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Importance of Emotional Intelligence in a Workplace

Vikram Reddy Volipi

New England College

MG 5415: Organizational Communication for Leaders

Alyssa LaFoe

August, 02, 2020

Introduction

Emotional intelligence (EI) is increasingly becoming an important aspect of many organizations as it affects individuals and organizational performance and productivity in diverse ways. Organizations are operating in fast-moving and changing business environments characterized by complex processes and interactions. Hence, the way individuals interact in workplaces has become a critical issue of concern. EI is the ability of individuals to understand their emotions and those of others in a workplace setting towards accomplishing shared goals and objectives (Arora, 2017). Leaders should have high emotional intelligence levels to comprehend employees' and customers' feelings. Emotional intelligence provides diverse benefits to individuals as well as organizations in terms of performance and productivity (Kapur, 2018). When people interact, it is indispensable to understand nonverbal communication, such as gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, and posture among others. Besides, the nonverbal signals carry powerful messages. EI plays a significant role when it comes to negotiations and leadership in the workplace (Zeidner, Matthews & Roberts, 2012). It enables individuals, including managers to build a favorable working environment and improved interpersonal relationships. People should understand, define, and manage their emotions and those of others around them in different settings, including the workplace, to effectively and efficiently achieve their goals and objectives.

Elements of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is viewed as an individual’s skill, capacity, and cleverness or self-perceived capability to identify, define, and manage one-self emotions and those of others. Individuals who have a high degree of EI know themselves better and can comprehend the feelings of other people around them (Feldman & Mulle, 2008). The model of emotional intelligence acknowledges that people have varied needs, wants, and personalities as well as means of reflecting their emotions. Hence, it becomes pivotal for individuals to understand how their emotions affect them and other people (Serrat, 2017). Emotional intelligence can be contrasted with Intelligence Quotient (IQ), which is a measure for a person’s intelligence (Arora, 2017). Additionally, individuals with higher IQ have better cognitive capabilities. Successful people tend to have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Business leaders who understand their feelings and those of others drive organizational success based on formal and informal interactions. Emotional intelligence is built on four domains, including self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and relationship management skills as shown in figure 1 below.

Figure 1

Domains of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Competencies

Note: Golemanei. (2020). Domains of Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Competencies. From https://golemanei.com/. Copyright 2020 by GolemanEI.

Individuals have to understand the components of emotional intelligence to achieve high levels of EI. Self-awareness involves understanding one’s feelings and their implication to one-self. “Understanding the way values affect our behavior matters as one will be more effective at influencing other’s attitudes and behaviors when you are armed with an understanding of values and their effects” (Kinicki & Fugate, 2018). Individuals have to accurately assess their emotions by examining their strengths and weaknesses and how they affect them. Self-confidence is needed to establish self-awareness. Self-management or self-regulation involves managing disruptive feelings, emotions, and impulses (Serrat, 2017). An individual has to build trustworthiness, self-control, conscientiousness, adaptability, and innovativeness for self-regulation. Self-management triggers striving to enhance emotional intelligence and aligning it with certain goals and objectives. One has to be ready to act on opportunities and be optimistic in achieving their targets irrespective of hindrances. Social awareness includes empathy, having the capacity to sense and understand others’ emotions and perspectives, and showing interest in their emotions. According to Kinicki and Fugate (2018), it is necessary to understand ones emotions and manage them as they are integral aspect of human experience. Anger during negotiation can generate defensiveness and resistance. It also demands understanding what others need and building strong relationships. Individuals with high EI levels have social skills as they can influence, motivate, inspire, and empower others. Relationship management involves the aptitude to effectively communicate with others, build team capabilities, managing changes, collaborating with others, and managing conflicts (Zeidner, Matthews & Roberts, 2012). The domains relate to comprehending individual emotions, motivating oneself, and managing individual emotions alongside recognizing, understanding, and managing other people’s emotions.

Understanding Nonverbal Communication enhances Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is connected with nonverbal communication in a workplace setting. When people interact they can disseminate messages without speaking verbally using nonverbal signals. According to Kidwell and Hasford (2014), most effective persons, including leaders can identify and understand nonverbal communication signals of other people around them towards addressing their concerns. Consumers, leaders, and salespeople among others have to be proficient in distinguishing intentional and unintentional forms of nonverbal signals. Understanding nonverbal communication can be challenging as it is communicating without words. Additionally, individuals have different abilities to discern nonverbal signals, hindering interactions. Nevertheless, individuals and organizations can significantly benefit through the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage nonverbal communication in their physical settings, such as workplaces.

Emotional intelligence involves the ability to perceive, facilitate, comprehend, and manage emotions. Perceiving emotion is the capacity to accurately identify and differentiate emotions that are evident in particular situations. Effective leaders have the skill to employ their senses to comprehend other people’s emotions, improving their performance. Facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, the way people talk, smile, sit, stand, and move to send powerful and reliable messages. For instance, individuals can explicitly note and understand facial expressions reflecting disgust, anger, sadness, and surprise. Additionally, aggressiveness can be signaled through too much eye contact while gestures and motions may indicate discomfort, approval, and nervousness.

Linking emotions with nonverbal communication accurately can help individuals and organizations to build strong work relationships. Besides, emotional intelligence can result in forming, managing, and maintaining long-term relationships with different parties in certain settings. For instance, it has been found to enhance relationships among business partners and their customers (Feldman & Mulle, 2008). Furthermore, it is of the essence for leaders, including managers to build better working relationships with their employees as well as customers. Leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence build and maintain favorable working relations with employees and other parties, resulting in improved performance and productivity (Kidwell & Hasford, 2014). For instance, nonverbal communication is paramount during negotiations as individuals can understand each other’s feelings and emotions. Negotiations induce diverse feelings and emotions that can be expressed nonverbally. Negotiators may use nonverbal signals to express their sensations concerning issues under discussion. Hence, negotiators require the capacity to understand nonverbal communication signals. Moreover, EI and nonverbal communication influence customers’ perceptions. For that reason, salespeople, for instance, effectively utilize emotions in nonverbal communication to influence customers. The emotions of customers and salespeople are accounted for when developing marketing strategies to impact customers’ purchasing behavior and decisions.

Nevertheless, failure to understand and manage emotions in nonverbal communication can create mistrust, tension, confusion, and misunderstandings, compromising relationships, and realization of common goals and objectives. Hence, individuals have to accurately understand feelings associated with nonverbal signals depending on different situations.

Correlation between Emotional Intelligence and Negotiation

Individuals’ discrepancies in emotional intelligence levels considerably affect negotiation outcomes. Negotiations play an important role in an organization towards achieving certain goals and objectives. However, negotiation environments are characterized by emotions, which can impact results. Many researchers have tried to investigate the role of individuals’ disparities in negotiation, linking personality to negotiation techniques and outcomes (Foo et al., 2004). Besides, the contemporary landscape is changing and negotiations have become a critical aspect of the corporate landscape. Individuals’ level of emotional intelligence and emotion impacts on negotiation results. Emotional intelligence enables involved parties to create and claim value during negotiations.

Creating and claiming value are critical goals when negotiating in different situations. Researchers have been building connections between several cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal abilities required to deal with complex negotiation processes (Feldman & Mulle, 2008). Additionally, creating and claiming value in negotiations results in communication dilemmas and problems during negotiations (Foo et al., 2004). When negotiating, individuals have to understand and recognize each other interests as well as feelings concerning the issue under discussion. Besides, negotiations elicit diverse feelings and emotions which should be acknowledged and managed to produce the desired negotiation outcomes. Therefore, the opinions of everyone involved in a negotiation have to be accounted for to create an environment that suits different parties. A mutual process is paramount when deliberating issues, ensuring that the interests of involved parties are not compromised. Individuals need the ability to understand and manage their emotions in negotiations to produce results that satisfy participants. Furthermore, understanding ones’ emotions and those of others enable negotiators to align the negotiation process with their established goals and objectives. Besides, individuals can listen to views from different perspectives and remain focused on the primary agenda. Consequently, accounting for emotions ensures that the outcomes of negotiation are not biased or subjected to interpersonal and intrapersonal influences.

Furthermore, high levels of emotional intelligence allow negotiators to find reliable and creative solutions to issues being discussed. Besides, individuals are allowed to contribute by asking questions and defending their positions. Negotiators can provide a range of options or solutions and come up with a solution that suits different parties. Persons with high emotional intelligence have effective communication skills that enable them to make informed decisions (Stough, Saklofske, & Parker, 2009). Besides, parties engaged in a negotiation process are given adequate time to communicate their views and feeling regarding the matter being mitigated. As a result of emotional intelligence, negotiating parties can be satisfied with the decisions reached, leading to mutual benefits and positive experiences. Moreover, understanding and managing one's emotions is associated with improved personal performance. Negotiators with emotional intelligence skills gain more knowledge and skills in the process and can use them for their performance improvement in the future.

Emotional intelligence has implications on management during negotiations. For instance, individuals high in emotional intelligence can make significant contributions in terms of decision-making. Negotiations also allow people to interact, manage conflicts, and find creative solutions (Foo et al., 2004). Individuals can learn how to develop and maintain effective networks and interactions when negotiating with diverse parties. Nevertheless, low emotional intelligence can result in negative outcomes. For instance, communication barriers can create adverse emotions that could compromise the whole negotiation process or yield biased decisions. Understanding and managing emotions when bargaining lead to satisfactory and positive results.

Implications of Emotional intelligence on Leadership

EI plays an important role in an organization as it helps leaders to understand their emotions and those of their employees to achieve common goals and objectives. Emotional intelligence enables individuals to create a working culture that suits different stakeholders, resulting in improved and organizational performance and productivity (Arora, 2017). For instance, leaders with high emotional intelligence understand the strengths and weaknesses of their employees. As a result, they can effectively and efficiently assign them duties and responsibilities that suit them, improving their productivity.

Individuals with abilities to understand their feelings and those of other people around them develop appropriate leadership skills and values that drive overall performance. “Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal” (Kinicki & Fugate, 2018). They develop behaviors, attitudes, and capacities to influence others and realize the expected outcomes. For instance, EI assists leaders to establish clear goals and effectively communicate them to the relevant parties, including employees. Successful leaders have to set limits depending on the situations and resources. Leaders who understand emotions effectively collaborate with others towards establishing and accomplishing goals and objectives (Feldman & Mulle, 2008). For leaders to succeed, they need self-esteem, stress tolerance, self-actualization, self-awareness, optimism, and impulse control among others. As a result, individuals can collaborate and work with others, creating value in terms of enhanced performance and productivity.

Emotional intelligence enables leaders to make sound resolutions, mitigate conflicts, and solve complex management challenges. When people lack emotional intelligence, performance impediments and problems tend to emerge. For instance, when workers and their employers, managers, and supervisors among others have poor working relationships, individuals and organizational performance may decline (Kapur, 2018). Nevertheless, EI intelligence builds teamwork which enables individuals to share their ideas and offer remedies to complex organizational challenges. Effective leaders value the opinions of other people and build favorable working environments and shared working cultures.

EI can enable leaders to persuade, negotiate, and influence others in the workplace. Besides, persons with high emotional intelligence levels are good communicators and win people's trust and confidence. Hence, emotional intelligence can help leaders to effectively implement changes by minimizing resistance. Empathy, building relationships, and conflict management are important pillars of leadership (Stough, Saklofske, & Parker, 2009). They motivate employees to stick to their assigned roles and follow the instructions of their superiors. Persons with high EI do not criticize their subordinates in case they fail to realize the expected outcomes. Leaders have to show empathy, which demand empathizing with the emotions and feeling of others. A person’s good intentions can be assumed even when one performs poorly (Kinicki & Fugate, 2018). They provide them with guidance and the necessary support to make improvements. Consequently, improved working conditions and relationships are built, improving individuals and organizational performance.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence provides individuals and organizations with a range of benefits, including improved performance and productivity. It causes identifying and managing self-emotions as well as those of other people. The major elements of EI include self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social awareness, and social skills. When people interact in different settings, such as workplaces, they employ nonverbal communication signals which send certain messages. Facial expressions, gestures, posture, and eye contact are connected with particular emotions or feelings. EI also influences negotiations outcomes and experiences. Negotiators with a high degree of emotional intelligence are likely to find mutual, creative, and objective results regarding bargaining processes. Lack of emotional intelligence can compromise negotiations. EI influences leadership as it can help leaders to build appropriate working relationships to achieve the established goals and objectives. Leaders with high EI can effectively manage conflicts and provide solutions to their problems. People should understand their feelings and those of others to realize shared goals and objectives.

References

Arora, B. (2017). Importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace. International Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences. 4(4): 43-45.

Feldman, J., & Mulle, K. (2008). Put Emotional Intelligence to Work: Equip Yourself for Success. Workplace Learning and Performance Press.

Foo, M, Tan, H, Elfenbein, H, & Aik, V. (2004). Emotional Intelligence and Negotiation: The tension between creating and claiming value. International Journal of Conflict Management. 15(4): 411-429.

Golemanei. (2020). Domains of Emotional Intelligence [Figure]. https://golemanei.com/.

Kapur, R. (2018). Emotional intelligence at the workplace. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323725847_Emotional_Intelligence_at_the_Workplace

Kidwell, B, & Hasford, J. (2014). Emotional ability and nonverbal communication. Psychology and Marketing, 31(7):526-530.

Kinicki, A, & Fugate, M. (2018). Organizational behavior: A practical, problem-solving approach (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Serrat, O. (2017). Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318018981_Understanding_and_Developing_Emotional_Intelligence

Stough, C., Saklofske, D. H., & Parker, J. D. A. (2009). Assessing emotional intelligence: Theory, research, and applications. Springer.

Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., & Roberts, R. D. (2012). What we know about emotional intelligence: How it affects learning, work, relationships, and our mental health. MIT Press.