Emotional Intelligence Theory, Study notes of Communication

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Emotional Intelligence

Theory

What is Emotional Intelligence? When Salovey and Mayer^1 first used the term emotional intelligence in 1990 they described it as ‘a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s own thinking and action.’ Some of their initial studies produced some interesting results about the relationship between emotional clarity and intelligence. For instance when an individual was able to identify and name a mood or feeling they were experiencing, they generally recovered more quickly from the condition. Similarly individuals who were able to perceive accurately, understand and appraise others’ emotions were better able to respond flexibly to changes in their social environments and build supportive networks. Which Is More Effective In Determining Success IQ Or EI? IQ itself is not a very good predictor of job performance, Hunter and Hunter in 1984 estimated that at best IQ accounts for about 25% of the variance. Sternberg (1996) has suggested that 10% is a more realistic estimate. But in some studies IQ accounts for as little as 4 % of the variance. Snarey and Valliant conducted a forty year longitudinal study of 450 boys who grew up in Massachusetts. Two thirds of the boys were from welfare families and one third had IQs below 90. The research findings suggested that IQ had very little to do with how well they did at work or the rest of their lives. What made the biggest difference was childhood abilities such as being able to handle frustration, control emotions and get along with other people. Fiest and Baron found in their study of 80 individuals with PhDs in science who matriculated from Berkley in the 1950s that social and emotional abilities were four times more important than IQ in determining professional success and prestige. Emotions are not new. The concept of Emotional Intelligence is not new. Our understanding of its importance is not new. However the recognition of its importance is relatively new and increasing. A Definition of Emotional Intelligence :“The capacity to recognise our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” Daniel Goleman. The Importance of Emotions Our bodies communicate with us to tell us and others what we need. The better our communication the better we feel. Emotions help us to establish our boundaries. Emotions have the potential to unite and connect us. Emotions can serve as our inner moral and ethical compass. They are essential for good decision making. General principles

• All humans have emotional needs.
• Each of us has similar, but different emotional needs.
• Emotional needs vary more by degree than type. They also vary more than physical needs.
• Emotional needs are more basic and important than rights.
• Negative feelings are indications of our unmet emotional needs.
• Feelings are real and not debatable. Understanding Emotional Literacy The knowledge that we might have about our own emotions and beliefs and those of others is of limited value if we are unable to properly identify and label emotions as we experience them. This is called emotional literacy. It is important to be able to separately identify our thoughts from our feelings. Our thoughts are innumerable and much too diverse to codify whereas our emotions generally fall into four categories:
• Sad
• Mad
• Glad
• Scared (^1 Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and 2^ Personality ,^^9 ,^^185 - 211.1990)

Emotions and Identity Emotional intelligence can play a critical role in conflict resolution. Fisher and Ury (1981) describe the process of resolving conflict as one of helping people move from no to yes. What makes conflict inevitable and often difficult to resolve is that we tend to identify with our position, so in order for us to change it there has to be a change in identity. This can mean changing our sense of who we are or what we expect from others. Emotions play a critical role in identifying ourselves – in knowing who we are in the world and distinguishing self from other. After enough memories have been stored (generally around age two) the sense of familiarity with ourselves undergoes a profound transformation. We begin to think in terms of ‘I’, recognising our likes and dislikes, and owning our behaviour and feelings. Over time a sophisticated menu of preference and aversion is developed through a process of associational memory by which we define ourselves. I know what I like and dislike and depending upon my level of confidence will express this to others.’ Our ability to remodel, update and even upgrade identity, to resolve problems and conflicts, and consequently to move ourselves and others from ‘no’ to ‘yes’ will depend upon how consciously or unconsciously we process our emotions. If we are unconsciously embedded in the automatic sequence of stimulus-response conditioning, we will tend to be creatures of habit and will be liable to perceive ourselves as victims of the world. If, through self-reflective processes, we have been able to lengthen the amount of time between stimulus and response, to be more conscious of the processes that determine our behaviour, then we will be more flexible and tolerant. We will have available a more robust repertoire of behaviours and be able to generate better decisions and more creative solutions to the problems we encounter in our daily lives. This is perhaps the truest measure of emotional intelligence. Emotional Power Emotional power is expressed through our relationship with others. It measures our ability to be at one with others, to exercise control, to appreciate and reflect, and to influence where it is right and appropriate. Geetu Orme (2001) suggests there are three strategic components for building quality in our relationships. They are tuning in, understanding and taking action. This allows us to make the most and not the least of our relationships. The Value of Emotional Intelligence at Work Seligman has developed a concept called ‘learned optimism’. It refers to the causal attributions people make when confronted with failure or setbacks. Optimists tend to make temporary, external causal attributions while pessimists make global, permanent, internal attributions. His tests involved working with sale personnel and college students. In both cases higher optimism scores were better predictors of sales and end of term grades than intelligence.

The ability to manage feelings and handle stress is another aspect of emotional intelligence that has been found to be important for success. A study of store managers in a retail chain found the ability to handle stress predicted net profits, sales per square foot, sales per employee and per dollar of inventory investment. Emotional intelligence has as much to do with knowing when and how to express emotions as it does to controlling them. Affecting the mood of a group with positive, warm, cheerful expressions of enthusiasm will yield higher levels of co- operation, trust, fairness and performance than negative feelings. (Barsade,1998). Similar findings were uncovered by Bachman (1988) when he found that the most effective leaders in the US Navy were warmer, more outgoing, emotionally expressive, dramatic and sociable. Rosenthal in 1977 discovered that people who were best at identifying other people’s emotions were more successful in their work as well as in their social lives. However this notion is misleading in a sense because emotional intelligence in itself is not enough. Both Goleman (1998) and Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (1998b) have argued that emotional intelligence is not a strong predictor of emotional competence. Rather it provides the bedrock for competencies that are. Goleman has tried to represent this idea by distinguishing between emotional intelligence and emotional competence. Emotional competence refers to the personal and social skills that lead to superior performance in the world of work. ‘Emotional competencies are linked to and based on emotional intelligence. A certain level of emotional intelligence is necessary to learn the emotional competencies (Gowing), For instance, the ability to recognise accurately what another person is feeling enables one to develop a specific competency such as influence. Similarly, people who are better able to regulate their emotions will find it easier to develop a competency such as initiative or achievement drive. Emotional Intelligence and Job Title Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves conducted a national employee survey in the United States using an emotional intelligence appraisal tool to measure EI in relation to occupational role. The results suggested that individuals were generally promoted because of what they knew or how long they have worked, rather than for their skills in managing others. Once reaching the top they usually spent less time interacting with others. Interestingly, they found that those senior managers who had the highest emotional intelligence scores were acknowledged to be the best performers.

The Goleman and Boyatzis ECI 360 is a seventy-two question assessment that includes inputs from managers, peers, direct reports, customers and clients. It is based upon Goleman’s Emotional Competence Framework. The assessment measures personal competence (how people manage themselves) and social competence (how people manage relationships). It is composed of four domains each of which has associated competencies Self – personal awareness Other – social competence Recognition Self – awareness  Emotional self-awareness  Accurate self-awareness  Self confidence Social Awareness  Empathy  Service orientation  Organisational awareness Regulation Self-management  Self-control  Trustworthiness  Conscientiousness  Adaptability  Achievement drive  Initiative Social Skills  Developing others  Influence  Communication  Conflict management  Leadership  Change catalyst  Building bonds  Teamwork & collaboration

Self-Awareness Competencies Awareness of feelings Personal insight Self Assurance Recognising one’s emotions and their effects Knowing one’s key strengths and frailties Sureness about one’s self-worth and capabilities  Know which emotions they are feeling (can name why and label them)  Aware of their strengths weaknesses and emotional boundaries in relationships  Present themselves with self- possession; have poise but with warmth  Realise the chain from emotion to action (the links between their feelings and what they think)  Reflective, understanding the power of learning from experience  Can celebrate diversity within teams, voice views that are unpopular and go out on a limb for what is right  Recognise how their feelings affect their performance  Open to candid feedback, new perspectives, continuous learning and self-development  Are decisive, able to make sound judgements using emotional and cognitive information despite uncertainties and pressures  Have a guiding awareness of their values or goals and any gap between espoused values and actual behaviour  Objective about feedback from others and able to generate positive strokes for themselves appropriately  Are generally recognised as self- confident  Able to show a sense of humour and perspective about themselves

Mayer, Salovey and Caruso’s MSCEIT - This is a unique emotional intelligence test in that it seeks to measure intelligence rather than competence. The test is designed as an ability measure with objective right and wrong answers. This includes the ability to label emotions and understand the relationship between words and feelings, the ability to distinguish between authentic emotional expressions and those that are inauthentic or feigned, and the ability to manage emotions by strengthening positive ones and reducing negative ones. Orioli and Cooper’s EQ Map is a self-assessment and self-scoring tool that attempts to capture information on the current environment of the respondent in terms of life pressures and life satisfaction as well as the effects of the EQ profile on a variety of outcomes including general health, quality of life and relationships and optimal performance. It is composed of two current environmental scales, fourteen EQ Dimensions and four outcomes. They are as follows: Current Environment

• Life pressures
• Life satisfactions Emotional Awareness
  • Emotional self-awareness
  • Emotional expression
  • Emotional awareness of others EQ competencies - Intentionality - Creativity - Resilience - Interpersonal connections - Constructive discontent EQ Values and Attitudes - Outlook - Compassion - Intuition - Trust Radius - Personal Power - Integrated self Outcomes - General health - Quality of life - Relationship quotient - Optimal performance Correlating the four different EQ Measurement Models Although each model has individual merit and may be distinguished by the emphasis it places upon one or more particular aspects of emotional intelligence, in the main there are high levels of commonality across all. Hughes, Pattison and Terrell (2005) have developed a matrix to map the competencies across each model using the Bar-On EQi measure as the framework for comparing each

Exercising Self-control Being able to distinguish between different kinds of emotion and understand how and why we experience different feelings at different times and in different situations is the route to becoming self aware. This in turn enables us to exercise greater self-control over what we feel and how we express our emotions. Self-control enables us to manoeuvre more flexibly and with greater agility around potentially emotional situations and to secure a broader internal perspective on the issue in hand. It resonates with the concept of viewing the situations we encounter from ‘the balcony’ instead of the ‘dance floor’ as advocated by Linsky and Heifetz in their analysis of effective leadership. The following competencies detail those behaviours associated with self-control: Developing the Internal Observer We have the capacity to observe our own thoughts and behaviours from an internal perspective. This allows us to understand the motives and reasons for the way we emotionally respond to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Developing our internal observer capacity requires that we distinguish between feeling an emotion and thinking about it. Thinking about how we feel can be a prospective and reflective practice. To change the way we behave it is often necessary for us to build a new neural pathway. When we change the way we work or how we do things we need to replace the old practice with a new technology. This change may be driven by the external requirements placed upon us but the role of the internal observer will be to identify the change we need to make at a personal and often subconscious level. Dealing With a Negative Emotional Reaction To use our emotional intelligence effectively, we need to be aware of what is happening and the triggers that cause a negative reaction before, during or in the immediately after an event. By using our internal voice and the capacity to self-reflect we can deconstruct situations to understand why they happen. We learn the triggers so that when we next experience them we know that we are likely to act in a specific way unless we do something about it. Using the internal observer we can train ourselves to react differently and to use foresight rather than hindsight to manage our emotions. Creating an Effective Organisational Climate through Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Organisational climate is the working atmosphere created within an organisation. It was first defined by Litwin and Stringer and subsequently refined by McCelland and his colleagues from Hay/Mcber. They determined that six factors influence organisational climate:

• Flexibility - how free employees feel to innovate, unencumbered by regulation and control
• Responsibility – how much employees feel accountable to the organisation in which they work
• Standards – the level at which employees make their contribution
• Rewards – the way in which organisational value is communicated to staff