Managing Emotions At Workplace: Steps And Strategies

Role in the Organization

Questions:

1.Use at least one appropriate tool or methods to identify your own emotional strengths and weaknesses.

2.Identify at least three instances where you have felt stressed or experienced a negative emotional state at work. For each instance, consider the precise context, causes and your response.

3.a.Identify at least two causes or triggers of your own personal emotional states at work. No Causes or Triggers of emotional states at work

3.b.Identify how you can use awareness of such triggers to control your responses and achieve positive outcomes, especially with respect to your impact on others and their work performance.

4.Identify at least one instance of modelling workplace behaviors that demonstrate management of emotions as an example for others to follow.

5.Identify three actions you will take to improve your own emotional intelligence on the basis of selfreflection or feedback from others. Reflect on emotional intelligence principles and strategies to justify your proposed actions.

My Strengths

• Ability to be calm in tense situations.
• I am compassionate.
• I am adaptable to new environment.
• I am educationally qualified to properly understand and handle my tasks.
• My extrovert and friendly nature.

My Weaknesses

• In order to multi-task, my focus deviates from one task to another and that causes delays.
• I have skills to be successful at workplace but to implement them in a correct way, I lack training.
• My helping nature sometimes affect my efficiency.
• Agreeableness sometimes holds me back.

My Opportunities

• I am learning this course and it will bring stability in my career.
• The network of contacts I have at workplace will help in my overall development.
• The mix of skills and education I possess will prove as a boon to my organization.

My Threats

• My colleagues are my competitors also.
• My weakness of multi-tasking is also a threat to my performance.

No.	Context	Causes	Response
1	Role in the Organization	I was promoted to the post of Asst. Manager but my objectives (what company wants from my team) were not clear.	I arranged a meeting with our Sen. Manager and discussed about my role and what company expects from me at that position.
2	Interpersonal Relationship at Work	One of my co-worker who was also in my team was not supporting the team properly. His negligent behaviour was delaying our project.	I informed him about the concerns of the team, motivated him to work properly so that the project can be worked out successfully on time.
3	Lack of Training	While working as an Asst. Manager, once the management gave us a newly launched product and asked to promote it with the existing one. The management did not organize any training session to inform about the qualities of that product.	I conveyed the message through our Manager that the team requires a proper training to know about the specifications and qualities of the product.

No.	Causes or Triggers of emotional states at work
1	When people in our office don’t clean the surroundings near their desk, it gives me a hint that they may be irresponsible with their work also.
2	When my colleagues do not come on time to office, my mind automatically questions their credibility.

3.b.If I am aware of these triggers or causes, I can use them in a positive way such as whenever I see somebody’s desk in a messy position, I can tell them that keeping their surrounding environment clean brings positive energy and keeps the mood stable (Bradberry, 2014). For my colleagues coming late to office, I can tell them they can increase their productivity by coming to office on time. In both the cases, when I will be aware of my triggers, instead of being affected or stressed, I can advise my colleagues which will help them to perform better at workplace.

4.Instance: When an executive at the workplace is required to report directly to the manager but after promising also ignores the manager and don’t send information. Moreover, when the executive doesn’t reply to the reminder emails, the manager feels powerless, disrespected and frustrated. Various thoughts may arise in manager’s mind regarding how to solve it because it is hampering his image. Sometimes manager also thinks that why not fire him? It is mix of emotions. The manager needs to reaffirm his rights and do self-talks, such as the executive might be busy and what could be an appropriate win-win solution for this problem. The manager after taking 2-3 deep breaths may go confidently to the space where executive is working. When both will do face to face talk, the problem will be discussed in an appropriate manner and a solution can be found (“How to Handle Emotions at Work”, 2009).

Interpersonal Relationship at Work

The above instance of modelling workplace behaviour demonstrates management of emotions and set an example for other subordinates as a correct way to handle stressful situations related to junior employees ignoring the duties.

5.The three steps are:

1. I will start paying attention on my behaviour while going through emotional triggers and will evaluate if it is affecting my productivity at work or communication with others. According to the Goleman’s mixed model of emotional intelligence, my awareness of my behaviour will help me to achieve emotional self-control and bring positive outlook in my thinking (Stys & Brown, 2004).
2. I will practice stress management at every level in my life. It will be most beneficial at workplace. Moreover, practicing stress management will act as problem-solving strategy and bring flexibility to my viewpoint (Deutschendorf, 2014). The emotional intelligence model of Bar-On will prove to be helpful in evaluating the relation between stress management and emotional intelligence (Stys & Brown, 2004).
3. I will start showing a genuine interest in my team members or peers. This will be a new skill I will generate and my team members or peers will feel valued. As Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso, EI ability model also states that developing new emotional skills are a more intelligent method to build trust relationships (Faltas, 2017).

6.Emotional intelligence is the most important leadership trait that determines the employees’ and managers’ performance at workplace (Cherniss & Goleman, 2003). There are many areas of an organization in which emotional intelligence prove to be effective. Some of the areas are innovation, productivity, employee morale, employee commitment, sales and quality of service (Zeidner, Matthews & Roberts, 2004).

After identifying my strengths and weaknesses, I have basically understood how I can use emotional intelligence as an important trait to overcome problems at workplace. Such as, I usually get stressed out in unclear situations but if I am aware of my emotional triggers, I can easily overcome such situations. There are times when my helpful nature causes delay in my tasks at workplace and I need to learn the proper way to manage my behavior so that I can overcome any kind of difficult emotional situations.

I will say that my emotional intelligence is increased when I will have a stable focus, that is one task at a time and I will find it increased when I will be able to make a connection between my thoughts, feelings and actions. To achieve this level of emotional intelligence, I need to implement some strategies that I need to practice daily. The steps that will be beneficial for me are:

• Noticing my emotional triggers all through the day.
• Paying attention to my body in emotionally stressed situations and try to be as much relaxed as possible.
• I will observe the connection between my behavior and emotions.
• I will try to avoid judging my emotions.
• I will reduce all the fears of rejection, negative realization and will use my strength to be cool and calm in these situations (Ni, 2014).

By daily noticing my behavior and emotions, I will get a pattern. It will help me to evaluate my performance and do further planning if required. In one month of regular practice, I expect 80 percent improvement in my emotional intelligence from current state.

References

Bradberry, T. (2014). Forbes Welcome. Forbes.com. Retrieved 2 August 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/01/09/emotional-intelligence/

Cherniss, C., & Goleman, D. (2003). The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace. Wiley.

Deutschendorf, H. (2014). 5 Ways To Boost Your Emotional Intelligence. Fast Company. Retrieved 2 August 2017, from https://www.fastcompany.com/3026707/5-ways-to-boost-your-emotional-intelligence

Faltas, I. (2017). Three Models of Emotional Intelligence. Center For Emotional Intelligence, Policy And Development (CEIPD).

How to Handle Emotions at Work. (2009). Amanet.org. Retrieved 2 August 2017, from https://www.amanet.org/training/articles/how-to-handle-emotions-at-work.aspx

Ni, P. (2014). How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence ? 6 Essentials. Psychology Today. Retrieved 2 August 2017, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-success/201410/how-increase-your-emotional-intelligence-6-essentials

Stys, Y., & Brown, S. (2004). A Review of the Emotional Intelligence Literature and Implications for Corrections (pp. 4-17). Canada: Correctional Service of Canada.

Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., & Roberts, R. (2004). Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: A Critical Review. Applied Psychology, 53(3), 371-399. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2004.00176.x