Emotional Intelligence and its Role in Human Service Organizations - Report Example

Emotional Intelligence and its Role in Human Service Organizations Introduction What is Emotional Intelligence? Nowadays, the concept and application of emotional intelligence seems to be everywhere. Executives, life-style gurus and educators are now seen to all be agreeing with the notion that the one thing that people requires the most in today’s modern world is emotional awareness, street smart and heightened sensitivity. This perception however, begs us to define emotional intelligence. Zeidner et al. (3), argues that skepticism and caution are requite, despite all the recent enthusiasm surrounding emotional intelligence as portrayed in trade texts, media and even psychological handbooks. Zeidner et al (4), further points out that perhaps emotional intelligence should be perceived as being nothing more than a very popular fad along the lines of feng shui, crystal healing and sexual intelligence among other New Age excesses. The current popular interest in emotional intelligence is seen to ideally stem from a general perspective that is cross-fertilized by a number of academic studies. In defining emotional intelligence, it is important to note that emotional intelligence is commonly thought of as being a type of intelligence. This means that there exists some degree of differences in the objectivity with which different people deal with emotion. It is the common belief that the manner in which these differences are manifest is quite varied and complex. Wharam (11), argues that the idea of having intelligence being connected to emotion seem to be rather feasible because in our day to day activities, we are quite likely to come across emotional idiots, emotional geniuses as well as the typical person having moderate emotional competence. A common definition for emotional intelligence defines it as referring to the ability for one to be able to recognize the meanings of their relationships and emotions and exhibit a capacity of being able to sufficiently problem solve based on these meanings. Emotional intelligence generally involves the capacity to perceive your own or another individual’s emotions, sufficiently assimilate the various emotion – related feelings and be able to the information of those emotions and be able to adequately manage them. In a workplace scenario, the most appropriate definition for emotional intelligence defines it as being the ability for one to be able to get along with, develop good trusting relationships and be able to communicate in an effective manner with other individuals (Emmerling et al. 2008). According to Wharam (11), although there are a number of definitions of emotional intelligence, all these different definitions and models combine the measurement of a number of innate emotional variables such as memory, processing, learning and sensitivity with the environmental effects on those same variables. The common working across all these definitions seems to be manage, others, awareness, self and emotions. As such, a nutshell definition of emotional intelligence would define it as being the potential for one to be aware of and subsequently use their own emotions so as to communicate with not only themselves, but also with others in addition to sufficiently motivating oneself and others via having a sufficient understanding of emotions. As compared to men, women are generally found to be more emotionally intelligent. Women are more likely than men to seek to be liked as opposed to being respected. While this attribute evidently poses problems for the gender-typical women that are seeking to eventually ascend the corporate ladder, it is this emotional intelligence that aids them in fostering of productive work environments (Buchanan 2012). Application of Emotional Intelligence in Human Service and Caring Organizations Human Services are normally seen to be conducted in a number of stages and it is important for individuals providing these human services to have adequate levels of emotional intelligence so as to be able to provide the necessary services in an effective manner. Some of these stages and the manner in which emotional intelligence aids in the delivery of services at these stages includes: Engagement: Whereas assessment is often described as being the very first stage of the human services intervention or care process, it is nevertheless deemed to not be effective unless there has first been a process of rapport building and engagement with the service provider. An example of this is that in healthcare services, the success of the consultation ultimately depends on just how well the doctor/nurse and patient are able to communicate with each other; the quality of this communication has been noted to affect the eventual clinical outcomes. As a result of the fact that emotions are often seen to be generated not only by the presence of anxiety, but also the various status and power interactions, it is important for human services practitioners to ensure that they pay particular attention to both their own and the service user’s emotional states. It is important for human services practitioners to constantly be aware that, as a result of a service users experiences, the user’s emotional antennae might be highly attuned to the emotional demeanor of the human services providers (Goleman 1996). Morrison (2007) argues that it is quite normal for users to be able to detect the practitioner’s emotional state much faster than the practitioner can be able to elicit the user’s emotions. Emotionally intelligence practitioners are able to influence positive emotions among the users. It has been pointed out by Kronenfeld (2011) that while men can actually make good human services practitioners such as nurses, women are actually better at it as compared to the men. Although men are actually quite capable they lack the nurturing skills and intimate caring abilities that women naturally possess. Decision Making: The importance of emotional Intelligence in human services is amplified by the fact that the management of emotions and mood happen to play a significant role in an individual’s decision making. Most researchers have been noted to agree that the key to good decision making is to try and employ both feeling and thinking when making one’s decisions (Gardner 1983). Persons experiencing positive emotions are found to be more likely to use heuristics in making good decisions in a prompt manner. Morrison (2007) points out that positive emotions help individuals in expanded and creative thinking, improved flexibility when conducting negotiations, better elaboration when presenting information, improved assessment/diagnostic capabilities as well as the enhanced ability to be able to easily link between different sources and ideas or types of information. In addition, positive emotions have also been found to greatly enhance an individual’s problem-solving skills with the result that positive individuals often tend to find better solutions to problems. High levels of emotional intelligence can aid human service and care organizations employees, and especially so the women, to experience positive emotions regardless of their work-related challenges. Collaboration and Cooperation: Human service and care organizations are often seen to carry considerable stress as a result of the often highly emotionally charged nature of their work and the institutional anxiety that is often seen to result from the publicly and politically exposed context in which their work is undertaken. Human services are collaborative practices, and for its practitioners to be able to make and sustain adequate and constructive contributions to their organizations, it is important for them to realize that it is not enough for human services practitioners to be able to work individually without their service users. High levels of emotional intelligence can help in fostering the much needed cooperation and collaboration in these human service and care organizations. To this end, Olson and Tayor (1997) argue that women are in general more cooperative than men as they are able easily adopt a consultative approach to management. They are also more connected to each other and as a result of this, they evidently more capable than men of collaborating in a successful manner. Dealing with Work-Related Stress: The emotionally and morally demanding work that is the nature of social work and other human services requires that practitioners ensure that they give thought to issues surrounding coping strategies and resilience. Increased bureaucracy, high workloads and the delicate nature of decisions that human services workers are forced to make, generally results in increased stress levels among the human service and care workforce; Morrison (2007) indicates that in a survey conducted in Kentucky on 151 child welfare workers, an approximated 62 percent of these workers were found to suffer from emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The results of this study are found to be supported by the results of a study conducted by Gertis et al. (2005) in which it was found that the symptoms for burnout among those female nurses that happened to be caring for individuals exhibiting severe behavior problems were significantly higher among those with lower levels of emotional intelligence and low social skills, however, Gertis et al. (2005) cautions that nurses with high levels of emotional intelligence and social skills were also considerably at risk. Morrison (2007) argues that based on these results, it is found to be strategically desirable for recruiters in human service and care organizations to avoid recruiting individuals with low levels of emotional intelligence although this would drastically reduce the number of male recruits: in addition to this, they should also ensure that that those individuals with high levels of emotional intelligence also possess high levels of personal resilience and effective coping mechanisms, this is based on the fact that it the benefits of hiring recruits with high levels of emotional intelligence would ultimately be lost if these workers are found to regularly be off as a result of falling sick. Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Human Service and Care Organizations Although the term emotional intelligence was only recently coined, people have for long understood the values of these abilities and skills. According to Druskat (2013), history is riddled with attempts by workers trying to improve their emotional intelligence. Nowadays, there is a marked proliferation in programs designed to assess the emotional intelligence level of managers and executives, develop behaviors that are seen to be characteristic of and consistent with emotionally intelligent leadership as well as increase the awareness of the intrinsic values of emotional intelligence in the workplace. As a result of the resonance of emotional intelligence in the workplace, most practitioners are seen to currently be eager to try and implement it so as to help in resolving some of the important workplace issues. The concept of emotional intelligence essentially pertains to most of the business issues that executives/managers, consultants, practitioners and employees face in their everyday activities. Although these issues can at times be found to be quite broad, their universal relevance to most business contexts is identified as being the reason behind why emotional intelligence is recognized as making such intuitive sense in the business world. As applied to the workplace, emotional intelligence should not be regarded as being a cure-all but as a convenient was through which we can be able to conceptualize the rather dynamic impact that emotion is seen to have on behavior. In addition to this, it also help us in better understanding and managing emotion within the workplace which helps in effectively dealing with the everyday workplace issues and problems. The value afforded to emotions in organizational behavior is increasingly being recognized as it has been proven that negative emotions generally tend to disrupt work. Upset individuals often tend to experience difficulties when attempting to accurately read other’s emotions which reduces their ability to empathize. According to Pahl (2008), the percentage of time that people experience positive emotions at work has been recognized as being one of the strongest predictors of job satisfaction which in turn translates to employee retention for the organization. Emotional Intelligence skills can also help both the female managers in navigating the social complexities of the workplace, in addition, these skills can also be of aid to employees in helping them lead and motivate the other individuals around them, this can further be enhanced by their using of a persuasive management style. It is general knowledge that emotions and moods have a significant effect on our psyche. When individuals including human service workers feel good about themselves and the world around them, they often tend to easily find greater extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. This motivation in turn aids them in better expressing their personalities and in becoming more optimistic and create. According to Assanova and McGuire (2009), emotional intelligence relates to some of the more contemporary motivation theories that are fundamentally based on the evaluation of an individual’s emotional responsiveness and social awareness in given situation. A good example of these theories is the the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and self-efficacy theory. By being emotionally intelligent and aware of emotions and their initial causes can serve to aid women organizational leaders and employees in staying keenly attuned to motivated attitudes while expressing these attitudes and projecting them on others so as to produce better job performance. In addition to this, emotional intelligence also has the added advantage of positively contributing to ethical behavior while creating positive work environments and influencing the job attitudes of employees in a healthy manner (Goleman 1996). Numerous organizations now consider emotional intelligence as being a critically important technical ability and often use it as one of the key evaluation attributes when promoting or hiring employees. Employees that exhibit high degrees of emotional intelligence are able relate and communicate with their coworkers in a more effective manner. They are also able to better manage change, solve problems and built good trust with clients, their employers as well as with fellow employees. The expression of the organizationally desired emotions in the course of work-related interpersonal interactions can at times prove to be rather counter-productive and tiresome for employees. The main challenge is seen to inadvertently arise in the event that employees are forced to project one key emotion while simultaneously attempting to try and feel another emotion which results in emotional labor. Emotional labor has been defined as the suppression or induction of feeling so as to sustain the outer appearance, this effort results in causing other individuals to feel that they are adequately cared for and are in a safe environment (McQueen 2004). Although there are a number of similarities between emotional labor and emotional intelligence, of note is that these are not similar concepts, but rather emotional labor is perceived as calling up and engaging both interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. In order for human services practitioners such as nurses to help patients feel that they are adequately cared for, nurse are required to welcome patients, while acting in a respectful, considerate and polite manner. Their interactions with the patients sees nurses correspond with the patients in a caring manner by providing useful advice and information, administering technical care and engaging in supportive behavior. While at times it might be automatic and reflexive for nurses to be able to engage with their patients at a level where the nurses empathize and feel for their patients, it is at times seen that some interactions will demand intensive emotional work if the nurses are to be able to portray genuine emotional responses to their patients. Such emotional work can at times necessitate that nurses give of themselves which can in turn come at a personal cost to these nurses in terms of their feeling emotionally exhausted and drained. The results of research conducted by Hochschild (2012) shows that women are more likely to successfully engage in emotional labor than men. In the study which was conducted on flight attendants and bill collectors, Hochschild found that female attendants were actually more likely to be dumped upon by angry customers, these customers were also noted as expecting the female attendants to be more caring, more emotionally engaged and friendlier as compared to their male counterparts. This disparity between the two emotions is commonly referred to as emotional dissonance. The emotions that employees are experiencing are their actual emotions; however human services practitioners are often forced to display different sets of emotions from their actual emotions. These displayed emotions are often designed to be in line with organizational requirements that necessitate that workers show emotions that are considered to be appropriate to their given jobs. An example of this is that emotionally intelligent human service and care practitioners need to be able to hide their anger in the event that they happen to be passed over for promotion in addition to being able to display seriousness when giving employees negative performance evaluations. To be able to do this in an effective manner, human services practitioners have to get accustomed to constant acting. This acting by the human services practitioners can be on two distinct levels, the surface and the deep level. Surface acting entails the hiding of an individual’s actual inner feelings and foregoing any emotional expressions as a response to the set display rules. Deep acting on the other hand is seen to entail attempts by the employee to modify their own true inner feelings to be in line with the displayed rules. Whereas deep acting deals with the employees felt emotions, surface acting deals with the employee’s displayed emotions. Assanova and McGuire (2009) point out that research has shown that surface acting has been found to be more stressful to human service practitioners as compared to deep acting primarily due to the fact that it entails the constant feigning of one’s true emotions. Emotional intelligence can aid a human services organization’s employees to acquire the deep acting skills that will help them in effectively coping with work-related burnouts and emotional stress. The results of a number of studies have suggested that emotional intelligence plays a critical role in job performance. In one research study the failures and successes of eleven of America’s presidents - from President Franklin Roosevelt through to Bill Clinton were examined. The study evaluated these presidents based on six key qualities, these qualities were political skill, communication, vision, organizations, emotional intelligence and cognitive style. The results of this study found that emotional intelligence was the key quality that marked the difference between the successful and unsuccessful presidencies. Emotionally intelligent managers and executives are able to understand the exact needs of the employees. This aids them in ensuring that these needs are met in a manner that will promote improved job performance and better workplace satisfaction. These emotionally savvy leaders are able to effectively utilize the emotional diversity of their team members for the benefit of the team as a whole. Conclusion It has always been recognized that human services practitioners constantly engage in emotional labor as part of their professional work. While it is only recently that that the notion surrounding human intelligence has been able to make an appearance in literature, its overall value is quickly becoming acknowledged in human services. Although the empirical research pertaining to emotional intelligence and its impact on women and other employees working in human services and care organizations is constantly increasing, there are found to still be more questions than answers that challenge the attention that is continually being paid to emotional intelligence and performance as well as on emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness (Nafuko, 2009). Emotional intelligence training should be considered as being one of the most critical interventions found to be at the disposal of organizations and by using it, organizations can be able to greatly improve team and individual performance. While the concept of emotional intelligence is continuously developing and evolving, it has however been suggested that the emotional content of human service and care practice and the impact that this has been noted to have on the experiences and actions of human services and care practitioners could greatly benefit from an extensive exploration of the role of emotional intelligence (Ingram 2013). The limited literature pertaining to human services and emotional intelligence may be construed as indicating that there exists a rather uneasy relationship between the traditionally procedural practices of human service and care practitioners and emotions. However, the increasing importance of emotional intelligence suggests that the new challenge for human service and care organizations is not to ignore the critical role played by emotions among their employees but to help in its recognition, incorporation and embracement it into the very profile of the human service and care profession. 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