Emotional Intelligence Essay

Individuals experience a wide scope of emotions. Terror, rage, desire, guilt, indignation, disappointment, entrancement, happiness is only a few of the emotions that influence our daily events. The anxiety of presenting in front of crowds, joy in helping someone else, satisfaction with the appearance of successful results, are only a few things that the person experiences at work. Each individual has the ability to react to such emotions. This is when an individual’s emotional intelligence is put forth, hence makes them understand their emotional impulse and directs them in behaving rationally. This essay will characterise and define emotional intelligence, clarify how it is measured, discuss the benefits it provides in educational and work environments and then how it can be improved.

The term ‘Emotional Intelligence’ (EI) was invented by phycologist Peter Salovey and Scholar John D. Mayer in 1990, to describe “the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behaviour' (Salovey and Mayer 1990). This is often further broken down as “one’s ability to identify and understand own behaviours, moods and impulses and conduct them to best respond to the requirements of a certain context” (Kasapi & Mikiotis, 2014). After the publication of bestseller Daniel Geman’s book in 1995, the concept of emotional intelligence has been a prominent topic that sparks the interests in scientific circles as well as the public and media. Goleman’s book focuses on emotions as mixed intelligence and how cognitive abilities and personality aspects of people lead to work environment success. However, Goleman, Salovey and Mayer were not the first to discover and understand the value of emotional intelligence as years before administrators, tutors and other experts, such qualities were more “colloquially referred to as people skills” (Ruderman et al., 2001).

In modern times emotional intelligence is viewed as the most significant aspect of a person’s performance. When contrasting IQ and emotional intelligence, Goleman indicates that whilst “IQ contributes to 20% of success, the remaining 80% of success is decided by emotional intelligence”. Salovey and Mayer released a four-branch model of emotional intelligence (1997). The model suggests that individuals differ in their ability to interpret information of emotional nature. This ability is shown to show itself through certain adaptative behaviours. The model states that emotional intelligence requires four forms of ability, perceiving emotion, facilitating thought using emotions, understanding emotions and managing emotions. Perception of emotion is the capacity of perceiving emotions between yourself as well as others. Emotional facilitation is the usage of emotions to encourage thinking and cognitive activity. Understanding emotion encompasses the ability to interpret emotional terminology and how emotions merge and transition over time. For example, understanding emotion allows the ability to comprehend the slight difference between emotion. It also encompasses how emotions can transition through time, like anger to grief. The last branch is managing emotions which include the opportunity to control your emotions and those of the individuals around you. Recent measures of Mayer and Salovey’s EI model, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) measures emotional intelligence through the abilities of a person to recognise, understand, act on, and manipulate emotional information. Using questions built on everyday situations, the MSCEIT measures how well people respond to “social tasks, read facial expressions, and solve emotional problems”. The MSCEIT is used in business, educational, study, and therapeutic environments (Mayer, John D. et al., 2008 and Brackett Salovey, Marc A Peter, 2006).

Emotional intelligence has a variety of applications in companies, both non-economic and corporate. It can be influential in many ranges of the workforce which can contribute to organisational growth. Emotional intelligence drills into a central aspect of human conduct that is separate from the intellect. Emotional intelligence is the single growing indicator of success in the workforce. In certain settings, employees with a great degree of emotional intelligence will be more able to communicate with others, control work-related tension, overcome work-related disputes and benefit from past behavioural faults. An individual with emotional intelligence holds attributes such as “self-awareness, self-control, sensitivity and social skills” (Dr Bhavana Arora 2017). A study based on emotional intelligence, tested 186 directors and associating their scores with their company’s probability. Results show leaders who scored higher in emotional intelligence were more likely to yield high profit‐earnings (Stein, Papadogiannis et al., 2019). A person with high emotional intelligence can pinpoint the needs of others, build efficient rapports, manage work problems, these aspects contribute to one’s career success in all properties like leadership, team building and career development.

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The ability to recognise and control one’s own and feelings of others is relatively constant over time, affected by their early childhood interactions and also genetics. This does not suggest that emotional intelligence is not able to improve, however, permanent changes would take a great deal of effort and direction. A persons EI can be improved through coaching programs, accurate feedback and developing self-awareness (Peter D. Harms and Marcus Crede, 2010). Modern organisations now offer education and development that is categorised as “emotional intelligence” training. In support, their leaders establish and maintain “a working environment of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity and commitment” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1997). By advancing emotional intelligence, people can become more effective and efficient with what they do and encourage others to be effective and efficient as well.

Modern organizations now offer learning and development that is explicitly labeled as “emotional intelligence”or “emotional competence” training. In support, their leaders create and manage a working environment of flexibility, responsibility, standards, rewards, clarity, and commitment.

Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to regulate and monitor their feelings and to have the ability to influence the feelings of others. Emotional intelligence is the single growing indicator of success in the workforce and the greatest force of lead ship and professional achievement. A person emotional intelligence is affected by their early childhood, some people are more advantaged than others. However emotional intelligence can be improved through educational training programs, developing one’s own self-awareness and accurate feedback. Hence, possessing a high degree of emotional intelligence plays a significant role in a profession, particularly providing benefits for an individual striving for leadership, team building and career development. It is necessary to cultivate emotional intelligence such that one can understand, control and read one’s emotions and the emotions of others, gaining success in a workplace.

By developing their emotional intelligence individuals can become more productive and successful at what they do, and help others become more productive and successful too.