Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labour and Moods and Their Impact on Leadership - Assignment Example

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND MOODS AND THEIR IMPACT ON LEADERSHIP INSERT NAME COURSE COURSE CODE INSTITUTION INSTRUCTOR SUBMISSION DATE TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary........................................................................................................3 Introduction.....................................................................................................................3 Emotional Intelligence....................................................................................................4 Emotional Labour............................................................................................................5 Moods..............................................................................................................................6 Leadership Impact............................................................................................................7 Managing Organizational Culture for Positive Impact....................................................8 Conclusion........................................................................................................................9 References Executive Summary Human resources are the largest category of disposable resources available to the organization’s management in an effort to strive towards achieving its operational objective. This calls for the effective management of the personnel resources to safeguard its efficiency and development. The quality of the organization’s workforce determines the success rate of the organization and its ability to operate within its industry. It is therefore prudent for the organization’s human resource department to ensure that the capabilities and talents of the employees match the staffing needs of the organization. Organizations are considered as a system comprising of sub systems that interact to ensure the flow of activities (Greenberg 2003). This interaction is catered for by the human resource that should be able to create quality relationships among the workers. The emotional aspect of human beings determines the ability of the workforce to work as a team. Emotional intelligence, emotional labour and moods are three emotional elements that should be addressed within the organization to foster the underlying relationships. These elements have an impact on the leadership styles adopted within the organization and the acceptability of these leadership styles. Leadership is aimed at directing the resources of the organization towards minimising wastage. Introduction In managing human capital within organization, it is very crucial for the management to understand the various elements pertaining to the human resources. Human capital is largely made up of human beings that are subjected to emotions and moods. Emotions and moods exhibited by individual human beings act as a response measure to activities within the immediate and far environments. These human responses determine to a great deal the overall productivity of the employees and the organization. This is because the employees will automatically respond to stimuli within the organization’s internal environment. Favourable internal environment results into positive moods and emotions and vice versa. On the other hand, the ability of the employee to control their emotions and moods that constitutes emotional intelligence (George & Jones 2004). For the management, understanding emotional intelligence, labour and moods is crucial in determining their ability to manage and lead the human resource available within the organization. Leadership is based on beliefs, values and preferences whereby leaders aim at combining these three bases to manage their subordinates. From the three basis, leadership styles arise that enable transforming the individual employees within the organization into an efficient workforce. George and Jones identify three major leadership styles namely; autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire styles (2004). These three leadership styles have varying outcomes and involve the employees in varying degrees towards the organization’s management. By understanding the human resource, the management will be able to manage the workforce by considering their human feelings. These feelings are influenced by various factors and it is therefore prudent for the management to understand their employees in order to effectively manage and motivate them. Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence involves an individual’s capability to identify and regulate their own or other individual’s emotions in groups or individually. Emotional intelligence determines an individual’s ability to make sound decisions and act rationally by basing their decisions on their feelings. Controlling one’s impulses by themselves or others enables individuals to become successful and be able to cooperate with others within a group to achieve a pre-determined objective (Cherniss & Goleman 2001). Emotional intelligence comes into play when an individual is facing setbacks in their activities where they need to control their overwhelming emotions and remain focussed. It involves five types of skills namely; self-awareness, emotional management, motivation, empathy and social skills. These skills enable individuals to relate to one another and interact in order to improve their knowledge and capabilities. In organizations, emotional intelligence influences and determines the efficiency of the organization in several areas. Top executives make the recruitment decisions and emotional intelligence portrayed by the candidate is determined in making this decision. With the human resource being the largest resource available within the organization, this will in turn determine the impact of their recruitment decisions on the organization’s operations. Singh suggests other areas include talent development, teamwork, employee motivation and productivity among others (2006). Within organizations, emotional intelligence mainly emerges from established relationships among the employees and the management. In turn, it affects the quality of the established relationships whether formal or natural within the organization. Within organizations, emotional intelligence is influenced by the leadership style, human resource policies and the suitability of the internal environment and culture. Emotional Labour Some job related duties require the display of appropriate behaviour through the development of similar emotions. This means that individual behaviours and emotions are managed which is a crucial element in emotional labour. Arlie Hochschild coined the term ‘emotional labour’ to refer to the invisible requirements pertaining to a particular job. Emotional labour therefore can be defined as the controlled display of behaviour and emotions to conform to the organizational norms (Hochschild 2003). Unlike emotional intelligence that involves the internal management of one’s emotions; emotional labour involves managing the display of these emotions in order to fully undertake an organizational activity. The findings on emotional labour studies have been widely adopted in organizations as they aim at retaining their customers and increasing their market share. On the other hand, emotional labour is also important for the internal customers of the organization. This includes fellow employees and other staff within the organization’s internal environment. The external display of emotions among the internal customers determines the quality of the underlying relationship and their physical interaction. Poor emotional display can result into violent confrontations that will reduce cohesion among the employees thus lowering productivity. Hochschild identified two major techniques for emotional labour mainly surface and deep acting (2003). Surface acting involves the harbouring of negative emotions by displaying positive gestures while deep acting involves the conveyance of emotions that a person is truly experiencing. Moods Human beings are prone to positively or negatively react emotionally to their immediate environment. The nature of their reaction depends on the favourability or otherwise of the elements present within the environment. These emotional responses are identified as moods and an individual can display multiple moods within a given time frame. In the work place, employees as human beings are bound to experience several different moods that emanate from the organizations internal environment (Jones & George 2004). The suitability of the environment results into positive moods as a result of the safety feeling and job satisfaction. Positive moods among the workers result into increased productivity whereby they are able to perform more activities for longer hours. Moods in the workplace can be controlled depending on the individual worker’s emotional intelligence. Also through emotional labour, employees can ensure that they only display positive moods while undertaking their duties. Moods are largely triggered by the issues present within the immediate employee environment and organizational executives should always take into consideration the various elements that influence the worker’s moods. This is because these emotional responses affect various job aspects such as making sound decisions, enhancing team work and the ability to lead within the organization (Jones & George 2004). For example, workers with positive moods are able to absorb and process information more effectively than workers with negative moods. To ensure organizational success, the human resource department should aim at recruiting positive individuals during the staffing exercise. These individuals will set the tone within the organization and hence provide a positive environment within which other new workers will be able to work in. Impact of Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labour and Moods on Leadership Organizational leaders acknowledge that they are managing human beings prone to emotional reactions with different degrees of responding and managing those emotions. Therefore, the workers are more likely to accept the leadership styles exhibited by the management differently due to the underlying differences. Emotional intelligence directly impacts on leadership both on the part of the leader and the worker. As a leader, one should be able to control their emotions if they are to successfully manage their subordinates. The leaders should be able to manage their emotions to ensure that they maintain control of the subordinates. Ability to control one’s emotions often determines the leadership style adopted by the particular leader (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee 2004). Leaders capable of managing their emotions are able to succeed under a democratic leadership style since they are able to remain calm and hence influence their subordinate’s behaviours. Emotional labour enables a leader to engage the subordinates in a meaningful conversation without becoming violent. Although leaders are subjected to emotions, they should be able to display the right emotions especially when dealing with large masses. This will enable the leaders and subordinates to work together as a team and thus be able to influence their behaviour and decisions smoothly. Through emotional labour, an individual’s leadership is easily accepted because of the approachable nature indicated by the leader (George & Jones 2004). By understanding emotional labour, leader are therefore able to convince the subordinate that everything within the organization is alright and thus boost their motivation levels. Moods further determine the approachability of the leader since leaders with negative moods are not able to engage their subordinates fully and as a result they are not able to manage them. A leader’s approachability is very important in determining the leadership style and the impact of their leadership. Leaders with positive moods are able to process information efficiently and make sound decisions that their employees will be proud of and thus accept their leadership. Leadership positions come with the responsibility of decision making and a leader’s ability to make sound decisions can be influenced by their moods (Bolman & Deal 2003). Managing Organizational Culture to Have a Positive Impact on Performance Majority of organizations operating in the product and service industries have acknowledged the need to use the elements of organizational culture to positively impact on the training and performance of their workers. The Boeing Company is an example of such an organization that uses its rich history to indicate to the workers what is expected of them and what they expect from the company. Innovation and customer-centred operations are basic to the operations of the organization and therefore its recruitment and employee training programs are aimed at ensuring these elements remain in its tradition. Diversity among the workforce is established to ensure increased job performance within the organization. General Electric is also another company that employs the elements of organizational culture to positively impact on the training and performance of its employees. Established in the late nineteenth century, General Electric has had a rich history full of inspiring stories especially that of its founder. Therefore, employee training is directed towards equipping them with modern skills that will ensure that the company remains to be a market leader in offering quality and diverse electrical products. Lastly, Microsoft Corporation is an organization associated with unprecedented success in the information technology sector. The organization’s success story has been used to inspire its workforce to work harder and improve on the organization’s performance to ensure that they remain the market leaders. The provision of customer-centred products is vital to the organization and it emanates for the organization’s culture that makes it market-driven. Conclusion The emotional well being of workers is very important in determining the organization’s success. By examining the emotional aspect of the workers at various levels of the organization, one can be able to identify the form of interaction between the organization’s employees (Fineman 2003). The interaction that exists between the executives and the subordinates in an organization gives rise to leadership. Leadership acceptability within the organization is based on the quality of relationships established within the organization. Effective leadership within the organization leads to the optimum utilisation of the organization’s resources thus improving productivity. Therefore, the relationship between the leaders and their subordinates is vital in determining the leadership ability of the executives. However, the management should strive to identify and recognise the varying emotions among its workforce. Different emotional intelligence levels propel individual employees to react differently and it is therefore prudent for the management to develop policies aimed at fostering formal and informal relationships within the organization. By understanding their emotions, effective motivational measures will be provided to enhance the employees productivity and hence that of the entire organization. References Ashkanasy, NM, Hartel, CE & Zerbe, WJ 2000, Emotions in the Wrkplace, Greenwood Pub. Grp., New Jersey. Bolman, LG & Deal, TE 2003, Reframing Org.: Artistry, Choice & Ldrshp, 3rd Ed., John Wiley & Sons, California. Cherniss, C & Goleman, D 2001, The Emotionally Intelligent Wrkplace, John Wiley & Sns, California. Fineman, S 2003, Understanding Emotion at Wrk, Sage Pub., Washington. George, JM & Jones, GR 2004, Understanding & Managing Org. Behaviour, 4th Ed., Pearson Prentice Hall, New York. Goleman, D, Boyatzis, RE & McKee, A 2004, Primal Ldrshp: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence, Harvard Bus. Rprt., Chicago. Goleman, D 2006, Emotional Intelligence, 10th Ed., Bantam Bks, California. Greenberg, J 2003, Org. Behaviour: The State of the Sci., 2nd Ed., Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., Boston. Hochschild, AR 2003, The Managed Hrt: Commercialization of Human Feeling, 20TH Ed., Univ. of California, California. Jones, GR & George, JM 2004, Essentials of Contemporary Mgmt, Ashgate Pub., Boston. Singh, D 2006, Emotional Intelligence at Wrk, 3rd Ed., Sage Pub., Washington. Read More