Emotional Inteligence

An increasing percent of the population begins to know the idea of emotional intelligence. This concept was firstly developed by two American university professors, John Mayer and Peter Salovey (1990) and they concluded that, people with high emotional quotient are supposed to learn more quickly due to their abilities. Another psycologist named Daniel Goleman (1995) extended the theory and also made it well-known. In his articles and books, he argued that people with high emotional quotient do better than those with low emotional quotient. In this essay, it will be argued that high emotional intelligence can influence work performance positively to a relatively high extent. Both benefits and limitations of a high level of EI in the workplace will be discussed and a conclusion will be drawn at the end of this essay.

The definition of emotional intelligence given by Salovey and Mayer (1990) focuses on the ability to understand one’s own and others’ emotions and also to manage one’s own emotions positively. On the other hand, Goleman’s definition (1995) covers more aspects, including 25 abilities and skills such as trustworthiness, communication and empathy. The former definition is more scientific and appropriate while the latter one is called the �corporate definition’ because its contents accommodate the interests of large corporations. However, the academic findings of the two professors are not widely known while Goleman’s edition is commonly accepted due to his best-seller book �Emotional Intelligence’ (Goleman 1995). The following essay will be mainly based on Goleman’s definition.

High emotional intelligence can improve work performance and its varied aspects can contribute to work differently. One aspect of emotional intelligence is emotional self-awareness and people who are self-awared emotionally can recognize their own feelings and how they will affect his performances. Furthermore, they can distinguish their own emotional strengths and weaknesses, therefore in order to improve they can develop the strengths and avoid the weaknesses during work. Emotional self-awareness was proved to be critical in financial planners’ job (Goleman, 1998). For instance, the communication between a financial planner and his customer can be delicate and complicated. The reason is that they deal with difficult problems like money or even mortality when they talk about life insurance. Therefore it is very beneficial if financial planners know their own emotions and can also manage them to react better to the customer’s words.

Another relevant aspect of emotional intelligence is emotional self-control and it means one can avoid stresses and other troublesome feelings. This is very helpful for those who work in stressful places or deal with unfriendly people. An example would be that the small business owners with a high level of emotional control over both themselves and their lives’ events are not so easy to become distressed or angry or to quit when facing difficult situations (Rahim & Psenicka, 1996). Better performers among counsellors and psychotherapists are more likely to react calmly to patients’ aggressive behaviours (Boyatzis & Burrus, 1995). The store managers who can remain less affected by the job stress have stores with the highest profits (Lusch & Serkenci, 1990).

A third aspect of emotional intelligence is empathy and it makes people more aware about others’ emotions, concerns and requirements. A person good at empathy can understand more from others’ facial or verbal expressions. This is significant to those who interact with people often during work. For example, physicians who are better at understanding patients’ emotions are more successful than the ones less sensitive (Friedman & DeMatteo, 1982). In addition, a study among retailers shows that there is a positive relationship between empathy of retailers and higher sales (Pilling & Eroglu, 1994). In brief, high level of EI can improve job performance, and different aspects of EI can help with different types of jobs, but it also has some limitations which will be discussed below.

Emotional intelligence has some limitations to a certain extent that success can be achieved with the addition of something else. Relevant previous experience, broad knowledge, high emotional quotient, strong competences and prominent intelligent quotient all together could make more benefits than having only high emontional quotient in workplace. The level of emotional intelligence of bosses and leaders will influence the relationships between employees and organasations. Hence it is important for managers to use their emotional talents to help organisational members bond and to adrieve organisational effectiveness.