Briefly, describe your understanding for below topics;
a. Emotional intelligence
b.Leader ship and EI
c.EI and workplace Diversity
d.EI, Emotional labour and Emotional Work
Expert Answer
a.Emotional Intelligence
The idea of emotional intelligence was fomally conceptualied by Daniel Goleman It was defined as ability of to recognize our own feelings and emotions along with that of others to motivate ourselves and managing emotions and feelings well in ourselves.These are abilities distinct from but complementary to academic intelligence.
The first point which must come in mind of individual is that why is it important?So the reason for this is that physiologically different emotions have a psychological prespective ,which gives the four different aspects like self awareness, self management,social awareness and relationship management.If we control these four very important aspects in a proper way the 80% of our work is done succesfully as remaining 20% sucess is an outcome of the intelligence quotient.So, can it be said that emotional inteligence can be directly related to enhance performance and success. Emotional Intelligence is an important factor in ensuring high performance in teams and enables effective team work. It provides emotional stability among members which is key in enabling meaningful interaction between team members. Since emotional intelligence and stability bring in effective and positive interpersonal relationships which is key to successful teams.Emotional bonding that exists between team members has a profound effect on the work produced and the overall success of the project. Teams in which members care about each other at a personal and professional level will be more successful than teams that do not foucs on the importance of the relationship between positive interpersonal relationships, professional relationships and goal achievement.
b.Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Leadership is primarily to deal with humans and human behavioural aspects of which emotions play and important part. This is where emotional intelligence comes in to play.. EQ helps leaders know themselves and use their own strengths — and work with and through people effectively.
The key responsibilities of leadership are directing and controlling and managing people. Emotions are central to these activities and as a leader they need self awareness which is key to emotional intelligence..
In times of challenge, real leadership is required. And that requires leaders to be responsible for their employee’s performance. The communication skills and personal warmth of an employee’s supervisor are often crucial. The quality of the supervisor may be more important than the experience and individual attributes of the workers themselves. As business leaders, it is important to recognize self moods and emotions as well as of the employees . One need a deeper understanding of the emotional needs that drive and shape your behavior. Management research shows that the behavioral competencies are highly important for individuals with leadership responsibility. In fact, without behavioral competencies, even bright individual performers fail in leadership roles.
c. EI and workplace Diversity
In today’s workplace environment, organizations are recognizing diversity in workforce as one of the key aspects in attracting and retain the best talent. This requires sensitivity among leadersship and awareness that diversity has various dimensions, which includes gender, generational differences, race, and ethnicity, while other factors such as sexual orientation, education, religion, and culture may not be that evident but are as important and critical as those mentioned above.
The inherent bias in humans, also known as “unconscious bias” which is so deeply built into us, is highly dysfunctional in today’s world.They influence all kinds of workplace dynamics, including who gets promoted, who gets plum projects, who has access to critical and beneficial information etc.
Even well-intentioned people may be unaware that they have a higher comfort level with one group and consequently may be biased towards others in their behvior both personal and professional which may be in the form of making comments or acting in a way that undermines individuals seen as different. The four aspects of EI, ie. Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management enables people to be emotionally stable and counter these biases when dealing with diverse human population around us.
d.Emotional Intelligence , Emotional labour and Emotional Work
Emotional labor is a way managing emotions, feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. The concept was coined by a renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschil in 1983. Emotional labour requires people to regulate their emotions during professional interactions with customers, co-workers and superiors. This includes analysis and decision making in terms of the expression of emotion, whether actually felt or not, as well as its opposite,
When workers engage in emotional labor, they control your feelings to fulfill the goals and expectations of your organization. practically, this means that you either express only your positive emotions or hide or manage your negative negative. To deal with negative emotions, people tend to either show emotions that they don’t feel or hide emotions that they actually feel and create an appropriate emotion to handle the situation.
At the same time, Emotional work is management of one’s own feeling and emotions in order to maintain a relationship. This concept was also brought about by Arlie Hochschil but he differentiated it with emotional labour in terms what environmental setting these two concepts into play. Emotional work is considered to practiced in one’s own private life where humans tend to maintain cordial relationship even when the emotions are contrary to it. This work is unpaid where as emotional labour as explained above is generally practiced in a workplace setting and is paid for it.
And the basis of these two is Emotional Intelligence or EI. The four component so EI i.e Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management enables people to manage emotions both at workplace and in private life. Emotional Intelligence makes individual emotionally stable which enables them to deliver both emotional work as well as emotional labour