The Growing Importance of Skilful Management of Emotions - Research Paper Example

? Comparative analysis of the of the Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Problem ment 5 Conceptual framework 5 Objective 6 Methodology 7 Results and discussion 8 Conclusion 9 Recommendations 10 References 11 Appendix 13 Abstract In today’s competitive environment emotional intelligence has occupied an important place not only in the corporate, but also in the academics. The researchers have stressed on the growing importance of skilful management of emotions. A person who can manage his skills in an efficient manner is said to have higher emotional intelligence. A significant amount of studies has been done on emotional intelligence in organization and schools. This study focuses on the comparative analysis between the emotional intelligence competencies of the private and public universities of Ghana. This study has been done by conducting interviews of two senior administrators of ten private and ten public universities. The findings of the research suggest that senior administrators of the private universities are much more aware regarding the concept of emotional intelligence as compared to that of the public universities. However, they understand the importance of emotional intelligence in the accomplishment of organizational goal and consider it as a necessary aspect. It does not only help them in developing long-term relationship and coordination among the employees, but also in establishing relationship with their customers. Thus, the finding suggests that competencies among the private university administrators are much more advanced as compared to the public. In this context, it is recommended that the universities must develop certain training programs so that the competencies can get more enhanced. The findings have confirmed that the emotionally intelligent leadership has not only the potential to improve relationship with the customers, but also with other staffs of the university. So, the university should also take initiatives to improve the same. Introduction In this 21st century, the requirement of effective leadership has gained paramount importance in order to meet the merging challenges. A larger number of managers and academicians have recognised the important link between effective leadership and emotional intelligence (EI) (Potentials Unlimited, 2005; Lpes, Cote & Salovey, 2006; Pahl, 2009). It has been further suggested by Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee (2002) that when an individual moves to higher position in the organization, it becomes more important to have emotional intelligence (Dulewicz & Higgs, 2003). As a leadership concept, Emotional Intelligence recognises that emotions and the way an individual reacts to emotions are the heart of leadership skills and for the leaders or the managers, it is recognised as the “the ability to identify, integrate and understand and manage their own and other people’s feelings” (Roberts & Rowley, 2008, p. 42). During the period of organizational changes, it is very important not only to control the emotions of one’s own self, but also the emotions of others. Mayer & Caruso (2002) suggested that the managers, who can recognise their emotions in a proper manner are seen to cope, anticipate and manage changes effectively. The same finding was suggested by Hernon, Giesecke & Alire, (2007) who asserted that emotional awareness is highly essential among the leaders who are engaged in change management. This study has been undertaken as there is lack of literature regarding the importance of emotional intelligence in universities. The emotional intelligence as a concept has its “distal” roots in the concept of social intelligence, introduced by E.L. Thorndike in 1920 and found its proximal roots in the concept of multiple intelligences as identified by Howard Gardner in 1983 (Schulze & Roberts, 2005). Mayer and Salovey (1990) developed the concept of emotional intelligence and later, Goleman build up the earlier foundations. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether enough awareness, perception and experiences, related to emotionally intelligent leadership skills, exists among the senior administrators of the public and private universities and drawing a comparative analysis between the two. The study will be conducted on the public and private universities of Ghana. The research will aim to find how leadership can be implemented so that effective decision-making and planning can be developed. Problem statement Defining a clear problem statement before commencing the research is very important as it gives the reader an idea regarding the question that the paper is trying to answer. Many literatures have dealt with restructuring and reforming of the schools (Dufour, Dufour & Eaker, 2008; Blankstein, 2004; Moore, 2009; 2007; Evans, 1996); the same regarding university is few. The research aims to conduct a comparative analysis between the emotional intelligence competencies of the senior administrators of the public and private universities of Ghana and also, highlight its importance. In this context, the following research questions are framed: Are the senior administrators of the public and private universities of Ghana well aware and familiar with the concepts of emotional intelligent leadership? Do the senior administrators of the public and private universities of Ghana perceive emotional intelligent competencies as highly important? What are the primary emotional intelligent competencies that are needed by the senior administrators of the universities in order to manage their work in an effective manner? How emotional intelligence competencies help the senior administrators of the public and private universities of Ghana in developing relationships with other staffs of the organization? How can emotional awareness help in successfully implementing the organizational goals and create better relationship with the customers? Conceptual framework Mayer and Salovey in the year 1990 had first published a framework on emotional intelligence and provided a formal definition to the same, which stated that “the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions [. . .] the recognition and use of one’s own and others’ emotional states to solve problems and regulate behaviour” (Mayer and Salovey, 1990, p. 188). The work of Daniel Goleman in his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1995) was a result of the influence of theories of Mayer and Salovey, which in turn popularised the concept of emotional intelligence as an important requirement in leadership or management. Presently, there are three main accepted models of emotional intelligence, the Ability EI, Trait EI and Mixed EI. Two mixed models of emotional intelligence have evolved like, The Emotional Competencies Inventory (ECI) model framed by Daniel Goleman and the Emotional Social Intelligence (ESI) model framed by Reuven Bar-On. Both of these views that are emotional intelligence are seen to be linked with social intelligence. The Goleman’s model is seen to be based on “the competencies that enable people to demonstrate intelligent use of their emotions in managing themselves and working effectively with others” (Bar-On & Parker, 1999, p. 343). The figure given below shows the four clusters or domains of emotional intelligence. Figure 1: Emotional intelligence competencies and clusters of Goleman (Source: McKeown & Bates, 2013) Objective The main objective of the research is to draw a comparative analysis between emotional intelligent competencies among the senior administrators of the public and private universities of Ghana. Along with that, the research also aims to find the importance of emotional intelligence competencies in university. Apart from these two main objectives, the research also addresses some of the secondary objectives such as, whether the senior administrators are aware of the concept of emotional intelligence, whether they understand its importance, the most important competencies that are required and the role of these competencies to build relationship with the staff and customers of the university. Methodology The research methodology plays an important role in providing a direction for the research to be conducted. In this case, the main objective of the research is to conduct a comparative analysis between the emotional intelligence competencies of senior administrators of the private and public universities of Ghana. Apart from this, the research also aims to understand the importance of the same in context of university. This indicates that the aim of the research is not only to identify the competencies of social intelligence found among the senior administrators, but also the necessity of the same in their daily work. In order to accomplish the objective of the research, both qualitative and quantitative research methodology will be followed. The qualitative research aims to derive their analysis by evaluating the human perception towards the topic, while quantitative research will base its analysis on numbers. The research strategy is the next important aspect that the researcher needs to focus on. The research strategy is a general plan regarding how the research will be conducted in order to answer the research question. It is defined as the general orientation for conducting a research. There are various types of research strategies that a researcher can follow such as, case study, experiments, archival research and survey. In this case, interview will be conducted on the senior administrators of the universities (Wedawatta, Ingirige & Amaratunga, n.d.; Kothari, 2004; Kumar, 2010). The two analyses will be based on the collected data, accumulated by conducting interview on the senior administrators of the universities. The interview questions will be both open-ended and close-ended. The close-ended questions will restrict the view and opinion of the respondents to certain options, while the open-ended questions will provide full freedom to the respondents to provide their answers in their own desired way. The open-ended questions will be analysed in a qualitative manner, while the close-ended ones will be analysed in a quantitative manner (Goddard & Melville, 2004; Khan, 2011; Bhattacharyya, 2009). The sample size for this research will be ten private and ten public universities. From each of the universities, two senior administrators will be selected for participating in this research. For the safety of the participants, the name of the universities and respondents will not be revealed. The interview will be conducted on the respondents after taking informed concern from them and their interest towards participation (Kuada, 2012; Panneerselvam, 2004). Results and discussion The interview on the senior administrators of the universities was conducted to derive a comparative analysis between the two. Following are the results: It was seen that in private universities, almost 90 percent of the senior administrators were well-aware and familiar with the concept of emotional intelligence and rest 10 percent were somewhat aware of it. On the contrary, for public universities, the familiarity with the concept was as less as 30 percent; about 50 percent was not at all aware, while only 20 percent was somewhat aware. Thus, this implies that the awareness regarding emotional intelligence among the senior administrators of private universities is much higher than that of the public. For the private universities, when the participants were asked regarding the importance of emotional intelligence, they said that their daily job involves not only to look after the administrative work of the organization, but also, to deal with the queries and the requirement of students. While dealing with such a stressful job, emotional satiability along with emotional intelligence is very essential. It not only makes their job easy, but accomplishes the goals in an efficient manner too. When the same was asked to the participants of the public universities, who were aware of the concept, they said that emotion and mood of a person creates a lot of affect on the work, which in turn affects the productivity. Persons who can deal with their emotions in a skilful manner are said to have higher amount of emotional intelligence. Thus, they also stressed on the fact that the competencies that lead to emotional intelligence are much required. Almost 100 percent of the respondents from the private universities suggested that both social and personal competencies are important, whereas in case of public universities almost 60 percent of the respondents, who are aware of emotional intelligence, said that both social and personal competencies are important. About 25 percent supported only social competencies and 15 percent supported only personal competencies. As a reason for their choices, the respondents of the private universities stated that both are essential as the social competencies help in focusing towards the organizational goals and personal competencies help in accelerating the social competencies. They strongly stressed on the fact that both complement each. A similar view was presented by the respondents of public universities who were in support of both the competencies. While those who supported only one of them had stated that any one of the two competencies will provide a person with the ability to cope up with their responsibilities. They emphasized on the fact that to have both of the competencies is not mandatory. When the respondents were asked how these competencies have helped them in accomplishing their goals, both the private and public universities’ senior administrators had said that their organizational goal is to earn revenue and increase their profitability. In this context, they need to take care of the students as well as sound administration of the university. In this aspect, the competencies that lead to emotional intelligence are extremely important. Conclusion Previously, some of the researchers such as, Chubb and Moe (1990), Fullan (2001) and Evans (1996), had discussed the requirement for systematic change and reforms in the administration of schools with regards to emotional intelligence. The reform suggested by them included better training for the administrators to gain the competencies and understanding regarding the devising and implementing of changes. The ability to handle emotions has been given high importance by the researchers (Cherniss, 1998; Fullan, 2001, Williams, 2008). Similar to these findings, this study also suggests that the awareness regarding emotional intelligence is seen to be higher among the senior administrators of private universities, but much lower in case of the public universities. This might be due to the fact that they use these skills in their daily job but are not aware of its technical name. However, the findings suggest that training regarding how to deal with emotions and how to enhance competencies related to the emotional intelligence is important. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that both personal and social competencies are highly important for an individual in order to drive their organization towards achievement of the goal. Recommendations In universities, the administrators are required to have the competencies that will enhance their organizational awareness, integrity, adaptability, collaboration, teamwork and communication, so that they are able to meet customer’s requirements, establish good relationship with them, empathy, visionary leadership and management of conflict. It is also important that the administrators develop the qualities of appreciating and listening to others. Therefore, these types of abilities and competencies are essential to develop. Training programs for the administrators should be developed so that customer relationship can be improved and management or leadership skills can be developed. These training programs will help the administrators in enhancing their emotional intelligence competencies. If the administrators listen to his subordinates and address the problems pointed by them, then the universities will function in a better way. Apart from this, the universities should also look at the competencies of the administrators to appreciate the work done by others. Thus, the authorities of the universities should also design proper appraisal system, for the administrators to follow. This will not only make the work of the administrators easy, but also, facilitate better coordination with the organization. References Bar-On, R. & Parker, J.D.A. (1999). Handbook of Emotional Intelligence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bhattacharyya, D.K. (2009). Research Methodology. New Delhi: Excel Books India. Blankstein, P.V. (2004). Failure is not an opinion: Six Principles that drive student achievement in high performing schools. California: Corwin Press. Cherniss, C. (1998). Social and emotional learning for leaders. Educational Leadership, 55(7), 23-25. Chubb, J. E., & Moe, T. E. (1990). Politics, markets & America’s schools. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Dufour, R., Dufour, R., & Eaker, R. (2008). Revisiting professional learning community at work: New insights for improving schools. Bloomingon: Solution-Tree. Dulewicz, D. & Higgs, M. (2003). Leadership at the top: The need for emotional intelligence in organizations. The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 11(3), 193-210. Evans, R. (1996). The human side of change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Fullan, M. (2001). Leading in a culture of change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Goddard, W. & Melville, S. (2004). Research Methodology: An Introduction. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). The new leaders. London: Little, Brown. Hernon, P., Giesecke, J. & Alire, C.A. (2007). Academic Librarians as Emotionally Intelligent Leaders. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited. Khan, J.A. (2011). Research Methodology. New Delhi: APH Publishing. Kothari, C.R. (2004). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques. New Delhi: New Age International. Kuada, J. (2012). Research Methodology: A Project Guide for University Students. Frederiksberg: Samfundslitteratur. Kumar, R. (2010). Research Methodology: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners. London: SAGE. Lpes, P.N., Cote, S. & Salovey, P. (2006). An ability model of emotional intelligence: Implications for assessment and training. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mayer, J.D. & Caruso, D. (2002). The effective leader: understanding and applying emotional intelligence. Ivey Business Journal, November/December, 1-5. Mayer, J.D. & Salovey, P. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), pp. 186-213. McKeown, A. & Bates, J. (2013). Emotional intelligent leadership: Findings from a study of public library branch managers in Northern Ireland. Library Management, 34(6/7), 462-485. Moore, B. (2007). The emotional intelligence coaching of school administrators: A comparative case study. Ohio: Ashland University. Moore, B. (2009). Inspire, motivate, collaborate: Leading with emotional intelligence. Westerville: National Middle School Association. Pahl, N. (2009). The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Panneerselvam, R. (2004). Research methodology. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Potentials Unlimited. (2005). Emotional Intelligence Competencies. Retrieved from . Roberts, S. and Rowley, J. (2008). Leadership: The challenge for the information profession. London: Facet. Schulze, R. & Roberts, R.D. (2005). Emotional Intelligence: An International Handbook. Massachusetts: Cambridge. Wedawatta, G., Ingirige, B. & Amaratunga, D. (n.d.). Case study as a research strategy: Investigating extreme weather resilience of construction SMEs in the UK. Retrieved from . Williams, H. (2008). Characteristics that distinguish outstanding urban principals: Emotional intelligence, social intelligence and environmental adaptation. Journal of Management Development, 27(1), 36-54. Appendix I: Interview Questions 1. Are you well aware and familiar with the concepts of emotional intelligence? a. Yes b. No c. Somewhat 2. What do you feel regarding the importance of emotional intelligent competencies? 3. Which of the following are the primary emotional intelligent competencies that are needed to manage your work effectively? Why? a. Personal competencies such as, intuition, empathy, adaptability, common-sense, self awareness, decisiveness, trustworthiness and coping skills. b. Social competencies such as, communication, conflict management, organizational awareness, emotional awareness, customer focus, negotiation skills and appreciating people. c. Both of them d. None 4. How do these competencies help you in achieving organizational goals? Read More