leadership & management00000

This unit covers the development and use of emotional intelligence to increase self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management in the context of the workplace.

It includes identifying the impact of own emotions on others in the workplace, recognising and appreciating the emotional strengths and weaknesses of others, promoting the development of emotional intelligence in others and utilising emotional intelligence to maximise team outcomes.

It applies to managers who are required to identify, analyse, synthesise and act on information from a range of sources and who deal with unpredictable problems as part of their job role. They use initiative and judgement to organise the work of self and others and plan, evaluate and co-ordinate the work of teams.

No licensing, legislative or certification requirements apply to this unit at the time of publication.

BSBLDR501 Develop and use emotional intelligence – Equivalent unit

Pre-requisite Unit

Not applicable

Unit Sector

Management and Leadership - Leadership

This section describes language, literacy, numeracy and employment skills incorporated in the performance criteria that are required for competent performance.

· Identifies and uses strategies to improve own emotional intelligence.

Oral communication

· Uses appropriate language and nonverbal features to present information and seek feedback

· Uses listening and questioning skills to elicit the views of others and to clarify or confirm understanding.

Interact with others

· Reflects on personal attributes and considers the impact on others and modifies approach to support development

· Adapts personal communication style to model behaviours, build trust and positive working relationships and to build understanding of emotional intelligence

· Leads a collaborative approach, using inquiring and inclusive techniques, to develop understanding and skills that enhances individuals’ emotional intelligence.

Get the work done

· Leads processes to develop, implement and monitor plans and processes to ensure team engagement and effectiveness.

Performance Evidence

Evidence of the ability to:

· Conduct an analysis to identify own emotional strengths, weaknesses, stressors, emotional states and triggers, incorporating feedback from others

· Identify workplace situations and environments that may trigger an emotional response

· Model behaviours that demonstrate management of emotions

· Recognise the impact that cultural behaviours and beliefs may have on workplace interactions

· Recognise and respond to the emotional states of others

· Use emotional intelligence of self and others to enhance team performance

· Promote the development of emotional intelligence in others.

Note: If a specific volume or frequency is not stated, then evidence must be provided at least once.

Knowledge Evidence

The candidate must be able to demonstrate the following knowledge to effectively complete the tasks outlined in the elements and performance criteria of this unit, and to manage tasks and reasonably foreseeable contingencies in the context of the work role:

· Key features of emotional intelligence principles and strategies

· Key elements of the relationship between emotionally effective people and the attainment of business objectives

· Key strategies for communicating with a diverse workforce which has varying cultural expressions of emotion

· Key features of emotional intelligence in the context of building workplace relationships.

Assessment Conditions

Assessment must be conducted in a safe environment where evidence gathered demonstrates consistent performance of typical activities experienced in the management and leadership field of work and include access to:

· Relevant workplace documentation and resources

· Case studies or, where possible, real situations

· Interaction with others.

Assessors of this unit must satisfy the requirements for assessors in applicable vocational education and training legislation, frameworks and/or standards.

Links

1.1. Identify and use evaluation criteria to determine own emotional strengths and weaknesses

1.2. Identify personal stressors and own emotional states related to the workplace

1.3. Analyse and document potential emotional triggers in workplace situations which may require determine appropriate emotional responses

1.4. Evaluate the impact of own workplace behaviours that demonstrate management of emotions

1.5. Use self-reflection and feedback from others to improve development of own emotional intelligence

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Define emotional intelligence

Create a list of their own emotional strengths and weaknesses.

The concept of emotional intelligence in terms of leadership and management is relatively new, becoming popular in the mid-1990s. Prior to this, intelligence was measured by an individual’s intellectual ability, or their IQ. Intellectual intelligence and emotional intelligence are two completely different functions and very often do not go hand in hand.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is an individual’s ability to recognise their own emotions and feelings, manage their own behaviour in response to these emotions and make balanced decisions in emotional situations. It is also an individual’s ability to recognise the emotions and feelings of others and interact with them in a way that manages their behaviour and relationships with others. It is the ability to recognise heightened emotions in both yourself and others around you, remove yourself from the stress and manage the situation objectively, taking into account the feelings of those involved, to arrive at a resolution agreeable to all involved.

There are many variations of evaluation models for emotional intelligence, but it is widely accepted that there are four components to emotional intelligence which are categorised in pairs by both personal and social competence, and recognition and regulation.

For effective leadership, a manager must demonstrate all of the four components in each given situation or predicament.

Why is emotional intelligence important?

Intellectual ability is obviously important in management and leadership; it is a quantifiable level of knowledge and understanding about the organisation’s processes and procedures, productivity, mission statement and objectives. This knowledge is the foundation of management and is an essential requirement for running an organisation or a department or team within an organisation. You cannot effectively manage a production line if you do not have a full understanding of the required processes and procedures.

Emotional intelligence, however, is not necessarily regarded as employers as an essential requirement for managers. It is not absolutely vital to the management of a team, but it is highly desirable. To return to the point made about a manager needing to understand how the production line works in order to keep it running smoothly, this is absolutely true of understanding how the members of your team work, why and how they might react emotionally to a situation or behave inappropriately, and what you, as a manager need to do and how you need to behave to resolve the problem and lead by example.

It could be argued that emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual ability when managing people. Humans emotions are, after all, much more complex to understand and deal with than a broken conveyor belt, and can have a huge impact on the performance of employees.

Employees are human beings, and regardless of deadlines, targets and other workplace stresses and demands, they rightfully expect to be treated as such; ignoring or avoiding their emotions and needs makes for a bad feeling in the organisation which often has a negative effect on productivity, work ethic and performance of individuals and/or teams.

Embracing their needs and emotions by proactively and collaboratively managing a resolution makes employees feel valued and gains their trust and loyalty which in turn makes them more committed and motivated to perform to high standards.

Your emotional strength is your mental stability and resilience to pressures and stresses. Some pressures may affect you more than others. Often in our personal lives, we react differently to how we would in the workplace; for example, a police officer who deals with household burglary on a daily basis in a calm and supportive manner would probably not react quite so professionally if it was their property that had been burgled. The first step in developing emotional intelligence is to acknowledge and understand your own emotions and behaviours.

Before you start to consider what causes you stress in the workplace, first identify your personal, generic, emotional strengths and weaknesses. You need to be honest and transparent in your self-assessment.

On the following page is a list of possible examples, but not a definitive list.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Identify their own stressors in the workplace

Identify the emotional state caused by stressors.

There are not many working environments or management roles in which stressors or pressures to perform or fulfil the requirements of your role and responsibilities do not exist, and even in those precious few that you may find, there are always unforeseen circumstances that can create them, natural disasters for example, or changes to regulations or legislation.

Within a management or leadership role, the number of stressors is bound to be more than those within a general worker’s, and the further up in the hierarchy you become, the more responsibility and accountability is attached to them. People respond differently to similar stressors and pressures, and what might concern one manager may be something where another manager thrives. It is quite probable that there is more than one thing in your role that causes you stress and anxiety, and there may be a number of things that evoke other emotions such as annoyance or anger. Recognising what causes your own personal stress will help you to understand that of others within your team.

Types of stressors in the workplace might include:

· Demands, such as:

· key performance indicators (KPIs)

· targets

· budgets

· workload, which may be unmanageable, unfairly distributed, potentially unlawful

· time-management and schedules

· meetings with senior management

· overtime

· Poor leadership, such as:

· impatient/unfair managers

· multiple managers or supervisors

· managers that do not understand your role

· Relationships, such as:

· bullying in the workplace

· conflicts between you and others that have not been adequately resolved

· conflicts between members of your team that you must resolve

· strained relationships with clients/suppliers/customers

Dealing with conflict – such as angry customers

Lack of support – from team members and/or supervision

Lack of understanding, such as:

poor communications from management

not understanding your role and responsibility

Change, which could be:

to management

own role and responsibility

organisational structure – redundancies for example.

The reasons for each aspect of employment causing you to feel stressed or under pressure may be completely different and may evoke different types of emotional response. For example, systematically failed sales targets may result in you being the subject of a performance management plan or other disciplinary action which causes concern for the security of your role and anxiety about personal financial commitments. Presentations to senior management or large groups of stakeholders may be a more personal pressure for you if you are not confident in public speaking.

Types of emotional states related to the workplace

Recognising these stressors and your emotional response to them enables you to begin the journey to developing your emotional intelligence. You may already be well on the way, particularly if your emotional responses are positive ones.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Identify and document their own emotional triggers in the workplace.

We all have different emotional triggers, and some can be very specific to the individual such as being called an unpleasant nickname, or a member of senior management always calling you by the wrong name. The emotion is a reaction to an action or activity that compromises something that is very important to you. That compromise is the trigger.

In order to identify your own emotional triggers, you need to consider the things that are most important to you, that if threatened or removed would cause an extreme emotional reaction from you. They are often your morals and values.

Possible emotional triggers could be the potential compromise of any of the following concepts:

By identifying and understanding the reasons for your emotional responses to work stressors and personal pressures you have made yourself more aware of the issue. This consciousness should enable you to recognise the trigger and stop the emotional reaction before it occurs. By being able to apply a rational understanding of why the reaction occurs, you enable yourself to step away from the issue and take stock of how you are going to deal with it and manage the emotional response.

You have identified the pressures and stressors that evoke this emotional reaction and the reasons why. You have also identified your personal emotional strengths and weaknesses. In order to control your emotional response to the work stressors, you should identify your emotional strength that is most appropriate and suitable to deal with the issue.

When you get an emotional trigger:

· Stop

· Detach yourself from the situation

· Think about the process you have put in place to deal with the issue

· Use that emotional strength to analyse the problem

· Is the need that you believe is being compromised really under threat, and if so, to what extent?

· Have you taken it personally when that was not the intention of the action?

· If the need is being compromised, how are you going to deal with it objectively without being over-sensitive and emotional?

As a manager or leader, controlling your emotional responses is a vital skill that gets more natural with experience. It is important to remember that when you detach yourself from a situation, it gives you time to choose how to respond as opposed to giving a reflex reaction.

Below is an example of potential stressors and emotional triggers experienced by a police officer and the subsequent emotional strength and positive emotional response the officer might use to deal rationally and objectively with the issue.

Documenting your own emotional triggers will provide a reference point which can be revisited at any point. This means that in situations where you might be feeling vulnerable, you will be able to identify things which may heighten your emotions and put procedures in place to avoid this from happening.

Documentation can be in any form which is useful for you. Perhaps you keep a diary or a journal where you can jot down your triggers, or you might use a notes app on your phone; choosing a format which will aid your reference to this will increase the chances of it being useful.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Explain why it is important for managers and leaders to control their emotions in the workplace

Roleplay a stressful situation demonstrating emotional control and positive responses

Identify the impact that emotional control and positive responses will have on the team.

It is important for everybody in the workplace, regardless of their position, to try to manage their emotions in order to retain a professional environment. This is not always easy or achievable for some people, and as human beings, emotional responses to adverse or diverse situations are natural reactions. However, as managers and leaders, you have to model workplace behaviours that demonstrate management of emotions because you set the tone and the standard for the behaviour of the rest of your team and/or organisation.

Not only must you set the standard on which the rest of the organisation models its own behaviour, but you will also have to deal with the consequences of inappropriate emotional responses and behaviours from your subordinates and also possibly complaints from customers or clients exhibiting heightened emotions. If you are unable to manage your emotions in these scenarios, you will exacerbate the situation. Learning to control your emotions by detaching yourself from the issue and not taking it personally, rather than just concealing your emotions, is the goal; by remaining impartial and indifferent to the situation, you will be in a much more objective position to deal with it effectively and fairly.

This is obviously much easier to talk about than to put it into practice, but as a manager, your team and others around you will look to you control a problem or situation and to provide solutions in a rational and calm manner. If the manager is panicking or loses control of their emotions, chances are it will cause panic amongst the staff and/or the staff may lose respect for them which will have a negative impact on their authority and ability to manage their team.

Dependent on the nature of the industry in which you work, the scale of the emotions you will have to manage might range from frustration at a printer that is out of order and has not been reported to fear for your own personal safety or that of members of your team from either a customer or a member of staff that has seriously lost their temper.

You should consider the different types of situation you may have to deal with in your role and predict the emotions you will need to suppress. As you become more experienced in management and leadership and are exposed to more emotional situations, you should expect to become desensitised to issues that would once have provoked a personal emotional response from you, and your personal emotional strength will increase. This is not to say that you will lose your empathy and caring qualities, rather you will become more pragmatic in your responses to emotional situations.

A good way to ensure that your emotions are successfully managed in the workplace is to evaluate the impact of your own behaviour. In most cases, expressing heightened emotion, whether this be worry, sadness, anger, etc., will provoke a negative reaction from those around you.

To evaluate the impact of your own behaviour you could:

Pay close attention to how the people around you are responding – the reaction of others will be a good indicator as to how successfully you are managing your emotions. A calm and collected team shows that they are not feeling your stress

Reflect on your feelings – are you letting things wind you up to the point it effects on the rest of your day? Simply paying attention to your own feelings can give you an insight into the impact of your behaviour and the times when you may not be displaying management of your emotions

Ask your peers – it can often be difficult to understand the impact that our behaviour has on others. It might be a good idea to create a feedback system to identify which of your behaviours are demonstrating management of emotions and which ones aren’t.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Complete a self-reflection to explore a situation in which they have not been successful in managing their emotions.

In the previous chapters, you understood the concept of emotional intelligence and have analysed and identified what causes your own personal emotional responses both in general and in the workplace, attaching theoretical coping strategies to each stressor. Unlike intellectual intelligence that tends to mature in late adolescence and remain the same throughout our adult lives, emotional intelligence can be an ability that is developed and improved indefinitely and with experience as you become attuned to the behaviours of others.

As with any skill, in order to improve it, you have to constantly evaluate your performance through self-reflection and by obtaining feedback from others. The following exercises might help you to develop your emotional intelligence.

Strategies to improve your emotional intelligence include:

Talking about your feelings

Taking responsibility for your feelings

Using feelings to make decisions

Using feelings to set targets and objectives

Using feelings to discuss and resolve incidents.

Talk about your feelings

Describe matters with feelings, and put an emotional label on how you felt at the time. For example, if you were stuck in a traffic jam and late for a meeting you might have been using expletives and saying things such as, “This is just my luck”, or “I’m never going to make it on time.” You might even exhibit a change in behaviour such as banging your head on the steering wheel or revving the accelerator unnecessarily whilst stationary. You obviously know that none of these remarks or behaviours are helpful and actually heighten the emotion you are experiencing.

Instead, you should be trying to think in emotions and feelings, saying things such as:

· I feel impatient

· I feel annoyed

· I feel worried (that this may have a negative impact on the outcome of the meeting).

You may not find that you can do this automatically whilst in the middle of the situation but this is what developing emotional intelligence is all about. As soon as you start detaching yourself from situations and taking a step back to analyse how you are feeling, you can start to manage your feelings and emotions more rationally.

Take responsibility

When you look back at incidents where you have had to manage your emotions, take responsibility for your own feelings. Regardless of what has happened, nothing or nobody can be held accountable for your chosen response to a stimulus. As discussed in earlier chapters, emotional intelligence is the ability to respond thoughtfully, not react without thinking. For example, in the traffic jam scenario, you may have felt annoyed at yourself because you didn’t leave yourself sufficient time to get to the meeting. Where incidents cannot be helped, such as the traffic jam having been caused by an accident, there is nothing anybody could have done to prevent it. If the colleagues or clients at your meeting take exception in the latter circumstances, you might question their emotional intelligence.

Use feelings to make decisions

When making any decisions within the workplace, you should obviously consider all the factual and tangible consequences, but you should also take into account how it will make people feel.

You should ask:

· How will I feel if I do this?

· How will I feel if I don’t?

· Why will I feel like this?

· What else could I do that would make me feel better/different?

· What will others feel?

· What could I do to make others feel better?

You should also ask for feedback from others involved or affected by your decision. Considering their feelings and actively asking for their contribution will make them feel valued and shows your respect for them as human beings, not just employees. It is these processes that help to build quality relationships within the workplace between management and subordinates which subsequently fosters loyalty and retention of quality members of staff.

Use feelings to set targets and objectives

Every organisation has its aims and objectives, and it is the role of management to ensure that these goals are met. The objectives should reflect the mission and the ethos of the organisation which generally sets out the values and morality of the company. Why not adopt the same approach to your own goals and targets?

You could ask:

How do I want to feel when the target is reached?

How do I want the members of my team to feel when they have reached the target?

How do they want to feel when the target is reached?

How do they want to feel along the way?

How do I want senior management to feel when the target is reached?

What can I do to ensure these feelings are reached?

Attach feelings targets to your goals and ask for regular feedback from those involved during the journey. For example, if making the employees feel valued is one of the targets, you might decide in consultation with them that in order to do this they want regular updates and communication on the progress of their work throughout the project. This then gives you a metric by which to measure your progress.

Use feelings to discuss and resolve incidents

When dealing with an incident or conflict in the workplace, either between you and a colleague or members of your team, always ask all involved how the incident made them feel. This may sound irrelevant, but it is surprising how personally some people take the most minor issue. For example, a flippant comment to an administrative assistant about the printer running out of paper could ruin their day, and they might even go home and worry about it, particularly if it is a member of the management team that made the comment.

The issue may not come to light for a few more days until the administrative assistant mentions it to a colleague and explains how it has affected him/her. The manager may have forgotten about the printer running out of paper and have no knowledge of the bad feeling they have caused. By having a conversation with the administrative assistant and asking them how it made them feel allows them to air their grievance and gives the manager the opportunity to understand how their actions have adversely affected a colleague. It also enables the manager to explain the lack of intent to harm the administrative assistant’s feelings.

As with all self-reflection, you have to be honest and open in order for it to be of any value. Each time you are involved in a matter that requires the use of emotional intelligence and you having to manage your emotions, try asking yourself the following questions and recording your responses for future comparison and evaluation.

Example incident

You return to the office after a meeting and enter reception. Your receptionist tells you that she has forgotten to take down a telephone number for an important potential client who is awaiting a call back from you, the manager. There is another customer waiting in reception. You are angry, but you roll your eyes and make a joke to the customer that, “You just can’t get the staff”, before walking away without saying anything to the receptionist.

Self-reflection

Feedback from the receptionist

You can see that the feedback from the receptionist is very similar to the feelings of the manager. This reflects the fact that when emotions are not managed, they affect those involved in very similar ways.

Seeking feedback on emotions management from colleagues and members of your team not only helps to develop your emotional intelligence, but it also encourages them to think in a similar way to develop their own.

2.1. Respond to the emotional states of co-workers and assess emotional cues

2.2. Develop a plan for identifying and responding appropriately to a range of cultural expressions of emotions

2.3. Apply techniques to demonstrate flexibility and adaptability in dealing with others

2.4. Demonstrate consideration of the emotions of others when making decisions

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Identify the emotional state of a co-worker from a previous situation and determine the emotional cues which led to this conclusion

Outline how they responded to the co-worker and determine whether this was a suitable reaction.

You have identified and evaluated your own personal emotional strengths in relation to the workplace, and you now need to develop your understanding of those of the people with whom you work and manage.

As a manager, you are expected to be able to deal effectively with others and develop and refine your emotional intelligence in order to do so. This is not necessarily the case with all of your co-workers who may not have responsibility for the behaviour and actions of anyone but themselves. This is not to say that some of your co-workers might possess highly advanced emotional intelligence or that others have very little, or none at all.

You will probably find that there are mixed levels of emotional intelligence amongst your colleagues and this in itself can cause issues and conflicts because they do not manage their emotions in the same way as one another. You need to recognise where on the scale of emotional intelligence each of those people under your management lies and respond to their emotional states accordingly.

In the first element, you looked at different emotional responses, particularly your own, which might occur in the workplace. Your emotional responses will differ to those of your colleagues because we all have different personalities and emotional strengths and weaknesses. Something that motivates you, a production deadline, for example, may not evoke the same drive from an employee on the production line that is paid minimum wage and performs the same repetitive tasks on a daily basis.

Likewise, something that concerns the same production line employee, such as needing to request time off for a child’s medical appointment, will not concern you at all. That employee may be worried about having to go to your office and ask for time off, and this may affect her behaviour towards others on the production line (she might snap at them or ignore them because she is pre-occupied with the trip to your office), or it might affect her performance and ability to do her job properly because she is nervous. The emotions she is experiencing are potential causes of conflict which you may very well have to resolve before she has even made it into your office to ask the question that has caused all the problems.

As a manager, you need to be able to recognise the emotional strengths and weaknesses of others within your team and the emotional states that they produce. An emotional state is actually two separate concepts. The state we are in determines how we perceive something that is happening to us or around us which results in the emotion we feel towards it. The emotion we feel towards the same stimulus may be completely different depending on the state we are in.

For example, a colleague plays a practical joke on you by hiding your lunch box. After a productive and lucrative meeting with a new client that has ensured you treble your sales targets halfway through the month, you probably won’t care about the hidden lunch box and may be amused when you find it later in the day in your filing cabinet when you are looking for something else. However, after a tough meeting with your manager about falling sales figures when you need to attend another meeting on the other side of town for which you are running late?

You will often find that the subsequent response is determined by the emotional state of the individual and will also vary according to the state. With the lunch box example, the response in the happy emotional state might be that the individual who has had his lunch box hidden goes out and buys the whole office lunch as a celebration of the trebled sales. The response from the stressed individual is most probably going to be one of anger or aggression.

Emotional states

There are more emotional states than you might have imagined. This selection is not exhaustive.

Recognising different emotional states may be quite difficult because some of the physical features and behaviours, or emotional cues, that individuals demonstrate are common to a number of different states.

An emotional cue is basically a sign that gives an indication as to the emotional state of an individual. It is generally a non-verbal movement of a part of the body, usually involuntary, unintentional and unconscious.

Generic emotional cues include:

· Facial expressions

· Body movement

· Tone of voice.

Facial expressions include:

Smile – joy, happiness, amusement, affection, confidence, enthusiasm, to embarrassment, euphoria, gratitude, mania, nostalgia, optimism, pride, shyness

Frown – agitation, anxiety, bitterness, frustration, hate, rage, suspicion, worry, confusion

Blink – agitation, anxiety, apprehension, guilt, vulnerability, mania, rage

Raise eyebrows – doubt, hope, shock, suspicion

Widen eyes – apprehension, helplessness, hope, mania, optimism, shock, terror, vulnerability

Facial flushing – agitation, embarrassment, guilt, rage, shame, shyness

Downturned mouth – depression, disappointment, grief, loneliness, remorse, vulnerability

No expression – ambivalence, apathy, boredom, calm, patience.

Body movements include:

Fist pump – enthusiasm, euphoria, joy

Throat-clear – uncertainty, apprehension

Jaw drop – shock

Both hands to mouth – apprehension, shock, terror

Both hands to head – frustration, disappointment

Dropping the head – protection, apprehension, agitation, humility, shame, remorse, shyness, vulnerability

Freeze – helplessness, shock, terror

Slumped shoulders – depression, disappointment, helplessness

Gesticulating – agitation, enthusiasm, desire, joy, mania, rage

Jumping – shock

Shaking – agitation, apprehension, enthusiasm, euphoria, frustration, rage, terror

Pacing – agitation, anxiety, mania, rage, worry.

Tone of voice includes:

Falling pitch – calm, ambivalence, apathy, depression, disappointment, helplessness, nostalgia, vulnerability

Rising pitch – agitation, anxiety, desire, euphoria, joy, mania, rage, terror, worry

Sarcasm – bitterness, doubt, suspicion

Raised – agitation, confidence, hate, mania, rage.

You can see just from these examples that emotional cues can be quite confusing, especially if you don’t know the person. For example, agitation and anxiety share a number of common emotional cues that, if misread, could cause more conflict or a more heightened emotional state than you first started with.

What’s more, emotional cues can be unique to an individual such as repeatedly tapping the side of the leg when agitated or whistling when nervous. Understanding generic emotional cues can help you to assess the emotional states of your co-workers, but taking the time to get to know their personalities is instrumental in predicting how they might respond to specific pressures or situations.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

List the six basic emotions proven to be universal in all cultures

Identify the different cultures in their workforce and state whether each could be considered collectivist or individualist

Create a plan for responding to common expressions of emotion of one culture.

Diversity in Australia

Australia is a hugely multi-cultural nation. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the original inhabitants of Australia and have been living there for between 40,000 and 60,000 years. Since Great Britain established the first European settlement in 1788, people from over 200 countries have migrated to Australia, and they and their descendants make up the rest of the population. Different cultures have varying ways of expressing emotions, and it is important that you understand these emotional cues in order to respond appropriately and sensitively.

Similarities in expressions of emotions

Extensive psychological research over time and across many different cultures all over the world has established that human beings experience and react with universal facial expressions to six basic emotions.

The six basic emotions are:

Happiness

Sadness

Anger

Fear

Surprise

Disgust.

However, research has also shown that the extent to which these emotions are shown using facial expressions varies according to different cultures. The “display rules” of each culture determine how much emotion individuals are allowed to convey in a given situation.

You should first identify the cultures that are present and their priority or understanding of emotions. You may need to research information about communication and emotional intelligence in each culture. It may help to understand the role of collectivist and individualistic countries.

To communicate with a diverse workforce which has varying cultural expressions, you can:

Identify cultures that are present

Assess their understanding of expressions and non-verbal communication methods

Research information about communication and emotional intelligence in cultures present

Research information on the role of collectivist and individualistic countries.

Collectivist cultures

Collectivist cultures feel the need to fit in with all around them without drawing attention to themselves. They tend to mask negative emotions by controlling their facial expressions when in the presence of others, particularly authority figures.

They include:

Individualist cultures

Individualist cultures encourage the importance of power and autonomy and are much more overt with their emotions and facial expressions.

They include:

Language and priority of emotions

It is also important to be aware that the names of some emotions do not have an equivalent across all languages so when dealing with co-workers from a culture different to your own that appear to be in an emotional state it is important not to confuse matters with words being lost in translation.

Some cultures also have different priorities of emotions; for example, generically speaking, honour and shame in the Far East would have more meaning to individuals and society than they perhaps would in the United States of America.

It is important to familiarise yourself with the emotional differences of the varying cultures within your organisation and the emotional cues and responses you are likely to encounter in order to respond fairly to all co-workers you encounter in emotional states, regardless of their culture.

Other influences on emotional responses

It is also worth noting that there are other cultural influences that may affect the way individuals respond in emotional situations.

These differences might include:

· Age – younger, more inexperienced co-workers might react with heightened emotion to older, more experienced employees

· Gender – studies suggest that men are more likely to hide feelings of fear and surprise than women, whereas women are more likely to control feelings of disgust, contempt and anger

· Socio-economic class – boundaries of what is deemed acceptable behaviour and emotional response may differ according to socio-economic class

· Language – barriers in language can make it difficult to understand and resolve problems, particularly when vocabulary to describe emotions cannot be translated from one language to another

· Mental ability – an individual with learning difficulties will quite probably respond much differently to someone without them. Equally, the mental health of an individual could also have a bearing on their emotional responses

Past experiences – personal and professional past experiences can change the way individuals respond emotionally to certain situations and stimulus. For example, a co-worker who has past experience of nursing in a hospital emergency department is less likely to faint at the sight of blood than an employee who has never witnessed physical trauma. It is also worth bearing in mind that past experience of abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) or repeated exposure to witnessing and dealing with horrendous events can desensitise individual’s emotional responses to any number of situations.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Identify matters that might arise when dealing with others in their organisation

Describe how they adapted their approach in a situation to deal with the matter

Identify the six styles of leadership and determine their preferred style.

It doesn’t matter how large or small your workforce is; it will inevitably contain a plethora of personalities with unique capabilities, needs and possibly emotional limitations and abilities. As a manager, it is your responsibility not only to manage their workload but also all the human aspects that occur on a daily basis. Dependent on the nature of your workforce and industry, the matters that arise may range from basic frustration with broken equipment to full-scale trauma as a result of a serious incident in the workplace. Whatever arises, the way in which you deal with the people involved will have a significant impact on the outcome of the incident.

Matters that arise may include:

Complaints about from workers about co-workers such as time wasting

Incorrect wages

Mistakes in the rota

Holidays and time off

Disputes between colleagues

Disciplinary conversations/actions

Personal issues affecting work

Unforeseen circumstances

Angry customers/colleagues.

Using emotional intelligence to build workplace relationships

Emotional intelligence can be used to build workplace relationships through:

Considering and understanding others’ thoughts, needs and actions

Adapting behaviour to facilitate communication

Collaboratively resolving conflict

Improving active listening

Increasing self-awareness, awareness of others and emotional reasoning.

The important thing to remember when dealing with others is to treat them as individuals. Knowing your team will enable you to do this with much more accuracy and will also make them feel valued. Each member of your team will have their own emotional needs and level of emotional intelligence. You will have to adopt a number of things in your approach to ensure you deal with the situation on their level.

You will need to demonstrate flexibility and adaptability in the following areas:

Vocabulary – The words you use must be understood by the individual

Tone – You may need to adopt an empathic approach, or the situation may require assertiveness

Time – Some people will be quick and simple to deal with whilst others will be much more demanding of your time. You need to remain in control of the situation but gauge how much time should be spent with one individual if progress is not being made

Solutions – You may have to be creative with the possible solutions you offer, and you should also remember that one size will not fit all; as with time, some individuals will be more difficult to please

Your own capabilities – You should also know when you have exhausted your own abilities to deal with an individual and be able to recognise when the situation requires escalation to the next level of authority or expertise.

As a manager, you probably have a preferred leadership style, and this may work most of the time, but it is important to vary your approach when necessary.

Daniel Goleman’s book, Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence, first published in 2002, states that the most successful leadership is that of managing the emotions of their team in order to keep motivation and morale high. The better a leader understands the members of their team, the more successful they can be in stimulating and maintaining motivation to achieve the desired goals. But not all people can be managed in the same way.

The six leadership styles Goleman identified are:

The visionary leader – This style of leadership sets out a vision or an ideal and shares it with the team, guiding and supporting, but not directing team members in a specific direction. It is often used when a new direction is needed, and there is no clear path yet forged. It is often more successful with young and inexperienced individuals than with seasoned workers resistant to change

· The coaching leader – This is a much more personalised approach to leadership in which much time is invested in long conversations with individual workers in order to link the goals of the organisation with the individual’s personal goals and career aspirations. For individuals who already know what they want, are already doing it, and are self-motivated, this style of leadership can be overbearing and can seem like micro-management

· The affiliative leader – This style of leadership places the importance on the emotional needs of the workforce over work and organisational needs, and this sort of leader wants to retain harmony amongst the whole workforce at all costs. It can be quite destructive if the workforce takes advantage of the kindness and compassion afforded to them and it can also be regarded as sweeping issues under the carpet in order to appease the emotions of the staff

· The democratic leader – This is a collaborative approach in which management seeks the input of their workforce for decision-making processes. It is an effective way of gaining support from the workforce as it allows them to take ownership of the goals, but it can also be regarded as management not knowing what they are doing

· The pace-setting leader – This approach is to lead by example. A pace-setting leader will often bring in new and exciting challenges, demonstrating their own ability and excellence, and expecting the same from everyone else. If a situation needs rescuing they will often wade in and resolve matters themselves. Very little guidance is offered to the workforce, and they are expected to know what to do and get it done. It works best with an experienced and able team who are highly motivated

· The commanding leader – Perhaps the most traditional style of leadership, the commanding leader issues clear instructions with no room for manoeuvre that they expect will be completed without any questions asked. It is as far from democratic as possible. This type of leader has a powerful presence and can often be seen as cold and aloof. This style works best in a crisis when results or changes are needed immediately, and a floundering team needs clear guidance.

Our personalities lend us to a specific style of leadership, but a good manager should employ a combination of all styles to suit the occasion and the people with whom they deal.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Describe a decision-making process they have undertaken that took into account the emotions of others.

Emotional intelligence gives you the ability to show empathy and understanding of other people’s feelings. When making decisions that concern or will affect the emotions of your workforce, you need the ability to understand how they will feel about the decisions you make and why they will feel that way.

This is a trait of the affiliative leader who desires harmony and collaboration amongst every member of the workforce and could also be described as a collectivist approach to leadership. In business, decision-making is often about saving time and money and making improvements to existing processes and procedures. It often does not concern the emotions of others. However, when managing people, and making decisions that will affect them personally and emotionally, the process is not as straightforward as rational thought.

When making decisions consideration should be given to the following:

· How the decision will affect individuals emotionally

· How it will affect individuals personally

· How it might affect people financially

· How it might affect people socially

· How it might affect their productivity

· How it might affect their mood in the workplace

· How it might affect your relationship with them

· How it might affect their relationship(s) with others

· Any effect it might have on the mental health of an individual

· Ramifications for the organisation

· Short-term effects on the individual’s emotions

· Long-term effects on the individual’s emotions.

We have decided that it is important to consider the emotions of others in decision making, but how are you going to get an accurate picture? You might know your workforce incredibly well and can predict the effect a decision may have on them, or they might be vocal about how they anticipate a decision will impact upon their emotions. You also might have no idea.

You could request feedback from your workforce to help you make a decision based on their emotions. If the decision affects just one individual, an informal conversation might suffice. If, however, the decision affects a large group of people you might need a more formal approach to obtain feedback, such as an open forum or an employee survey.

Whilst it is important to consider the emotions of others in making decisions, it is also important to remain objective and balanced in your considerations. It is also vital that you do not avoid legal or ethical requirements when making your decisions. For example, if an employee has stolen an item of another employee’s property, you could not make a decision on how to handle it based on the emotions of the perpetrator. However, you could possibly make a decision on how to handle it based on the emotions of the victim.

3.1. Create opportunities for others to express their thoughts and feelings

3.2. Assist others to understand the effect of their behaviour and emotions on others in the workplace

3.3. Develop and implement plans to encourage the self-management of emotions in others

3.4. Develop and implement plans to encourage others to develop their own emotional intelligence, to build productive relationships, and maximise workplace outcomes

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Explain how one process to provide others an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings would work.

It can be quite daunting for people with whom you work and manage to express their thoughts and feelings. In a working environment, we are often told not to and instead to maintain a professional manner and attitude at all times. This is certainly true of colleagues working with customers and members of the public, and also in terms of maintaining positive and courteous working relationships with one another. However, that is not to say you cannot provide safe opportunities for your team to have their thoughts and feelings heard.

The benefits of developing emotional intelligence within your workforce are multiple, but perhaps the best one for managers of people is that if they are able to manage their own emotions themselves, which prevents you from spending time doing it for them. It enables both you and your workforce to get on with the task at hand without having to spend time dealing with issues and incidents of an emotional nature.

Training sessions

You could hold paid, group training sessions as part of the personal development of each employee that cover. Benefits of the development of emotional intelligence such as better performance at work, higher income, job stability and job satisfaction.

They may need to practice active listening, which includes:

Giving their full attention

Not talking over the top of others

Maintaining eye contact (for facetoface interactions), except where eye contact may be culturally inappropriate

Repeating back what the speaker has said

Speaking clearly and concisely

Using appropriate language and tone of voice

Using appropriate non-verbal communication (body language) and personal presentation (for facetoface interactions).

Colleagues may also need to:

· Develop self-awareness – Give employees five minutes at the end of their shift to keep a daily journal in which they reflect upon their emotions and feelings from that day

· Participate in one-to-one meetings – Offer each employee a short, five-minute meeting with yourself in which they can talk to you about any concerns they have or to get worries/frustrations off their chest in a controlled and safe environment. This could be beneficial to you as a manager as they may raise issues of which you were unaware that could be threatening to the organisation or to other employees

· Undertake difficult conversations – Actively encourage your employees to meet with you to have the difficult conversations about taboo issues that are usually swept under the carpet

· Build time into team meetings for rants and moans – In your regular meetings, allow a short period of time that can be used for employees to have a rant about their frustrations but make sure that when you move on, you really do move on

· Build optimism – Use every opportunity to provide positive feedback to your employees, either individually or in groups. The more genuine praise you shower on them, the more buoyant their confidence and motivation. Equally, use opportunities to provide developmental feedback that encourages self-reflection

· Specific developmental goal for each colleague – Build into their personal appraisals specific goals in their development of emotional intelligence so they have something quantifiable for which to aim.

Providing your workforce with safe opportunities to express their feelings and emotions away from the “shop floor” will encourage them, as individuals and a group, to start taking responsibility for their own emotions and behaviours and understand those of others around them.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Outline a method to assist others to understand the effect of their behaviour and emotions on others in the workplace

Develop a plan for a colleague who suffers with stress to help them to self-manage their emotions.

A big part of developing emotional intelligence is not just understanding and managing your own emotions but understanding how your behaviour and emotions affect others around you. It is incredibly important to be self-aware and reflect on your actions and behaviour, and it is also important to seek feedback from others in order to gain a full perspective of the impact of your behaviour and emotions on others. As stated earlier, an emotion or behaviour that upsets one colleague, such as using expletives in frustration, may not even register with another.

Listening to feedback from colleagues about their own displays of emotion and behaviour can be quite an emotive process for some individuals, and it should be handled sensitively and privately. Restorative approaches are quite powerful and meaningful in these circumstances.

Restorative justice is actually an approach to criminal justice where the emphasis is not on punishment but on repairing the damage that has been caused. It focuses on the needs of both the victim and the offender, where the two come together to agree on a resolution to the matter. Resolutions can be incredibly innovative and enlightening and can build and strengthen relationships.

It works just as well in community situations including the workplace. A restorative meeting takes place when somebody or a group of people have caused harm or offence to another person or another group of people. It is a controlled conversation in a calm environment that is mediated by somebody impartial and usually of higher authority than those involved. Ground rules are set at the beginning by which all parties around the table must abide in order for the conversation to run smoothly.

The idea of the restorative meeting is to enable those that have been harmed or offended to explain to the person that has caused the harm how their behaviour made them feel and why. It also gives the person that has caused the harm to explain to the person they harmed how they felt and why they behaved the way they did. It gives both parties the opportunity to reflect on their emotional responses to the situation and think about what they could have done differently. It also gives both parties the opportunity to tell each other what they need from the other person to repair the situation and what they need to do themselves to resolve the matter.

Restorative meetings can be quite powerful when two colleagues come face to face to discuss their emotions and feelings. Often the true extent of the harm caused and the emotions felt are not realised until discussed directly with those involved. Often the person who has caused the harm has little or no idea of the impact their behaviour and emotions have had on others, and it can be a sincere and honest lesson learned for future behaviour and emotional responses.

Restorative meetings cannot be forced upon individuals; the conversations must be honest in order to be meaningful and truly restore the harm that has been caused. If one of the parties is reluctant to take part, they are unlikely to say what they really feel which will render the meeting useless. Talking openly about feelings in the workplace is quite a difficult concept to grasp and get involved with for a lot of people, but it can be a truly liberating and enlightening experience for all involved.

This is particularly true if you are the manager of those involved as it gives you more of an insight into their psyche and helps you understand their behaviour further. Whilst the outcome of the meeting is ultimately up to those involved, by acting as a mediator you can subtly steer the conversation to ensure that the result is satisfactory to you as their manager.

It is worth taking time to consider practical aspects of a restorative meeting in order to make it as successful as possible.

Time

When are you going to hold the meeting? Consider how long after the incident has occurred; too soon and emotions may not have settled sufficiently to have a rational conversation and/or each party may not have had enough time to reflect on their emotions. If you wait too long, the impact of the behaviour may have been forgotten.

The time of day will also have an effect. At the end of a busy shift and parties may not give their full attention. You should also take into account key times in the working day when the parties involved need to be completing time-specific tasks.

Restorative meetings can go on for some time depending on the number of people involved, the extent and severity of the incident up for discussion, and the personalities of those involved. Ensure you schedule plenty of time so the meeting is not rushed or you run out of time, and a resolution is not reached.

You may need to hold the meetings in or out of work time. Taking colleagues off the shop floor at the same time might cause them embarrassment, but bringing them into the workplace in their own time might also cause resentment and inconvenience.

Location

Practical things to consider include:

Size of the room – is it big enough for the number of people involved?

Furniture in the room; such as:

is there a table of an appropriate size and shape?

are there enough chairs and are they sufficiently comfortable?

if there are windows in the room are there blinds to keep prying eyes out?

· temperature of the room – if the room is too hot or cold it will be a distraction

Noise; consider whether others will be able to overhear or will be disturbed

Whether it should be on or off-site.

Set up of the room

You want those involved to be as comfortable and at ease as possible. Consider:

The shape of the table – all parties involved need to be able to see one another clearly

Where the mediator is going to sit – usually at the head of the table in order to convey impartiality

Where you want the parties involved to sit.

Seating is quite simple if there are only two people as you would naturally sit them opposite each other. If both the harmed and the harmer are groups of people similar in size would you sit them in their respective groups on each side of the table or would you split them up so they are disbanded?

If there is only one person that has been harmed and a group of people that have caused the harm how would you seat them? Seating the group opposite the individual could compound the harm that has already been caused due to the impression of strength in numbers.

Taking turns

During a restorative meeting, one of the fundamental rules is that only one person talks at once. Sometimes people find this hard to comply with when someone says something to which they totally object but have to remain silent and listen. Having a talking piece – any object of your choice that is held by the speaker whilst making their contribution – is a visual reminder to the rest of the group that they must remain silent when they are not holding it.

All restorative meetings should be recorded and minutes held on the personnel file of each colleague involved. Are you going to make the notes or are you going to request administrative support from a colleague?

Restorative meetings should be private and uninterrupted affairs since the people involved are discussing personal feelings and emotions and they do not want colleagues barging in on the conversation. Interruptions also disrupt the flow of the discussion and can have a negative impact on the outcome. Put a sign up on the outside of the door saying “Meeting in progress. Do not disturb.”

All these things may seem quite trivial, but you must respect the fact that you are asking your colleagues to reveal their personal feelings and emotions to one another when they may have only ever muttered a couple of words to one another in passing in the corridor. You should make the experience as calm and valuable as possible. Not only that, if they have a positive experience of a restorative meeting, they are more likely to engage in the process again and recommend it to others.

Questions for restorative meetings

As chair of the meeting, you should have a standard set of questions that you ask both the person who has been harmed or offended and the person that has caused the harm or offence. The questions centre on thoughts, feelings and emotions before, during and after the incident, rather than the actual behaviour or action itself. The following template is a guide and can be adapted for your own purposes.

During the opening, you should:

Introduce yourself and your role in the organisation (if necessary)

Inform all parties that you are only there to chair the meeting and are totally impartial

Explain the purpose of the meeting; an incident has occurred that has affected all the parties involved in some way, and you are all here to resolve the matter

Inform everyone that they will all have an opportunity to speak but must wait until it is their turn and must not talk over or interrupt anyone else whilst they are speaking

Explain the presence of the minute taker (if you have one) is to record the conversation and that they will all receive a copy of the minutes and a copy will be placed on their personnel file

Reassure all parties that the meeting is private and whatever is said during the meeting will not be repeated to other parties

Encourage honesty and transparency.

Questions may include:

What happened?

What were you doing before it happened?

What were you thinking before it happened?

How did you feel before it happened?

What were you thinking when it was happening?

How did you feel when it was happening?

What did you do after it happened?

What were you thinking after it happened?

How did you feel after it happened?

What do you think about what happened now?

How do you feel now about what happened?

How do you think other people felt about what happened?

Who has been affected by what happened?

What could you have done differently?

What do you need to do to resolve the matter?

What do you need others to do to resolve the matter?

It is up to you, or indeed the parties involved, who starts the speaking. If the incident was quite serious and affected a large number of people, the answer to the question that asks, “Who has been affected by what happened?” can have quite a significant impact on the understanding of the parties involved, particularly if you make a visual representation of the all those affected, either by writing a list of names or drawing a diagram.

Henry and Jason are both waiters in a family restaurant. They are usually good friends, and both are usually mellow, friendly and hard-working members of the team. Henry checks the shift rota to find that a new member of the team, Nell, has been put down for a number of his usual shifts. Without thinking, Henry marches over to Nell who is taking a customer’s order in the busy restaurant and starts shouting expletives and gesticulating at her for taking his shifts. Nell has no idea what he is talking about. Jason hears the commotion and intervenes. Henry shouts at Jason and accuses him of fancying Nell. The supervisor hears the shouting and takes control, ushering Henry away from the public arena.

As a manager, you know that Henry’s behaviour was out of character and suspect that there may be more to this than resentment at a reduction in shifts. You have also checked the rota and realise that the supervisor had made a mistake and that Henry’s shifts should not have been altered. You speak to Henry who states that he is having some financial difficulties at present and needs all the shifts he can get. He is mortified about his behaviour and wants to make amends. You suggest that a restorative meeting would be a possible way forward. All parties agree.

Parties involved in the restorative meeting include:

· Henry (the harmer)

· Nell (the harmed)

· Jason (the harmed)

· The supervisor (a contributor and one of the affected).

Questions to Henry

Questions to Nell

Questions to Jason

In this sort of scenario, where the incident is quite serious, and a number of people have been involved, it is useful to leave the question about who has been affected until the end for all parties involved to answer collaboratively because often each party has a different view on who was affected and why, and it has a greater impact when combined.

You can see that the emotions and needs of all of the parties involved are quite similar, each one feeling empathy for each other and wanting to try and repair the situation themselves. Restorative meetings can also reveal personal issues that are hindering the performance of colleagues or that as a manager you can respond in a supportive manner. For example, you could offer Henry some additional shifts or give him an advance in his wages to help with his financial problems.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Develop a three-step plan for one of their colleagues (or peers if not in a workplace) which will help them to develop their emotional intelligence.

Encouraging your workforce to develop their own emotional intelligence helps them to build productive relationships not only in the workplace but also enhances their personal relationships, as they gain confidence to manage their emotions and relationships rationally and thoughtfully. It develops their prospects for promotion and inherent rise in salary and boosts their overall self-confidence.

Whilst you are supporting their personal development, you are also maximising workplace outcomes. The following chart that demonstrates the potential workplace outcomes of developing emotional intelligence within an organisation was researched and compiled by Dr Benjamin Palmer and Professor Con Stough from Swinburne University and is based upon their seven-factor model of emotional intelligence.

Using emotional intelligence to attain business objectives

Emotionally effective people can attain a wider range of business objectives; they have greater self-awareness and the capacity to identify and understand the impact their own feelings on thoughts, decisions, behaviour and performance at work. This, in turn, leads to better productivity and fewer distractions or conflict; when they do engage in conflict, they are usually better at resolving it, leading to better long-term outcomes.

4.1. Identify opportunities to utilise emotional intelligence to increase team performance in line with organisational objectives

4.2. Encourage a positive, inclusive emotional climate in the workplace

4.3. Use the strengths of workgroup members to achieve team and/or organisational objectives

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Identify and outline two potential opportunities to utilise emotional intelligence to increase team performance.

This section of the unit will explore how to utilise emotional development in order to maximise team outcomes.

Emotional intelligence should broaden your horizons in terms of what a team can go through. That isn’t to say that they should be put through unnecessary stress, but as a team, you should be able to cope with challenging situations in a productive way. Regardless of the work you carry out, there should be many different opportunities for you to utilise emotional intelligence to increase performance. These may be explicit opportunities which are obvious to you, or they may be more subtle.

For example, opportunities for utilising emotional intelligence might include:

Peak sales times – stressful times such as this really require emotional intelligence from any person, and a lack of this is likely to result in a flustered, stressed salesperson. Using emotional intelligence during periods such as peak sales times will help to ensure that staff remain calm, working effectively and towards targets

Customer-facing roles – working directly with customers can be challenging, and the ability to not allow emotions to rule a situation can require a lot of effort. In general, being able to manage emotions will make for a more successful transaction between employee and customer

Teamwork – similarly to above, the ability to manage emotions makes for successful interactions in the workplace. A team who are able to recognise and manage their feelings will be able to work together and keep the organisational objective in mind.

By the end of this chapter, the learner should be able to:

Explain why it is important to encourage a positive emotional climate in the workplace

Identify a range of individuals within their workplace and assess their skills and abilities against workplace outcomes.

As your workforce develops their own emotional intelligence, they become much more able to manage their emotions and those of others. The negative emotions that were destructive and a hindrance to you achieving your business goals and objectives are replaced by positive emotions which breeds a positive emotional climate in the workplace and ultimately an organisation that thrives on the satisfaction they achieve collaboratively as a whole. The motivation to improve and innovate continues with each goal it reaches. The obstacles that prevented positivity and cohesion due to a lack of emotional intelligence have been transformed into the workplace outcomes from Chapter 3.4 that now ensure the positive productivity that enables you to reach those business objectives.

Workplace outcomes

If you consider the workplace outcomes that have been achieved throughout your workforce through the development of their own emotional intelligence you can see the importance of emotional intelligence in all workers. In fact, if you think back to the beginning of this unit when we considered that emotional intelligence was not an essential requirement of an employee, without these workplace outcomes, the whole organisation would be littered with barriers to achievement.

Consider the opposite of the workplace outcomes and how much negativity they would bring to your work environment and the success of the organisation.

At the end of your Learner Workbook, you will find the Summative Assessments.

This includes:

Skills Activity

Knowledge Activity

Performance Activity.

This holistically assesses your understanding and application of the skills, knowledge and performance requirements for this unit. Once this is completed, you will have finished this unit and be ready to move onto the next one – well done!

These suggested references are for further reading and do not necessarily represent the contents of this unit.

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