What Is the Problem?
Successful resource management is critical to achieving organizational goals and improving performance. However, while resource management is concerned with workforce skill mix, information technology, and financial resources, it rarely takes into account emotional intelligence. The present research views it as a crucial problem because when organizations miss the chance to capitalize on emotional intelligence, it affects their success in resource management. In particular, poor understanding and use of emotional intelligence can hinder human resource management in organizations.
The concept of emotional intelligence became prominent in scholarly research in the past two decades. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to perceive, assess, and express emotions, generate knowledge based on emotions and feelings, and use emotions to facilitate personal development (Meisler & Vigoda-Gadot 2013). It is a multi-faceted concept that involves a variety of thought processes related to emotions and knowledge generation. Mansour (2016) describes emotional intelligence as a combination of self-awareness, relationship management, self-management, and social awareness. Therefore, emotional intelligence has a number of important benefits for individuals.
First of all, emotional intelligence assists people in understanding other people’s emotions and feelings, thus facilitating empathy. This is crucial for establishing successful relationships with others and mediating conflicts in professional and personal situations. Secondly, emotional intelligence improves the processing of emotions and feelings. According to Schneider, Lyons, and Khazon (2013), emotional intelligence contributes to how people perceive and cope with challenges, thus facilitating individual resilience.
This can help people to overcome stressful circumstances more successfully and adapt to changes. It is also important to note that emotional intelligence assists people in expressing their emotions more freely and accurately (Meisler & Vigoda-Gadot 2013). This is a critical ability because it can aid people in developing adequate help-seeking behaviors and thus enhance their ability to establish adequate support networks and cope with stress.
In contemporary circumstances, emotional intelligence is critical to personal and professional success. However, the research on emotional intelligence and its development in organizational settings are limited. Meisler and Vigoda-Gadot (2013) state that there are significant gaps in understanding the mechanisms of emotional intelligence affecting employee behaviors and attitudes. Awareness of how emotional intelligence influences employees can assist organizations in improving their management of human resources, thus resulting in increased productivity and financial performance. Further research into the problem of emotional intelligence and its applications in organizational settings can also help companies to develop and implement strategies for enhancing employees’ emotional intelligence, which would also have a positive influence on organizational success.
For instance, a reduction in workplace conflicts can help to develop collaborative relationships among employees and enhance project management. For employees that work closely with customers, emotional intelligence is essential as it helps to establish positive and long-lasting relationships with them, thus contributing to customer retention.
All in all, the chosen problem is the organizations’ understanding and use of emotional intelligence as part of resource management efforts. Research revealed that emotional intelligence is a complex notion that does not receive adequate coverage in scholarly literature. This prevents organizations from designing well-informed strategies for improving the emotional intelligence of employees, which has an adverse effect on relationships among employees. An improved understanding and appreciation of emotional intelligence would contribute to organizations’ resource management and increase company performance.
Why This Problem?
The first reason for choosing emotional intelligence and its use in organizational settings as the focus of the study is the potential role of this concept in facilitating organizational performance. Research shows that emotional intelligence has a number of crucial benefits as it contributes to the company’s human resources. For example, it can help employees to be more effective in conflict management, networking, and personal development, thus contributing to their productivity and success in organizational settings.
High emotional intelligence can also enhance people’s work ethics by improving self-control. As shown by Harry and Coetze (2014), emotional intelligence correlates with one’s control of emotions. Therefore, it helps people to react to different situations faster and more successfully, improving their responsiveness and adaptability, which are vital for career development.
For managers, emotional intelligence is particularly crucial, as it assists in effective human resources management. Apart from enhancing employees’ skills and promoting their career development, emotional intelligence can also assist in improving job satisfaction, thus having a positive impact on motivation and performance. A study by Shooshtarian, Ameli, and Lari (2013) showed that “Employees with high EI are more likely to have higher levels of job satisfaction because they are more adept at appraising and regulating their own emotions than employees with low EI” (p. 36). Improved emotional regulation contributes to one’s understanding of and coping with various challenges, including job-related stress.
High emotional intelligence also results in positive attitudes to work, which also helps to improve job satisfaction scores (Mansour 2016). Job satisfaction is an important concept in motivation theories because it helps to promote a sense of fulfillment, thus making employees more motivated to perform their duties and achieve better performance.
Another important use of emotional intelligence for managers is conflict resolution. Mansour (2016) states that by enhancing empathy, high emotional intelligence contributes to positive relationships with others, both in person and in professional life. Therefore, managers with high emotional intelligence can build a trustful relationship with employees and assist them in collaborating with colleagues. Successful collaboration, in turn, results in improved chances of project success. For example, a study from Australia showed that managers’ emotional intelligence has a strong positive influence on project success and job satisfaction of employees, which both contribute to organizational performance (Rezvani et al., 2016). Therefore, emotional intelligence is critical to successful human resource management.
The second reason for choosing this problem as the focus of the study is that generating more knowledge on the subject can help organizations to achieve better performance. According to Mansour (2016), one of the most critical features of emotional intelligence is that it can be learned and developed. A meta-analysis by Schutte, Malouf, and Thorsteinsson (2013) revealed that emotional intelligence training results in moderate improvement in most competencies related to emotional intelligence, including self-control, empathy, and more. Hence, providing emotional intelligence training to employees could benefit companies that seek to improve their resource management.
Nevertheless, in order to enhance the emotional intelligence of employees and achieve better performance, organizations require a deeper understanding of the concept and the strategies that can be applied to teach emotional intelligence in corporate settings. The project can help to fill these gaps and assist companies in developing their human resource management capacity. By focusing on academic literature on emotional intelligence, the project will also indicate future considerations and directions for generating new knowledge in this area.
Reference List
Mansour, SA 2016, Emotional intelligence: the road to success, Dog Ear Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
Meisler, G Vigoda-Gadot, E 2014, ‘Perceived organizational politics, emotional intelligence and work outcomes: empirical exploration of direct and indirect effects’, Personnel Review, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 116-135.
Rezvani, A, Chang, A, Wiewiora, A, Ashkanasy, NM, Jordan, PJ & Zolin, R 2016, ‘Manager emotional intelligence and project success: the mediating role of job satisfaction and trust’, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 34, no. 7, pp. 1112-1122.
Schneider, TR, Lyons, JB & Khazon, S 2013, ‘Emotional intelligence and resilience’, Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 909-914.
Schutte, NS, Malouff, JM & Thorsteinsson, EB 2013, ‘Increasing emotional intelligence through training: current status and future directions’, International Journal of Emotional Education, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 56-72.
Shooshtarian, Z, Ameli, F & Lari, AM 2013, ‘The effect of labor’s emotional intelligence on their job satisfaction, job performance and commitment’, Iranian Journal of Management Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 27-43.
