Definition of Emotional Intelligence
Task 1:
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability of an individual to understand and thereby manage their own emotions as well as for those who are surrounding them. Those individuals who have high degree of emotional intelligence can develop ideas about what they are feeling, what their emotions mean and how they can control their emotions that can affect people (Naseem 2018). Emotional intelligence helps individuals to maintain themselves under stress and produce both quality work and in higher quantity. They help in marinating a stable workplace climate.
In order to develop self-awareness, leaders can maintain a reflective journal where they can pen down their thoughts. They can also practice self-control by making themselves slow down when they experience anger or any other strong emotions (Nassem 2017). In this way, they can develop self-awareness attribute and can choose how to react to situations. Leaders should also learn to self regulate by knowing their own values and holing themselves accountable for their own activities. The leaders should also practice being calm to develop self-regulation attribute. Leaders should also remain motivated themselves to work towards their goals successfully (Gilbert et al. 2017). They can re-examine their job, know their positions and be hopeful and optimistic in their life. The leaders also have to be empathetic by practicing right body language, responding to employees feelings and similar others. The leaders should also learn social skills for effective conflict resolution, improving communication skills and learning how to acknowledge others.
Task 2:
Emotionally intelligent people are those people who possess the ability to monitor their own as well as other people’s emotion. They are able to discriminate between different emotions and thereby label them appropriately (Van Deurseen et al. 2015). They can successfully use emotional information for guiding their thinking and behavior and thereby lead subordinates to bring out highest productivity from them.
Emotionally intelligent people take up activities that help in developing trust among members of teams and help them to develop relationships among each other. Such people help members to care about each other (Joseph et al. 2015). They help in embracing differences among people that in turn make big differences in the workplace. Emotionally intelligent people are more sensitive about how they manage and leverage differences to form great teams. They also can successfully communicate goals and motivate employees to meet the goals successfully (Qualter et al. 2017). They place inner harmony and social harmony as important attributes that help on meeting organizational goals successfully.
Developing Self-Awareness, Self-Control, and Self-Regulation
Task 3:
A1. The receptionist spoke with Natasha in slow but loud manner. This approach was ultimately not helpful for the entire communication procedure. Natasha was from a different cultural background from that of the receptionist. Therefore, cross-cultural communication was the main issue where both the members were not being able to understand each other due to their lack of knowledge of the other’s accent. Therefore, the receptionist had to identify this issue and accordingly planned for an intervention. In such a situation, making the pitch slow or communicating loudly was entirely a wrong approach taken up in this situation (Carson et al. 2016).
A2. The client was not able to understand the communication barrier. She could not understand that the receptionist did not understand her accent. Moreover, the receptionist also took a wrong approach where she though talking slowly but loudly would help Natasha to understand her question. In turn, the loud voice of the receptionist affected her self-respect, as she felt insulted. She thought that the receptionist was unprofessional to shot on her. She also felt embarrassed when the persons present on the floor were looking at her. She felt she was humiliated because she was of different cultural background. Therefore, the client was feeling low and unhappy with the behavior of the receptionist.
A3. From the case study, it is quite clear that the language was not the main barrier in the communication procedure. Both of the participants of the communication had issues with the accent of the English language spoken. Therefore, it is extremely important for the receptionist in this situation to catch on the accent of the client and try to understand the words spoken by the client. The receptionist should be slow and distinct in her approach and should break the sentences in several parts to make the client understand her intentions (Urch et al. 2017). Moreover, the receptionists should also be polite in her approach and request the client to be slow and break her sentences into several words so that she can understand the words and thereby comprehend the meaning. In this way, the accent would no longer create barrier in the communication. While asking the client to be slow in her speech, the receptionist would be polite and gentle (Cabello et al. 2016). Her approach should be welcoming and should not make the client feel humiliated or discriminated due to her accent.
Importance of Motivation, Empathy, and Social Skills
Task 4:
Emotional intelligence can be described as the skill or the ability by which individuals can acknowledge as well as manage and communicate their emotional effectively. With the help of emotional intelligence, they can also recognize emotions in the other people and behave accordingly. Individuals who have good emotional intelligence skills mainly help to increase the emotional awareness of people and thereby help in establishing strong emotional foundation. This helps to develop good relationships with people (Yorova et al. 2016). In order to develop string bonds and relationships, individuals should first take the step of stress management. Although stress is a part of life, negative stress is believed to weaken emotions that in turn distract rational thinking. Stress results in broken communication line with colleagues or seniors at workplace (Murphy 2014). When stress levels rise, they damage relationship. Hence, proper stress management with attributes of emotional intelligence ensures effective relationship. The second skill that is important to maintain relationships is the capability to recognize and manage emotions. For proper communication, every individuals need to be aware of their emotions, learn to recognize them and understand how these emotions affect their actions and hence their relationships with others. They should harbor emotional awareness that helps to make individuals know their needs and motivations. This would help in building effective relations. The third skill that is important in this aspect is the ability to communicate effectively non-verbally (Mayer, Carusso and Salovey 2016). Researchers are of the opinion that emotions and messages are mainly conveyed through the proper use of body language. Therefore, this skill is visual. Individuals who can communicate effectively with proper body language like by using correct facial expressions, eye contact, gestures, body movements and voice along with proper social skills, can establish effective relationship (Gong et al. 2014). The fourth skill that is necessary is the ability for using humor and play in relationships. Safe humors and play helps in lifting up a distressing situation in a relationship that ultimately gives a feeling of relief from a challenging situation in a relationship. The fifth skill that is important is the resolution of conflicts by the correct use of emotional intelligence. This skill helps to respond, face any dispute and disagreements with others, manage, and deal conflicts effectively. Proper use of emotional intelligence helps to overcome conflicts in relationships and thereby help in strengthening work relationships (Karimi et al. 2014).
Developing Emotional Intelligence in Teams
Task 5:
Managing international projects with diverse teams comprising of workers from different backgrounds is quite different from managing national projects with people of same cultural backgrounds. Leaders in such arenas need to possess cultural competency and cultural sensitivity with all the members of the team so that none of the members coming from different backgrounds feels disrespected and hurt. Diverse teams have members who come from different nations, cultures and background (Serrat 2017). They have their own cultural traditions, preferences and inhibitions. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the project leaders to develop the skill of cultural awareness. Researchers suggest that developing cultural awareness means developing of an understanding of the differences between themselves and people from other cultures or other backgrounds. They should learn to differentiate the differences in attitudes, values and preferences of all cultures. The manager should also overcome cultural biasness and maintain an equal outlook towards all in the team maintaining cultural unity (Petrides et al. 2016). Cultural sensitivity is important because this attribute helps the manager to be aware of the differences between cultures without assigning them a vale by being positive, negative, better or worse. Mainly all these attributes are absent in Kathy and therefore as the immediate boss of Kathy, it would be the duty of the latter to make her aware of the attributes she needs to develop. It is noted that Kathy has poor skills of empathy that is extremely important while communicating and handling teams containing members from other cultures. For developing empathetic skills, the boss should advise Kathy to be careful of her body language while communicating with the team members. Different cultures have their own traditions and ways of behaviors and attitudes. Therefore, Kathy should be empathetic towards such preferences with proper body language so that team members feel respected in the team. The boss would also advice Kathy to try to know about the emotions, feelings, concerns and issues faced by the members in the group and work accordingly to overcome their concerns. This would make the members feel that their project manager is sensitive to their cultural preferences and inhibitions. They would also feel that she provides importance to their issues and tries to solve them. This would increase productivity. The boss should ask her to read journals and articles that have recommendations about how to be empathetic with diverse team members. For development of her social skills, the boss should advise Kathy to join workshops. Workshops help individuals by brushing their social skills and helping them to know how to handle cross-cultural communication effectively (Thomas et al. 2018). Moreover, the boss should also ask her to follow internet sites where strategies to develop social skills for cross-cultural communication is noted. All these sources would be helping Kathy to develop social skills with diverse team members. The boss should also tell her to adopt evidence-based strategies to develop social skills and learn proper ways of conflict resolution. Improvements of communication skills are also necessary for Kathy where she should overcome language barriers, overcome cultural biasness and be culturally competent. Effective cross-cultural communication skills are believed by researchers to overcome internal conflicts and helps in managing team members who are having low job satisfaction due to cultural tensions. The boss should also instruct Kathy to be receptive of their ideas and suggestions as different cultures have their own ways of problem solving which can be innovative and useful for the firm. This would in turn make them happy and respected. Moreover, the boss can advise Kathy to maintain reflective journal and develop SMART goals to develop her self-awareness capability.
Managing Communication Barrier in Cross-Cultural Communication
Answer 2:
Kathy lacks empathy, social awareness, self-awareness and cultural competence. However, the most important trait that she is lacking is social skills. Social skill is the skill that is extremely important as it help in developing of an individual as effective leaders. The better the individual communicate with other team members, the better is the productivity of the teams. It was clearly mentioned in the case study that she was successful in her past endeavors but is not being successful in her present job role. She has been made the project manager of an international team but she had yet not developed leadership traits that are important for leading a diverse teams. One of the most important aspects of leadership is successful communication among the team members. This skill had been entirely absent, for which effective productivity was not reflected. There was no effective teamwork by the members as she had entirely lacked social skills for communication, problem solving, and conflict resolution. Effective feedback sharing sessions among the team members and Kathy was also absent which resulted in unrest among the members and failure of the objectives (Goleman 2017). She entirely lacked leadership skills and multitasking abilities. If she had established effective relationships with proper social skills, he would have equally distributed the work with the members after analyzing their job capabilities. This would have created less loads of work on her. Her improper social skills did not allow her to establish good rapport with team members. Has she been able to do so, she could have learnt the procedures of the work methods from the diverse team members in places where she was facing restricting. One of the advantages in working in diverse team is that different members have their own ideas, suggestions, working styles and capabilities. They could have helped their leader Kathy in overcoming her restrictions to work methods and she would have been benefitted. Computer and technology had been one of the ways to establish social bonds and connections with members. As she was poor in computer related working activities, she also could not use the medium for social networking with her fellow team members and even her project customers to show progress and to keep a note on them (Pena et al. 2015). Therefore, absence of socializing activities did not allow her to establish proper relationships with them. If she would have been able to socialize well with proper social skills, she would have been successful in developing bonds and relationships with members from other cultures. Therefore, if her team had acted successfully under proper relationship, she would not have faced such severe pressure and would have got help from her team members to learn those activities where she is not an expert. Team working is based on effective sharing of emotions and proper social skills would have been the best way for sharing such emotions. This would have helped her to get success at work.
Task 6:
The boss in the case study is seen to have an autocratic approach towards his subordinates. He is seen to retain the power of all power, control and authority over his subordinates in ways that upset them in their workplace. He is seen to reserve the right to make all decisions and is not seen to look after the concerns and issues of his subordinates. He is seen to set goals and timeframes for the subordinates without thinking of the barriers they might face while trying to achieve those goals within the timeframe set by him. He does not give scope to his subordinates to feel empowered and never allows them to work on their own pace. He is seen to create excessive pressure on the employees for which they have poor job satisfaction and this in turn affect their productivity and dedication towards the organization. Moreover, a one-way communication is seen where the boss is seen to give commands without checking the possibility or credibility of the subordinates who would be performing the work. Hence, such workplace behavior of the boss is negative which affects smooth workflow and reduces job satisfaction of the employees. This leads to turnover and poor productivity (Levitals et al. 2017). Therefore, the boss should develop proper attributes of emotional intelligence to lead the members effectively. He needs to develop proper social skills that would help to establish bonds and relationship with the members. He should initiate a two-way communication procedure where he should give them a chance to provide their opinions, suggestions, feedbacks and concerns. This would help them feel respected and cared for in the organization. This would in turn increase their dedication where they will be performing beyond their capabilities in the workplace. The boss should not use the weapon of fear for motivating employees and getting jobs done but should try to provide intrinsic motivation so that employees can provide the best output. The boss should also not experience control over the work of the employees but try to provide them enough freedom to plan their work by themselves and develop the sense of responsibility to complete the work on time. He should not take all the decisions. Rather, he should allow the workers to participate in decision making which helps them feeling empowered and give them the scope to complete the work successfully (DiFabio and Safloske 2014). Besides, proper social skills, the boss should also be self aware of his emotions. He should have a clear picture of strengths and weakness and thereby try his best to brush up his strengths and overcome his weakness. He has dominant nature and therefore he should try to restrict his dominant nature and be more open towards acceptance of other’s emotions. He should be aware of the behaving with his members with humility so that they feel respected. He should also have high self-regulation power which will help him to constrain himself by rarely attacking others verbally, making rushed emotions or decisions, stereotyping people and others. Of the most, he should develop empathy by which he would be able to sense the emotions of others and thereby take initiatives that help in overcoming any negative feelings of the subordinates and helping them to feel included in the organization.
Question 2:
The workers in the case study are seen to be under huge stress from the autocratic behavior of the boss. They are tired and have very low job satisfaction. They are under fear of punishment and are under great pressure. This is mainly because they are not able to share their concerns and issues with anyone. In such situation, it the duty of the boss is to practice transformational leadership skills to help the workers overcome stress, establish a two way communication sessions by proper feedback sharing and giving and by motivating the employees to work beyond their capabilities. The boss should have proper social skills by which he can communicate effectively with members and establish good rapport with them. He should be empathetic towards his employees and listen to their concerns, issues, barriers and others. He should try to be acknowledge their achievements and success and at the same time do not blame them for failures (Kilgore et al. 2017). He should use this opportunities with proper empathetic skills and use them as opportunities for their betterment in future. He should motivate his members both with intrinsic and extrinsic motivators and inspire them to work beyond their success. He should try to release their pressure by effective communication skills. The boss should also regulate his emotions that affect his professional behaviors. All these would help in maintaining a smooth workplace climate that will increase job satisfaction and hence productivity.
Task 7:
Situation 1:
As the new employees do not have any proper work experience, two important objectives of the project manager would be to make them accustomed with the working culture of the organization. The second objective would be to establish proper bonds among the old employees and the new employees so that conflicts due to complexes do not arise. The action plan would be:
- Conduct sessions where the old and new employees will introduce each other. This will help in breaking the ice among the employees.
- Proper on job training would be provided to the new employees and for this, old employees who have high emotional intelligence would be selected as their immediate mentor.
- A monitoring body would do evaluation of the development of working capabilities of the new members. This body will decide whether the individuals would continue their on-job training or have become eligible to join the team activities (Miners et al. 2017).
- Regular feedback sessions or meetings would be arranged where all the old and new employees will provide constructive feedbacks against each other. This would help to maintain transparency and would prevent any sort of conflicts.
- Care should be taken so that the old employees have empathetic approach towards their juniors and help them in overcoming barriers. They should help the new employees by teaching them the different working skills and the procedures to complete work successfully.
- The project manager would also encourage informal outings so that they have proper work life balance and help in developing trust with each other.
Situation 2:
- Conduct a discussion session to get feedback about their feelings of working responsibly without professional guidance. Point should be noted that whether they are ready for the situation or they still require guidance.
- Proper motivational sessions should be taken where they should be motivated and inspired to proceed further in their career by taking new responsibilities and additional activities.
- Empowering the individuals is an important aspect in this scenario. They had been under guidance for years and now they have to plan activities according to themselves. They might feel low on confidence. Therefore empowering them is another strategy to ensure higher productivity.
Task 8:
Stephen: Hi, How are you today?
Berian: Hi, I am Good, Thanks. I have heard that you are managing a large number of stores having around 300 managers. It must be really a tough job, right.
Stephen: It is indeed a tough job but my relationship with immediate subordinates is so strong that I overcome all the barriers. I have been successful in developing emotional intelligence skills that had helped me to communicate with all my immediate subordinates. This strong bonds and support from them helps me to overcome any barrier successfully.
Berian: I also believe that leaders should have emotional intelligence so that they can connect with their subordinates at an emotional level.
Stephen: you are absolutely right! I believe that social skills and motivation skills are the two important attributes that can make a leader achieve success. Proper communication, conflict resolution and problem solving can be done with proper social skills. I also motivate my employees to work beyond their capabilities by acknowledging their success, by helping them realize their passion, by making them understand their potential and others.
Berian: I also give them enough scope to take their own decisions and complete work by themselves. However, I do not have enough ideas about how to tackle a team in crisis periods as I cannot leave them to take any wrong initiatives in such situations.
Stephen: as per my knowledge of working with Tesco for 10 years, I believe that in such a situation, you should apply situational leadership. This simply means that you can apply transformational leadership skills in most situations but in case of crisis, you should take the decision-making authority on yourself. You should not leave the situation on subordinates as they might fail creating a terrible loss to the organization.
Berian: yeah, I think you are right. However, wouldn’t this create negative feelings in the subordinates?
Stephen: I believe that if you have strong empathetic skills and you are aware of the emotions of the employees, you will be rightly able to handle the situations. I have high empathetic skills that I use to connect emotionally with my members. I respect their emotions every time and I believe this attribute helps to handle crisis period successfully.
Berian: you are indeed praiseworthy!
Stephen: however, I am still working on my self-regulation skills. I tend to make rushed emotional decisions that affect my teams. I also tend to stereotype people. Therefore, I need to overcome them.
Berian: it had been nice talking to you. Thanks, sir!
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