Improving Workplace Environment Through Emotional Intelligence Analysis

Understanding the Task

Emotional strengths

1. Being Assertive: This strength is present in me and is highly essential in the modern day business environment. This helps in taking charge in the situations and hence achieving the desired outcome. The basic cause for this is that I have worked in various negative environments and learned the way I could embrace it. My response to this strength is very positive, as I know the importance of taking a firm decision in the highly competitive business environment.
2. Strong communication: I have a strong communicational strength. It is one thing, which is always present in the feedback I receive from my team. The basic cause of it is my consistent efforts towards making my communication better as well as developing understanding about other’s behaviour. My response towards this is positive as it helps in making my motivating qualities very effective.
3. Optimistic: I have been optimistic in every situation. I believe this is the only way in which one can make better decisions in worse situations. This optimism I must transfer to the co-workers so that their confidence level also remains on the higher side. The basic cause for this is my faith and my capabilities to come out from various situations. I have a good response towards it as it helps me in making positive environment at the workplace.

Emotional weaknesses

1. Short tempered: I have often checked that sometimes I get aggressive. I have shouted at many employees in case of some mistakes from their side. The basic cause is my personal discipline, which I expect from others too. I am working hard to eliminate it so that it does not affect my relations with employees.
2. Impulsive: Many a time I have taken quick decisions without evaluating the outcomes of it. The major reason for it may be the expectation of the employees from me to come to their immediate remedies. I am trying hard to remove ass it is not good in the modern day business environment.
3. Impatient: I have seen that I have taken decisions without consulting others properly. This impatience may be due to the over confidence that I have on me. I want this to get removed from the bottom, as it is very dangerous in nature.

Conflicts at the work place are the one stressor that causes change in my emotions and affect my behaviour towards others. It also creates problems in the organization. Along with this, tight deadlines and environment of uncertainty also causes stress and triggers the emotions. All such stressors bring aggression and impulsiveness in my behaviour. Full awareness about this will eventually help me to control my responses. Having the knowledge about the conflict can prevent my habitual reactions from occurring. I can take a step back and think peacefully about the issue before taking any action. In addition, I should practice on new patterns to bring change in my usual behaviour. All such things can only happen when I am fully aware about the stressor that triggers my emotions.

Fear of failure is the one emotional state that I always face at my workplace. Working in a dynamic environment and adapting to the changes always get me into trouble, as it is the one thing, which I choose to avoid as much as I can. However, controlling and managing the same also helps me in growing faster in the organization. It is very important to manage such failure and for doing so, one needs to assess himself properly and must make sure that the project or the work assigned is as per the capability of the employees. It is the duty of the leader to make sure that employees must have an open line of communication so that they can ask for guidance and help at anytime and anywhere. This will help in reducing the failures at workplace and will work as a guidance for others.

One trigger that heightened my emotional state is when I was not been called in the meeting conducted by our executives regarding some disciplinary issues in the organization. This affected me a lot and triggered my emotion. In that situation, I need to manage my emotional state by finding out the reasons for not considering my involvement in the meeting rather than feeling and thinking bad about the senior managers. Discussing those reasons with them and keeping a cool mind do help in overcoming such situations.

I will consider others feedback as what they think about me as a person and as a manager both. I will take into account their perspectives and opinions regarding my managerial traits and my work in the organization. This will eventually help me in making self-assessment and analysing my own emotional intelligence.

Self-Evaluation of Emotional Intelligence

Part a

Understanding the emotional strength of others is one of the best qualities of a leader. A manager needs to develop some skills that enable him or her to respond to the emotional states of other people working in the organization. This helps in creating effective relationships with them as well as identifying their cultural expressions of emotions. Personally, I use following things to properly understand the emotional cues given by others.

• Verbal and non-verbal communication: I talk to them, listen to their tales, and try to understand their emotional states. I try to create an environment in which they can speak freely about their situations.
• I ask them questions in between the conversation, engaging myself completely. This gives them an indication that the person to whom they are giving off their emotional cues is actively listening.
• Various facial expressions and communication styles also affect the interaction and make the conversation effective. Giving the expressions and communicating properly result in more enhanced understanding of one’s emotions (Caruso and Salovey, 2004). 

Cultures and diversity at the workplace do affect and influence the emotions of the staff. People working in an organization are from different areas and have different culture and religion. The reactions, values and beliefs that surround emotions are different for every person due to his or her culture and place. Cultures play a very important role as the individual express and understand the various emotions according to the guidelines and rules provided by the culture.

A culture display rule is a standard that tells a person how, when and where to display an emotion. For example, according to the British and American culture, people display their happiness by hugging and doing public display with each other, while other cultures do not permit the same. Similarly, diversity also influences people’s emotions. People of different gender react differently to the situations. It is been usually seen that male employees do not express their emotions quickly as compare to the female employees. This how, diversity and cultures affect the emotions of people at workplace (Barak, 2016). 

As a manager, I need to be flexible and adaptable enough to deal with the changing circumstances. I need to respond adaptively to the emotional cues and cultural differences of the individuals working in the organization. Following things should be there in my behaviour as to adopt to the changes.

• Openness to the trends

I have to be open and adaptable towards the new trend and the changing environment, so in order to respond quickly to the changes occurring in the environment.

• Flexibility in thoughts

People who are not rigid in accepting other views are more likely to adapt and implement the changes in the workplace. They understand the emotions of others more easily and effectively.

• Ability to negotiate

I must have the potential to negotiate with the team and staff members by handling their emotional and cultural differences properly and efficiently.

Apart from these, I have to communicate well with the employees and listen to them carefully while discussing their emotions and issues at the work place. This will lead to a better decision making regarding the cultural and diversity issues and emotional cues of others.

References

Barak, M.E.M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. 2^nd ed. United Kingdom: Sage Publications.

Bradberry, T. and Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego: TalentSmart.

Caruso, D.R. and Salovey, P. (2004). The emotionally intelligent manager: How to develop and use the four key emotional skills of leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Institute for Integrative Nutrition. (2016). 5 Essential Principles of Emotional Intelligence. [Online] Available at: https://www.integrativenutrition.com/blog/2016/11/5-essential-principles-of-emotional-intelligence [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].

Verywell Mind. (2018). What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits? [Online] Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-big-five-personality-dimensions-2795422 [Accessed 12 Jul. 2018].