Developing Emotional Intelligence In The Workplace

Recognizing and Appreciating Emotional Strengths and Weaknesses

Question one

Stress is a response that make one feel tense, nervous, or on edge due to pressure or threats from somebody or something. It is very important for any leader with emotional intelligence to be conversant to the emotional cues of employees. There are so many emotional and physical changes that are effects of stress. Such include: immune system disturbances, anxiety, heart attacks, depression, stroke and hypertension. Most common indicators are of stress are:

1. Increase danger, frustration, hostility, excess anxiety and guilt.
2. Nervousness, wild mood swing, depression and sudden attacks of life threatening panic.
3. Difficulty in concentrating and constant racing thoughts.
4. Trouble in learning new information and difficulty in making decisions.
5. Feeling overloaded and frequent suicidal thoughts.
6. Confusion, disorganization and forgetfulness.
7. Feeling worthlessness, nervous habit, feet tapping and fidgeting.
8. Overreaction on pretty annoyances, edginess, irritability and increased frustration.
9. Reduced productivity, obsessive behavior, rapid speech and constant lies.
10. Problems in communication, suspicious, constant tiredness and fatigue, social withdrawer and isolation.

Question two

Different cultural groups use various styles to show their emotions. Human beings are social beings thus it is very important to understand the emotional state of other people in order to maintain healthy communication and good relationship. It is very important to identify whether the culture falls under high-context who are demonstrate by nonverbal cues, and context. On the other hand, low-context cultures expect messages to be specific and explicit. Dutch people tend to pay attention to facial expression thus it is very easy to misunderstand them because you might see a smiling face and think everything is okay, yet fail to notice the upset tone in the voice (Mayer & Yoo,2008). Japanese culture mostly expresses their emotion in the tone of voice, unlike Dutch people.  This makes it difficult to hide their emotions in the voice though they can hide negative emotions by smiling. As a leader you should be knowledgeable on emotional intelligence because different cultural groups may interpret the same social context in very many different ways and due to globalization.

Question three

It is the responsibility of a leaders to support its members who shows signs of stress. Leaders can employ different styles to encourage and motivate them. Such include: train the brain to manage chaos, Debunk the myth of multitasking, encourage workers to disconnect outside works, show compassion and empathy (Mayer, Roberts&Barside,2008).

Question four

Great leaders choose their leadership styles to keep them focused to the end goal. There are six leadership style employed by most leaders namely: the coaching leader, affiliative, authoritative, pacesetting, coercive and the democratic leader.

1. The democratic leader builds the management through participation commonly phrased as “what do you think”. It enables the leader to effectively mandate staff member in making their own decision making and goals. The democratic leadership style is not the best in response for an emergency because they can experience difficulty especially when teammates are not informed in advance to provide necessary guidance to the leader.
2. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance and is commonly assumed to be “Do what I tell you”.it is most effective during the crisis period especially during an actual emergency. This leadership style can be of help to control a problem teammate when everything else has failed. It often alienates people, stifle flexibility and inventiveness thus should be avoided in most cases.
3. The coaching leader helps to develop people for the future and is commonly phrased as “Try this”. The leaders tend to motivates teammates to build long-lasting personal strengths that make them more successful generally. It is the least effective especially teammates are unable to embrace change and when their leader lacks proficiency.

Question five

Decision making is very important because it helps to weigh different alternatives and examine solutions. The main used styles are directives, analytical, conceptual and behavioral. The appropriate bonus should be in terms of cash in context to directive decision making where employees use their knowledge to make judgement.

Question six

The best decision making style to employ when recommending whom to be promoted is analytical style. Leaders use their own experience, facts, and the summary of the employee database to critical evaluate whom to be promoted for the long term best outcome.

Activity 1

Question one

Patronized person talks down on others and their main goal is to feel superior in the expense of others thus belittle their colleague. It is the duty of a leader to protect such employees by encouraging not to take it in person, neutralize their body language, and always ask for clarification. Employees who are going through stressful life changes are always unwilling to share unless they are assured that their secrets are safe. Confidentiality is important to enable any counseling and ethical codes of the professional counselling organizations (Austin &Moore,2007). Good listening skills are very important in such a scenario. Most appropriate skills to employ are:

• Face the speaker, maintain eye contact, be relaxed and attentive, always be open minded, listen to the speaker and try to picture what the speaker is saying, don’t impose your solution and avoid interrupting.
• Always listen first before asking a clarification question, try to feel what the speaker is feeling, give regular feedback and pay attention to nonverbal cues too.

Question two 

The role of a leader is to protect workers, encourage them to understand that their emotions affect others and represent everyone interest in a workplace. Leader should ensure that all workers are innovative, trust each other, significant, profitable, ready to learn from each other, and respect each other not just recognition.

Question three

Self-management is taking control of our emotions. An organization has a responsibility to encourage its employees on how to self-manage their emotions in respect for their colleagues. They can achieve this by setting a shared agenda, frequent access readiness to change, set self-management goals and close the loop for correct understanding. Leaders can promote self-manage amongst employees by encouraging trustworthiness, self-control, adaptability, and taking initiative.

Question four

There are several ways to self-mange anger. Such include: challenge your core beliefs, step outside yourself, embrace healthy confrontation, speak up before you get bitter, be firm and clear (Berany, Oberst & Chararro,2009).

Question five

Emotionally effective leaders are able to use various skills to inspire their employees to promote growth of on organization.

1. Visionary- this is being able to provide a clear picture of the future and communicating it to the team.
2. Enhancing- it is being accountable for personal and group performance at large and displaying a focused pursuit of complete things on time.
3. Expert-it is imposing some strong technical procedures that come from deep expertise.
4. Principled- being a role model by doing the right things at the right time.
5. Enthusiast- being passionate and have necessary energy about the organization goal.

References

Beranuy, M., Oberst, U., Carbonell, X., & Chamarro, A. (2009). Problematic Internet and mobile phone use and clinical symptoms in college students: The role of emotional intelligence. Computers in human behavior, 25(5), 1182-1187.

Salovey, P., Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D., & Yoo, S. H. (2008). Chapter 11: The positive psychology of emotional intelligence. Counterpoints, 336, 185-208.

Austin, E. J., Farrelly, D., Black, C., & Moore, H. (2007). Emotional intelligence, Machiavellianism and emotional manipulation: Does EI have a dark side? Personality and Individual Differences, 43(1), 179-189.

Lane, A. M., Thelwell, R. C., Lowther, J., & Devonport, T. J. (2009). Emotional intelligence and psychological skills use among athletes. Social behavior and personality: an international Journal, 37(2), 195-201.

Mayer, J. D., Roberts, R. D., & Barsade, S. G. (2008). Human abilities: Emotional intelligence. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 59, 507-536.

Por, J., Barriball, L., Fitzpatrick, J., & Roberts, J. (2011). Emotional intelligence: Its relationship to stress, coping, well-being and professional performance in nursing students. Nurse education today, 31(8), 855-860.