Emotional Intelligence in Organisational behaviour OB

Table of Contents:-

1. Emotional Intelligence Meaning
2. Emotional Intelligence in Organisational Behaviour
3. Emotional Intelligence Definition
4. Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence
5. Importance of Emotional Intelligence 
6. Limitations of Emotional Intelligence 
7. Implications of Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional intelligence in organisational behaviour plays an important role in influencing various aspects of workplace dynamics and individual performance.

Emotional Intelligence Meaning

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability of a person to manage and control his emotions and possess the ability to control or influence the emotions of other people as well. 

Emotional intelligence in organisational behaviour helps to identify and understand human emotions. Having high emotional intelligence can help to accomplish tasks, build relationships in the workplace,  and achieve goals.

It is the proficiency through which someone learns about the emotions of other people, and how the organization affects them. It offers an understanding of others, and a means to interact with others that help to improve relationships, boost productivity,  and increase the general quality of life.

EI has received a substantial amount of attention in the context of organisational behaviour. It can be used as a tool to measure how mature people are in handling their emotions. 

Emotional Intelligence in Organisational Behaviour

The term emotional intelligence (El) was used by Peter Salovey of Yale University and John Mayer of New Hampshire University for the first time to involve a set of personal and social abilities of an individual. 

EI is often measured as an Emotional Quotient (EQ), which describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, others, and groups. It is a relatively new area of psychological research.

Emotional intelligence can be simplified as a process involving recognizing, using, understanding, and managing one’s own emotions, as well as those of others. Although the concept of emotional intelligence was developed by Salovey and Mayer, it gained significant popularity with the publication of the book “Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ” by Goleman in 1995.

Emotional Intelligence Definition

According to Daniel Goleman, “Emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships”.

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According to Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, “Emotional intelligence is the ability to keep an eye on one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions”.

Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence 

Goleman has described five core characteristics of emotional intelligence in organisational behaviour OB, which are as follows:

1) Self-Awareness

This dimension consists of knowing one’s internal state, resources, preferences, and intuitions. It is the ability to recognize and interpret feelings as they are happening and to perform accurate self-assessments. This also includes the ability to be at peace with oneself and to have confidence in oneself. Self-awareness is being able to not let social norms get in the way of a personal mindset. 

2) Self-Management/Self-Regulation

It is the ability to keep impulses and emotions in check by exhibiting self-control. It also includes the ability to keep standards of things, like honesty and respect. Self-management involves the ability to take responsibility for one’s actions, the ability to adapt to change, and the ability to come up with novel ideas and approaches to situations.

3) Motivation

It is the ability to guide and facilitate goals, both long-term and short-term. It involves a drive for achievement, the ability to commit and take initiative as well as a sense of confidence about a goal. Motivation usually involves doing things we do not want to do, yet doing them anyway.

4) Empathy

Another dimension of EI is empathy. It helps to read and understand the emotional makeup of others. It is the ability to understand others’ needs, perspectives, feelings, and concerns, and sense their developmental needs.

5) Social Skills

The final dimension of EI is proficiency in managing relationships and building networks through social skills. Goleman suggests that social skill is the culmination of other dimensions of emotional intelligence. Social skill is the ability to give a desirable response to others by effectively using a diplomatic approach to influence them. Individuals with a high level of social skills build bonds widely. Socially skilled individuals can move seamlessly across communities, hierarchies, and organisational boundaries. This makes social skills a core leadership competency.

Importance of Emotional Intelligence 

The importance of emotional intelligence in organizational behaviour is as follows:

1) Building Strong Relationships

It helps build strong relationships. It is vitally important when talking about working with colleagues, friendships, or romantic relationships. With the ability to empathize, keep calm in the face of another person, understand the needs and wants of others, to be flexible enough to sustain a relationship, otherwise, things can go badly wrong.

2) Improves Communication with Others

When people act with intense intelligence they can improve their communication with others because they develop a complete set of skills and strategies that allow for more meaningful communication.

3) Better Empathy Skills

Empathy is understanding another person’s emotional makeup. It is a core emotional empathy skill in communication. Without the ability to feel how the other person might be feeling, people are unlikely to have a close relationship or influence others effectively. They will always feel that they do not understand them and they can be right.

4) Acting with Integrity

Integrity is another core of emotional empathy ability. Integrity is an act of doing things right through actions, belief, and words even when no one is watching them. It refers to a person’s loyalty, honesty, and honourable behaviour in such a way that is consistent with his core beliefs, being true to himself and being honest with others. When a person acts with intense intelligence and a high degree of integrity at work, this means that the person is trustworthy and reliable and therefore other people respect and trust him. 

6) Improved Career Prospects

All managers want to employ someone who is emotionally intelligent. They will not necessarily call it that though. Clued-up managers know that they can train people in technical skills much more quickly than they can train them in emotional intelligence.

7) Manage Change more Confidently

People with low intense intelligence often find change difficult. They do not feel confident enough in themselves to bend and adapt to the wind of change. This means they often turn their face against change, denying the need for it, and eventually lose out as progress happens around them. Instead of adopting change and growing with it, they change only when forced to, even then reluctantly with poor grace.

Limitations of Emotional Intelligence in Organisational Behaviour 

For all its benefits, emotional intelligence has just as many limitations. These limitations are as follows:

1) Emotional intelligence is too vague a concept

Too many researchers have done plenty of research on it, but still, it is not clear what intense intelligence is. Is it a form of intelligence? Most of us would not think that being self-aware or self-motivated or having empathy is a matter of understanding. So, is Emotional intelligence a misnomer? 

Moreover, many times different researchers focus on different skills, making it difficult to get a definition of emotional intelligence. One researcher may study self-discipline. Another may study empathy. Another may look at self-awareness. The concept of intense intelligence has now become so broad and the components so variegated that, it is no longer even an intelligible concept.

2) Emotional intelligence cannot be measured

Many critics have raised questions about measuring sensitive intelligence. Because it is a form of intelligence, for instance, there must be right and wrong answers about it on tests, they argue. Some tests do have right and wrong answers, although the validity of some of the questions on these measures is questionable. 

For example, one measure asks us to associate particular feelings with specific colours, as if purple always makes us feel cool, not warm. Other measures are self-reported, which means there is no right or wrong answer. 

For example, an emotional intelligence test question might ask to respond to the statement, “I am good at ‘reading’ other people”. In general, the measures of emotional intelligence are diverse, and researchers have not subjected them to as much meticulous study as they have measures of personality and general intelligence.

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3) Validity of emotional intelligence is suspect

Some critics argue that because emotional intelligence is so closely related to intelligence and personality, once you control these factors, emotional intelligence has nothing unique to offer. There is some foundation to this argument. 

It appears to be highly correlated with measures of personality, especially emotional stability. However, there has not been enough research on whether emotional intelligence adds insight beyond measures of personality and general intelligence in predicting job performance. Still, among consulting firms and in the popular press, it is wildly popular. 

For example, one company’s promotional materials for an emotional intelligence measure claimed, “Emotional intelligence accounts for more than 85 per cent of star performance in top leaders.” To say the least, it is hard to validate this statement with the research literature.

Implications of Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional intelligence has several implications in organizations, both business and non-business. It can be applied in the following areas:

Some of the implications of Emotional Intelligence are as follows:

1. Filling Organisational Positions
2. Credibility of Managers
3. Effective Communication
4. Stress Management
5. Work Life
6. Leadership Effectiveness
7. Handling Frustration
8. Conflict Resolution

1) Filling Organisational Positions

In any organization, various types of positions are created. These positions are at different levels and in different functional areas of the organization. An organisation that is likely to succeed in these positions are occupied by those employees who can meet the requirement of these positions. 

Thus, while filling the various organizational positions, an attempt is made to match jobs and individuals. In this matching process, various characteristics of individuals are taken into account such as age, educational background, experience, personality, emotional maturity, etc. While all these characteristics may be important for performing jobs well, recent emphasis in the recruitment and selection process is being put on the emotional quotient because of its contribution to professional success. 

Because of this reason, many psychologists have made attempts to find out the level of intense intelligence required for different types of jobs so that there is a match between employees and their jobs.

2) Work Life

Work life is concerned with the impact of work on people as well as on organizational effectiveness and the idea of participation in organizational problem-solving and decision making. High emotional intelligence is very applicable in improving the quality of work life. 

The emotional quotient stimulates motivation, eases, and changes, reduces stress, improves communication, and enhances rational decisions making. It develops positive thinking towards oneself and others. It protects people from threats of a psychological nature generated by criticism.

3) Credibility of Managers

The credibility of managers is a prerequisite for managerial success, credibility is built by what one says and does. When there is a difference between what one says and does, a credibility gap exists. The credibility of a person is reflected in features such as trustworthiness, integrity, honesty, informativeness, and dynamism. 

Through high emotional intelligence, all these features can be enhanced in a person because it stimulates consistency in behaviour making the behaviour highly predictable by others. Further, since high emotional intelligence leads to high self-esteem, the person adjusts his behaviour according to the situation to protect his self-esteem. Thus, it can be safely concluded that high intense intelligence enables a person to develop credibility.

4) Leadership Effectiveness

Leadership is a process of supporting and influencing others to work enthusiastically towards achieving the desired result. If a person influences his followers (in an organizational context, subordinates) for productivity on a long-term basis, he is an effective leader. High emotional intelligence on the part of the person leads to his effectiveness. 

According to Goleman, “Various resource person in leadership development offer their advice based on inference, experience, and instinct and not based on scientific data. As a result, leadership qualities are not developed appropriately”.

Goleman says that emotional intelligence, especially at the higher level of an organization, is the sine qua non for leadership. Data documenting the links between the emotional intelligence of leaders and the performance of organizations indicate a very high positive correlation.

5) Effective Communication

It helps in perceiving the meaning of any message in its correct perspective. Similar is the case with sending the message. Often, in interpersonal face-to-face communication, body language, that is, the movement of various parts of the body of the message sender plays an important role. 

If the sender does not have emotional maturity, he is likely to communicate something different through his body language even though he may use correct words in phrasing his message. It helps in avoiding such deformation in communication, thereby making communication effective. In general, intense intelligence helps in making communication effective.

6) Handling Frustration

Frustration is the accumulated tension generated through the non-satisfaction of needs. Though the person may make repeated efforts to satisfy his needs, there may be many external factors that hamper need satisfaction and frustration goes on. This frustration is dysfunctional for a healthy personality and, therefore, must be overcome.

7) Stress Management

Since stress beyond the optimum level is dysfunctional, it must be managed effectively. It helps in managing stress effectively. In fact, stress management largely depends on striking an emotional balance between a potential stress condition and one’s reaction to it. 

Any event has two positive and negative. If a positive aspect of the event is emphasized, it becomes less stressful because stress is a psychological phenomenon and depends on how one interprets an event. Intense intelligence stimulates for interpretation of an event in its right perspective by: 

1. The event at work and in life and what cognitions it elicits.
2. Becoming aware of the effects of such cognitions on physical and emotional responses.
3. Systematically evaluating the objective consequences of the event and
4. Replacing self-defeating cognitions that unnecessarily arouse stress.

8) Conflict Resolution

It not only helps in resolving conflicts but also helps in creating situations for the non-arousal of conflicts. If one analyses the real cause of a conflict, one may find that it takes place because of the incompatibility of attitudinal and emotional sets of the parties involved in it rather than any major issue. Thus, if attitudinal and emotional sets are managed properly, there is every possibility that conflict will not arise. 

It helps in managing these sets by making people aware of why a person is taking a particular stand on an issue. This awareness helps in bringing the two parties involved in a conflict to the real issue breaking down the emotional vulnerability. When the parties to the conflict do not bring their emotion into the conflict, they are in a position to understand the real issues and the conflict is resolved cordially.

EXERCISE:

Short Answer Type Questions 

1) Define organizational behaviour. Why it is needed?

2) Outline the nature and characteristics of organizational behavior.

3) Describe the approaches to organizational behavior development.

4) Mention the determinants of organizational behavior.

5) Discuss the significance of organizational behavior.

6) Define emotional intelligence. State its characteristics.

Long Answer Type Questions

1) Discuss the scope of organizational behavior.

2) Elaborate in detail the various models of organizational behavior.

3) List the fundamental concepts of organizational behavior. 

4) What are the various challenges and opportunities for organizational behavior? 

5) How do disciplines contribute to organizational behavior? 

6) Write a detailed note on the importance and limitations of emotional intelligence.

7) What is Emotional Intelligence in organisational behaviour OB

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