POWER, POLITICS, AND CULTURE

Emotional Intelligence

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Emotional intelligence is a set of abilities that allows an individual to recognize, express, evaluate and understand other people’s emotions to control their actions and thinking. Emotional intelligence as a concept in the current competitive world has become very popular. Thus many organizations have resorted to EI as a key ingredient in harvesting employee’s behaviors and positive attitudes. Employee commitment, customer satisfaction, and financial rewards can be gauged using Emotional intelligence. Hence emotional intelligence is a multidimensional concept that covers, social and cultural intelligence which is a key ingredient in the success of an organization. Emotional intelligence has four major dimensions; managing emotions, self-awareness, handling relationships, and individual motivation. Self-awareness is a key EI concept majors on the determinants and repercussions of emotions and moods and their evolution over time.

Nevertheless, EI has various impacts on the management’s ability to enhance employee performance and job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the individual’s cognitive ability to evaluate reactions towards their job, either positive or negative. Job satisfaction is greatly associated with individual emotional intelligence. Individuals with high EI are more time effective at work, highly satisfied; engage in less absenteeism and lower turnover ( Altındağ & Kösedağı, 2015). Thus, they are easily appraised and regulate their other individual’s feelings hence positively impacting job satisfaction and morale. On the other hand employees with low EI find it hard in understanding, regulating and managing their emotions in cases of complex situations. This, in turn, leads to reduced morale, increased negative feelings, and stress and reduced job performance levels. Relationship management as a concept has an overall impact on employee performance. This is because emotional management is key in creating a positive working environment thus increasing performance and commitment. The organization should then support its employees by creating a good working environment thus reducing dissatisfaction and creating loyalty and improving retention.

Motivation is the positive or pleasurable state of emotion that comes as a result of the appraisal of individual job experience. Work-related appraisals can invoke a positive or negative emotional reaction from an employee. A positive remark would hence reflect employee satisfaction and bad remark indicate dissatisfaction. Motivation In terms of reward or recognition would then give an employee a desire to do better (Shields et al., 2015). There exist several theories of motivation. I would capitalize on the Herzberg Hygiene model. According to this theory, namely achievement, advancement, recognition, the job, and responsibility bring about satisfaction. Thus pay, institutional politics, work relations, and management approach are factors that may demoralize employees. Herzberg's theory can then be used to create employee motivation through personal growth, enrichment, and recognition. Therefore, employees should be promoted at certain levels of their careers and receive special recognition in cases of achievement. For instance, when an employee executes an exceptional result in their field they should be rewarded given room to handle bigger tasks.

Although it is hard to control extrinsic variables, it is important to identify human variables like logic and emotions. Thus the various concepts of Emotional intelligence have a great impact on team decision making. Individuals are therefore bound to make more rational decisions if they use Emotional intelligence. When teams effectively apply EI there is a possibility in improvement in the quality of decisions made and the decisions-making process. Self-awareness and management, for instance, enables individuals with EI to identify their roles in the decision-making process. This concept creates a path that helps determine the right individual to make an appropriate decision in a given circumstance. The ability of an individual to control his emotions can contribute positively to team performance and the decision-making process. On the other hand, when team members give attention to the feelings of others through empathy and compassion they are bound to make timely decisions that would otherwise become larger problems. Through emotional intelligence team members can manage their undesired negative feelings. Leaders can regulate themselves through self-regulation positively by communicating with their teams towards the desired decision. Besides through relationship management teams can communicate effectively thus managing their relationship towards the desired direction.

A team is a set of individuals who are accountable for achieving a specific organizational objective through sharing similar responsibilities. A strong and effective team should, however, have a set of characteristics. First, a team should have clearly defined goals, roles and sense of purpose. Team members should clearly understand their roles task assigned. Secondly, good teams should posses’ good leadership. A team can turn chaotic or out of order without a strong leader. Also, an effective team should have trust and clear communication. Team members should trust their leaders and each other. Thus, an individual’s actions should be universally accepted by other team members. Team members should freely communicate to build a sense of camaraderie. Besides, teams should easily collaborate to encourage divergent opinions. Finally, teams should be mutually accountable in case of failure. Individuals should recognize success together and accept their failures without blame games.

Nevertheless, there exist dynamics in teams. Individuals tend to take different roles and behaviors when they work in teams. This hence has a great impact on individuals and the team as a whole. Positive team dynamics include easy trust, accountability, and creativity. While negative dynamics would lead to work disruptions, wrong decision making, and misunderstanding. To ensure positive team dynamics several measures have to be put in place. First, roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined (Cooke,& Hilton 2015). Secondly, barriers should be broken through team-building exercises. This activity would enable team members to easily connect, trust one another and combat fear. Besides, there should be clear communication from all members to avoid ambiguity. Finally, problems should be solved promptly. A clear code of conduct with implications is explained.

Since most of the employees of Amazon are not properly motivated there is a need to employ an extrinsic reward system for the employees. It is important to reward employees through raise in salary, bonuses, public recognition, promotion, and additional responsibilities. Besides, overworked employees can be given time off. Such motivated staff will work diligently on their task with much zeal and successfully innovate (Kanama & Nishikawa 2017). To combat the various issues faced by Amazon several motivational strategies ought to be put in place. First, the company should promptly promote well-deserving employees. Best performing employees should recognize and reward through salary review, bonuses, and day-offs. Employees should be provided with personal wellness, meals and other critical benefits. Promotions and job opportunities should focus on individual qualifications and not close relationships with the leaders thus eliminating discrimination. The company should vet their leaders to ensure team cohesion commitment and performance. Also, employees with personal hardships should be given enough time to recover thus boosting their morale.

In conclusion, Amazon should consider the extrinsic reward system in motivating its employees. Well, deserving employees should be recognized and rewarded. Besides, good leaders should be employed to ensure strong teams and ensure cohesion. Leaders should also ensure proper communication, foster good team relationships share common goals through clearly defined roles and solve problems amicably.

References

Kanama, D., & Nishikawa, K. (2017). Does an extrinsic reward for R & D employees enhance innovation outcomes? Evidence from a J apanese innovation survey. R&D Management, 47(2), 198-211.

Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., ... & Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing employee performance & reward: Concepts, practices, strategies. Cambridge University Press.

Altındağ, E., & Kösedağı, Y. (2015). The relationship between emotional intelligence of managers, innovative corporate culture and employee performance. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, 270-282.

Cooke, N. J., & Hilton, M. L. (Eds.). (2015). Enhancing the effectiveness of team science. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.