey’s EI model, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) measures emotional intelligence through the abilities of a person to recognise, understand, act on, and manipulate emotional information. Using questions built on everyday situations, the MSCEIT measures how well people respond to “social tasks, read facial expressions, and solve emotional problems”. The MSCEIT is used in business, educational, study, and therapeutic environments (Mayer, John D. et al., 2008 and Brackett Salovey, Marc A Peter, 2006).

Emotional intelligence has a variety of applications in companies, both non-economic and corporate. It can be influential in many ranges of the workforce which can contribute to organisational growth. Emotional intelligence drills into a central aspect of human conduct that is separate from the intellect. Emotional intelligence is the single growing indicator of success in the workforce. In certain settings, employees with a great degree of emotional intelligence will be more able to communicate with others, control work-related tension, overcome work-related disputes and benefit from past behavioural faults. An individual with emotional intelligence holds attributes such as “self-awareness, self-control, sensitivity and social skills” (Dr Bhavana Arora 2017). A study based on emotional intelligence, tested 186 directors and associating their scores with their company’s probability. Results show leaders who scored higher in emotional intelligence were more likely to yield high profit‐earnings (Stein, Papadogiannis et al., 2019). A person with high emotional intelligence can pinpoint the needs of others, build efficient rapports, manage work problems, these aspects contribute to one’s career success in all properties like leadership, team building and career development.

The ability to recognise and control one’s own and feelings of others is relatively constant over time, affected by their early childhood interactions and also genetics. This does not suggest that emotional intelligence is not able to improve, however, permanent changes would take a great deal of effort and direction. A persons EI can be improved through coaching programs, accurate feedback and developing self-awareness (Peter D. Harms and Marcus Crede, 2010). Modern organisations now offer education and development that is categorised as “emotional intelligence” training. In support, their leaders establish and maintain “a working environment of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity and commitment” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1997). By advancing emotional intelligence, people can become more effective and efficient with what they do and encourage others to be effective and efficient as well.

Modern organizations now offer learning and development that is explicitly labeled as “emotional intelligence”or “emotional competence” training. In support, their leaders create and manage a working environment of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity, and commitment.

Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to regulate and monitor their feelings and to have the ability to influence the feelings of others. Emotional intelligence is the single growing indicator of success in the workforce and the greatest force of lead ship and professional achievement. A person emotional intelligence is affected by their early childhood, some people are more advantaged than others. However emotional intelligence can be improved through educational training programs, developing one’s own self-awareness and accurate feedback. Hence, possessing a high degree of emotional intelligence plays a significant role in a profession, particularly providing benefits for an individual striving for leadership, team building and career development. It is necessary to cultivate emotional intelligence such that one can understand, control and read one’s emotions and the emotions of others, gaining success in a workplace.

By developing their emotional intelligence individuals can become more productive and successful at what they do, and help others become more productive and successful too.