The Influence of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace Environment: A Literature Review

Lee-Anne Johennesse¹, Gareth Pressley²

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, CTBC Business School, Tainan City, Taiwan

²Providence University, No. 200, Section 7, Taiwan Blvd, Shalu District

Taichung City, Taiwan

Abstract – This study examines the influence of emotional intelligence in the working environment that will affect both employee and company performance. This area of study involves people, the environment in which they live and work, how they affect their environment, and the effect that environment has upon them. Emotional intelligence is tied to adaptation, which is the process by which a person adjusts to external conditions to diminish disruption and maximize benefits. It is a favorable human trait associated with several beneficial life outcomes. Many research models are utilized to measure and capture the ability to conceptualize emotional intelligence as potential performance, and they use performance-based measures of emotional intelligence to achieve good performance. The aim of this research is to reflect the comprehensive studies within this realm regarding the utility of emotional intelligence in an organizational context.

Keywords- emotional intelligence, firm performance, firm benefits

I.                    INTRODUCTION

Psychologist Daniel Goleman championed and progressed the concept of emotional intelligence in the modern organizational He is a 2 times Pulitzer Prize nominee who has written more than 10 books on psychology, education, science, and leadership. Similar to Salovey (1990), Goleman (1995) has categorized emotional intelligence (EI) into five different categories’: emotional self-awareness, managing emotions, harnessing emotions productively, empathy, and handling relationships. Goleman (1995) stated that emotional self-awareness comprises competencies within three capacities. Firstly, it involves progression in the recognition and identification of one’s own emotions. Secondly, the skill to comprehend the underpinning of one’s emotional state of being. Lastly, emotional self-awareness comprises the aptitude to distinguish the variance between state of mind and behaviors.

Daniel Goleman provides a five-dimension model. The first category focuses on emotional self-awareness on the following, self-management, self-awareness, motivation, social skills, and empathy. Self-management is the capability to maintain emotions under control, reflect authenticity and behavioral responsibility, and feel satisfied when confronting new notions and maneuvers. Self-awareness supports the process of self-assessment, and identification of a feeling as it occurs.  Motivation is the proclivity, which leads or empowers one to achieve definite objectives. It entails obligation, initiative, courage and will power. Social skills contribute towards the induction of reactions that are necessary for enhanced communication and includes empathetic listen abilities. Furthermore, the skills to be motivating, and concurrent work environments for the attainment of common goals is important. Empathy is the capability to comprehend and be supportive of others emotions, needs, desires and perspectives. (Goleman, 1995).

The second category is treatment emotions which include better frustration lenience and anger controlling, suitable expressions of antagonism, anxiety management, and a smaller amount of social apprehension. Goleman well articulates that: “Anyone can become angry-that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way this is not easy” (Goleman, 1995). The third category comprises self-responsibility and self-control. Lessening rash conduct and suspending indulgence are imperative features of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995).

Empathy and the aptitude to declaim the emotions of others is Goleman’s fourth category. This comprises capacities such as expertise for the acknowledgment of another person’s perspective, enhanced compassion regarding others’ feelings, and enhanced listening to others (Goleman, 1995). Goleman’s fifth category is relationship management, which encircles all aspects of communication. Congruence in group environments include: involvement, collaboration, and kindness. It also includes mediation in dealing with others, an individual’s assertiveness and being ability to resolve conflicts and negotiate disagreements (Goleman, 1995).

Inspired by the various articles, Daniel Goleman published a book in 1995, emotional intelligence: why it matters more than IQ, where he described emotional intelligence as “Emotional intelligence includes abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope” (Goleman, 1995, p.34). However, ‘intelligence’ is a concept that has many sides. A professor of psychology Linda Gottfredson and 51 other university professors specializing in intelligence and related fields, editorial board members of the Journal of Intelligence, define intelligence as a very all-purpose cerebral proficiency that, encompasses the facility to reason, design, resolve difficulties, deliberate conceptually, grasp multifaceted notions, learn efficiently, and learn from familiarity. It is not simply based upon information gleaned from books, theoretical skills, or test-taking abilities.

In addition, emotional intelligence is able to influence both the employee and company through those beneficial ability owns by a person. This study believes some literature presents ability and the conceptualizations of emotional intelligence as mutually exclusive alternatives that are important to firm performance for better outcome (Mayer et al., 2004).

II.                  LITERATURE REVIEW

1.     Emotional Intelligence

A Yale psychologist, Peter Salovey, and his associate John D. Mayer coined the term emotional intelligence in 1990, this has since become popular and is now frequently utilized. Salovey and Mayer wanted to pinpoint emotional intelligence as intelligence. To do this they realized four important criteria needed to be achieved. First, they needed a way to define emotional intelligence, create a way of measuring it, show and record its independence from other intelligence, and show that it is predictable in real world situations.

Salovey’s classification of emotional intelligence comprises equally inter- and intrapersonal skills and is delineated in five domains stated, “knowing one’s emotions, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing emotions in others, and handling relationships” (Salovey, 1997). Salovey’s first domain, acknowledging one’s emotions, or self-awareness, is the aptitude to distinguish a sentiment as they transpire. This is the underpinning of emotional intelligence since the capacity to evaluate feelings is vital to psychological revelation and self-understanding. Persons with increased assertion regarding their feelings are more well-found at life management and have an enhanced cognition of how they categorically regard decisions on a personal basis (Salovey, 1997).

The second domain, dealing with emotions, is the skill to manage feelings appropriately, which constructs further self-awareness (Salovey, 1997). The competence to disregard nervousness, desolation, petulance, and the resulting impacts of disenchantment are deliberated by Salovey to be a fundamental emotional skill. These individuals improve more rapidly from life’s obstacles. The third domain is that of inspiring oneself (Salovey, 1997). Directing feelings regarding the achievement of objectives is essential for concentration, self-motivation and discovery, and for ingenuity. Emotional self-control, which is the postponement of fulfillment and the subjugation of impetuous responses, activates accomplishment. Flowing in a motivational channel empowers extraordinary triumphs. People who have the talent of incentive are inclined to be decidedly industrious and operative in their activities.

Salovey’s fourth domain is knowing sentiments in others (Salovey, 1997). Empathy, an additional capacity that forms aspects of emotional self-awareness, is a vital people skill. Empathetic individuals are additionally conscious of the understated indicators that infer what others want or desire.  The fifth domain, links to relationships, and handling emotions in self and others. This embraces the dimensions incorporated in leadership efficacy. People who exude the ability to foster deep relationships are socially well-adept and able to network exceedingly successfully. (Salovey, 1997).

Moreover, conferring to Ryback, emotional intelligence is defined according to four constituents: honing dispositions, regulating negative feelings, and discerning aptitudes, (Ryback, 1998). The development of emotional intelligence with physiognomies for each of the four mechanisms express congruence in thinking.

First component is refining constitutions which comprises a more significant consideration of one’s personal emotions and the resultant impact on others (Ryback, 1998). These constituents encompass operative subjective decision-making and a representation of consideration to cultural variances. The second component contains anger supervision, conflict resolution and, directing negative sentiments (Ryback, 1998). The third component is realizing talents (Ryback, 1998). This category is more “task based” oriented, with focus on such elements as personal projects, self-improvement programs, and compassionate approaches to personal relationships. Lastly, Ryback’s fourth component is grander organization skills. This covers the ability to, advance communication abilities, expedite conflicts and to sustain fair, and ethical contexts. (Ryback, 1998).

2.     The Influence of Emotional Intelligent

The influence of emotional intelligence has received plenty of interest and research within the corporate fields is where most. However more recently studies are being aimed at the very institutions from whence these businesspeople came from.  From as early as the late 1950s, a great deal of researchers has developed theories around the conceptualization of emotional intelligent. Within this research they have developed various models to explain differences in these research findings. One of the most noted job theories was developed by Herzberget et al. (1959).

Fredrick Hertzberg’s Two Factor Theory (also known as Motivator Hygiene Theory) seeks to outline contentment and inspiration in the workplace. Conferring to this, happiness and discontent are determined by motivation and hygiene factors. Motivating situations include task facets that encourage increased accomplishment and deliver pleasure, e.g., success in work, acknowledgement, and advancement prospects. These motivating factors are reflected to be job intrinsic. Hygiene factors comprise features of the working setting such as compensation, company procedures, managerial policies, and supplementary working circumstances.

Likewise, Abraham Harold Maslow an American psychologist and professor who is famous for formulating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, an exemplary of emotional health centered on gratifying essential human needs in precedence, concluding in self-actualization (Maslow, 1987). He accentuated the implication of concentrating on constructive abilities. Maslow asserts that human beings have yearnings, requirements, and needs and those human needs are organized in an order commencing with the most rudimentary to the uppermost and these are: (1) physiological needs, (2) safety or security needs, (3) social and belonging or affiliation needs, (4) Self-esteem, ego or status needs and (5) the need for self-actualization (Maslow, 1987).

In addition, trait emotional intelligence of Greek special education in relation to burnout and job contentment (Platsidou, 2010) investigated the perceived emotional intelligence in relation to burnout in primary education from Greece. The perception was that EI was expressively connected to burnout syndrome and job performance, demonstrating that employee of high-perceived EI is likely to experience less burnout and greater performance. Further analysis revealed that emotional fatigue can be anticipated by assertion with the job itself and with the primary subscales; depersonalization was forecast by fulfilment with the job and with potential advancements. Personal achievement was expected by good performance with the job itself as well as by an EI factors, confidence, and mood directives among the EI factors, the impact of emotion and emotion control were important independent forecasters of influence at work, further signifying that events experience in the organizational environment impact employees approaches towards their work, and it has consequence on their performance. Furthermore, performance is subjective to and embedded in emotions and personality dynamics in accumulation to their understanding and skills (Carmeli, 2003). They maintain the core principle of emotional intelligence have a favorable impact on a variety of managerial matters, such as planning and decision-making abilities (Furnham, 2020), strategic decisions (Bouzguenda, 2018), leadership and team management (Lone, 2018; Treglown, 2020; Udod et al., 2020), which would effectively increase business performance. Additionally, it explains that emotional intelligence, cognitive, and behavioral components (Bernstein, 2008). By the correlation of those definitions, it can be concluded that there is a clear relationship between the emotional intelligent with the performance.

It is evident from several research mentioned that emotional intelligent has a direction relationship to the individuals’ physical, mental, and emotional state. The more satisfied one is with the job and the environment in which one works, the more likely they are to have good performance on their work. How the person feels, will then affect the way they interact with their colleagues and co-worker. Intern then, how one manages these feelings and emotions would affect the way they interact and or present themselves and their own ideas will influence their performance. When review the previous mentioned research findings, it is important to note that understanding emotional intelligence influence the performance in the workplace is most valuable to the company to know how to manage and setting the workplace environment in order to better performance of the employee that has effect on the firm outcomes itself. Therefore, with the importance of firm performance on the future, how both employee and company are influenced, be it positively and negatively, will have a direct impact on the business world, which these determine the sustainability of a firm.

III.               CONCLUSION

According to Mayer, emotional intelligence refers to a person that has “the capacity to recognize the meanings of emotions and their relationships, as well as to reason and resolve issues based on them”. The objective of this study is to survey the influence of emotional intelligence in the working environment that will affect both the employee and firm performance. It can be concluded that the essential characteristic of emotional intelligence provides a better effect on idea generating, decision-making, and strategy development. The key characteristic of emotional intelligence includes motivation, discipline, openness, and inventiveness (Soussi, 2018; Bouzguenda, 2018; Mysirlaki, 2020). Human behavior that is influenced by motivation has been shown to influence performance in areas such as problem solving and decision-making (Naixiao, 2012; Udod et al., 2020; Treglown, 2020).

Additionally, according to Bouzguenda explain that manager use of emotions in decision making is influenced by their mood, when they are in a good mood, they face new difficulties and solve problems quickly. Based on his competencies and preference system, he solves issues and takes wise judgments, which eventually contributes to increasing productivity, sales, and business performance (Bouzguenda, 2018). In this context can be conclude that it would be important to treat most of the organizational resources (employee) in order to make emotional intelligence and cognitive ability the main target of organizational growth plans and major determinants of manager’s work performance to better outcome that beneficial for the firm’s performance (Kim, 2020).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by [grant number] and the University of

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