Respond to (2) two colleaguesD1W6

Prior to preparing your response to two (2) of colleagues, pay particular attention to the following Resources:

Emotions At Work: Needless Or Necessary? (forbes.com)

The Four C’s of Emotions - “See attachment”

Emotional Incompetence or Gender Based – “See attachment”

Respond to at least two (2) of your colleagues' in one or more of the following ways:

· Share an insight about what you learned about emotional intelligence from having read your colleagues’ postings and discuss how and why your colleague’s posting resonated with you professionally and personally.

· Seek additional clarity or ask your colleague a question, with accompanying context that will help your colleague to think more critically or broadly about the importance of emotional intelligence.

· Offer an example, from your experience or observation, which validates or differs from what your colleague discussed related to emotional intelligence.

· Offer specific suggestions that will help your colleague build upon his or her emotional intelligence to further his or her leadership skills within an organization or improve the organization’s culture.

· Share how something your colleague discussed changed the way you consider using reflection tools (emotional intelligence, SWOT, personal development plans) to improve your own leadership abilities.

· 3 – 4 paragraph response per each colleagues

· No plagiarism

· APA citing

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1st Colleague – Natasha

Discussion 1 - Week 6

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Natasha Mills 

Maintaining Emotional Balance

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The previous discussion outlined reflection tools that leaders can use to know and apply their emotional intelligence skills. The tools included emotional intelligence surveys, SWOT analyses, and personal leadership plans that involved how leaders intend to implement their emotional intelligence capabilities within an organizational setting. Whereas these tools proved essential, how to use them to turn EQ abilities into action is even more critical. This aspect can be easily achieved by relying on four categories of action, which have been identified as the triggers of emotional intelligence reactions within an organizational setting (Callahan, 2008). Simply, an understanding of these categories presents a way for leaders to use reflection tools to improve and sustain emotional balance within an organization.

The previous discussions demonstrated that learning is one way of improving one’s emotional intelligence skills (Serrat, 2017). Also, it became clear that positive emotions within a work environment are the precursor to boosting employee engagement, and thereby organizational success (Hazelton, 2014). These perspectives derived from findings in the previous discussion confirm the argument presented by Callahan that the significance of emotional intelligence has increased dramatically in today’s work environment (Callahan, 2008).

The propositions of how one can use the four categories of emotional intelligence triggers result from the author’s realization of the significance of emotional intelligence. Therefore, for effectiveness, it is necessary for organizational leaders to integrate reflection tools to understand each of these triggers for the improvement or sustenance of an emotionally balanced corporate culture. This is because most emotional reactions within an organization stem from one or more of the four identified categories (Callahan, 2008).

The first category identified is context. Context refers to the environment within which an organization operates. The external factors of such an environment tend to influence the operations of an organization, as well as cause emotional implications on the employees. Therefore, a leader may use one or a combination of the refection tools identified to assess which factors within the element of context may be triggering emotional reactions of his/her followers as a way of sustaining or improving the emotional balance of the entity. This strategy relates to the action plans of identifying the cause of emotional reactions and identifying the feelings involved (Callahan, 2008).

The next category that requires an integration of the reflection tools for effective sustenance and improvement of emotional balance in an organization includes challenges. Leaders have the responsibility of steering the workforce towards the identification of unifying goals or challenges (Callahan, 2008). However, more often, organizations focus only on goals while leaving out challenges. Hence, outlining challenges and understanding how they trigger emotional reactions within an organization can help leaders improve or sustain an emotionally balanced organizational culture. However, this requires efficiency in the application of reflection tools.

Communication is the third category that causes emotional reactions. Communication is one of the fundamental determinants of the effective functioning of all social systems (Callahan, 2008). At the same time, this category contains the most emotional activities within an organization. It is always easy for organizational leaders to identify and emotional reaction triggered by communication. Nonetheless, for more efficiency, leaders ought to use reflection tools to determine which communication aspects within the organization trigger which emotional reactions.

The last category is community. Organizations are governed by a set of shared norms and beliefs that make them a community (Callahan, 2008). Communal activities within an organization may trigger emotional reactions from members of the workforce. Thus, for a leader to improve or sustain an emotionally balanced organizational culture, he/she must know how to use the reflection tools to know when communal activities within the entity are triggering emotional reactions and how to handle negative emotional reactions caused by this factor.

In conclusion, it has become apparent that having high emotional intelligence levels or acquiring those skills alone is not enough to sustain or improve emotional balance in an organizational setting. Action is needed. Further, the effectiveness of the preferred action is dependent on the skilled application of reflection tools.  

 

Callahan, J. L. (2008). The four C's of emotion: A framework for managing emotions in

organizations. Organization Development Journal, 26(2), 33.

Hazelton, S. (2014). Positive emotions boost employee engagement. Human Resource Management

International Digest.

Serrat, O. (2017). Understanding and developing emotional intelligence. In Knowledge solutions 

(pp. 329-339). Springer, Singapore.

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2nd Colleague – Ryan

Discussion 1 - Week 6Top of Form

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Ryan Sharratt 

RE: Discussion 1 - Week 6

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All aspects of emotional control are important in an organization trying to improve. Adaptation to change is, in my opinion, one of the hardest complexities facing multi-generational workforce. IN reviewing a single reflection tool, I would elevate emotional intelligence as the single greatest reflection tool to balance, sustain, grow, and succeed within an organizational culture. Ilfeld (2016) illustrates high level workplace emotions that impact a workplace (Ilfeld, 2016) and MindTools (n.d.) illustrates common negative emotions at work (MindTools, n.d.) indicating dealing with problems facing incorrectly utilized emotional intelligence. For this piece, I would like to focus on the emotions surrounding a win, as opposed to a loss.

In my opinion, emotional intelligence is utilized to deal with negative context, unfavorable outcomes, and overall negative experiences and how one deals with the emotional imbalance of difficult situations. I have personally delt with many losses and business decisions, and it is all part of the learning process. However, I have found difficulty in the success stories as well. When a win occurs, how does the winner deal with the positive emotions? Murphy (2017) illustrates having to put on fake emotions (Murphy, 2017) but does not discuss if you are happy at work. In my opinion, everything in emotional intelligence supports trials, tribulations, and loss.

My best guess in why so many emotional intelligence articles focus on loss is because loss is easily identifiable. In a loss, you have not gained what you set out to achieve, or you lost in comparison to someone else. Take sports for example, baseball has a clear winner and a clear loser based upon points and rules of the game. In business, a clear win is a successful company based upon other viewpoints. Perhaps a bank account or a clean balance sheet. Perhaps a good-looking profit and loss report.

I have theorized a term called sub-surface winner. This is a term where you are winning in private based upon your own metrics and having enough emotional intelligence to conduct a win without boasting on social media or being hosted on the cover of Forbes magazine is not a high priority of the winner. My theory further examines how Fame have led to money and power as well as the latest trend of social influence and why that is attractive to some winners, but rarely anyone not looking for the spotlight.

Callahan (2008) illustrates Emotion intelligence having four C’s: Context, Challenges, Communication, and Community (Callahan, 2008 p. 35-36). These apply to sub-surface winning if they can be arranged to context first. Winning or losing requires emotional intelligence and in my opinion, winning is an under played aspect of the emotional intelligence approach. Knowing and understanding how to win and lose are important to sustain an organization.

 

References:

Callahan, J. L. (2008). The Four C’s of Emotion: A Framework for Managing Emotions in Organizations. Organization Development Journal, 26(2), 33–38.

Chiaburu, D. S., & Gray, B. (2008). Emotional Incompetence or Gender-Based Stereotyping? The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44(3), 293–314.  https://doi.org/10.1177/0021886308316704

Ilfeld, J. (2016, June 6). Emotions at work: Needless or necessary? Forbes. Retrieved from  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2016/06/06/emotions-at-work-needless-or-necessary/?sh=f854808917bb     

MindTools. (n.d.). Managing your emotions at work. Retrieved from  https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_41.htm

Murphy, M. (2017, May 14). If you have to fake emotions at work, research shows you’re probably going to be miserable. Forbes. Retrieved from  https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2017/05/14/research-shows-that-if-you-have-to-fake-your-emotions-at-work-youre-probably-going-to-be-miserable/?sh=2dd7b06523df

 

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