Emotional intelligence and work performance of executives

Организационная психология. 2012. Т. 2. №4. С. 23-27

ОРГАНИЗАЦИОННАЯ ПСИХОЛОГИЯ

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Emotional Intelligence and work performance of executives

Govind Singh KUSHWAHA

PhD, G.B. Pant University of Technology Agriculture, U S Nagar, India, drgovindsingh@hotmail.com

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among Emotional Intelligence (EI), and work performance of executives. Samples of 160 male executives within the age range of 35 to 55yrs. from BHEL (Haridwar) were selected on random basis. Emotional intelligence scale constructed by Hyde, Pethe and Dhar was used and work performance of the executives was measured by the Performance rating scale constructed by Singh and Pestonjee. Correlation was used for testing the results. The findings of the study revealed that Emotional intelligence has a positively related with the work performance among executives.

Introduction

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is one of the most frequently researched topics in organizational study. EI has been found to be an important predictor of various enviable organizational outcomes, such as job performance (Kafetsios Zampetakis, 2008; Lenaghan, Buda, Eisner, 2007).

Emotional Intelligence was initially proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1990), but it was Goleman (1995) who has popularized the concept. Goleman (1998) defined EI as, “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” Furthermore, he suggested that EI consisted of five general components viz. self-awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The present research has employed the notion of EI which is based upon the conceptualization of EI as proposed by Goleman. The EI model adopted in this study consists of 10 components. The ten components that constitute EI are: (i) self awareness (ii) empathy (iii) self-motivation (iv) emotional stability (v) managing relations (vi) integrity (vii) self-development (viii) value orientation (ix) commitment and (x) altruistic behavior (Hyde, Pethe, Dhar, 2002).

Research conducted in the area of industrial psychology and management has shown that besides predicting organizationally relevant outcomes EI is an important predictor of work performance (Dulewicz and Higgs, 2000). Some studies suggest that emotional intelligence and job performance are positively related. These studies found that emotional intelligence predicts the performance of undergraduate students on a single task (Lam and Kirby, 2002), the classroom performance of managers and professionals (Sue-Chan and Latham, 2004), the collection performance of account officers (Bachman et al., 2000), sales performance (Wong, Law, and Wong, 2004), and supervisory

Организационная психология. 2012. Т. 2. №4

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ratings of job performance (Law, Wong, and Song, 2004). Another study found that the emotional intelligence of teams of students predicts the performance of these teams at the initial stages of a project (Jordan et al., 2002).

Emotional intelligence may contribute to work performance (as reflected in salary, salary increase, and company rank) by enabling people to nurture positive relationships at work, work effectively in teams, and make social capital. Work performance often depends on the support, advice, and other resources provided by others (Seibert, Kraimer Liden, 2001). Emotional intelligence may also contribute to work performance by enabling people to regulate their emotions so as to cope effectively with stress, perform well under pressure, and adjust to organizational change. Other emotional abilities, such as perceiving and understanding emotions, also contribute indirectly to the quality of emotional experience by helping people to identify and interpret cues that inform selfregulatory action. Therefore emotional intelligence should contribute to positive affect and attitudes at work.

Besides this, there are very few studies that have explored the relationship between EI and work performance. Therefore, to mitigate the lack of empirical research on these topics, the present research has been proposed to explore the relationship between EI and work performance among the employees in India.

The study was conducted on a sample of 160 male executives. Data were collected via face-to-face interaction from executives in BHEL Haridwar. The executives in the sample were 40 to 55 years old.

Measures

Emotional intelligence scale (EIS): developed by Dhar, Hyde and Pethe (2002) is a Likert-type scale consisting of 34 items scale with ten dimension and five response alternatives, which includes ten factors: self-awareness, empathy, self motivation, emotional stability, managing relations, integrity, self-development, value-orientation, commitment and altruistic behavior. The reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be .88. The scale was administered on 200 executives and the scores obtained were subjected to factor analysis and ten factors were identified. These are:

• Self-awareness This factor is the strongest and explains 26.8 percent variance and has a total factor load of 2.77.

• Empathy This factor explains 7.3 percent variance with a total factor load of 3.11.

• Self motivation This factor accounts for 6.3 percent variance and a total factor load is 3.28.

• Emotional stability This factor explains 6.0 percent variance with a total factor load of 2.51.

• Managing relations This factor explains 5.3 percent variance with a total factor load of 2.38.

• Integrity This factor explains 4.6 percent variance with a total factor load of 1.88

• Self development It explains 4.1 percent variance with a total factor load of 1.37.

• Value orientation It explains 4.1 percent variance with a total factor load of 1.29.

• Commitment This factor accounts for 3.6 percent variance with a total factor load of 1.39.

• Altruistic behaviour This factor accounts for 3.0 percent variance with a total factor load of 1.3.

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Job Performance Scale (JPS): developed by Singh and Pestonjee (1988) is a Likert-type scale consisting of 14 items with five response alternatives. The immediate senior is required to rate how a particular subordinate was doing on various job areas. The authors of the scale established a fairly high Cronback&s alpha, i.e., 0.89.

Table 1 presents the correlations between the study variables. Hypothesis 1 proposes that there is a positive relationship between EI and work performance. The results of the study presented in Table 1 indicate that the ten dimensions of EI, exhibit positive and significant relationship with work performance. Correlation coefficients of 0.37, 0.50, 0.47, 0.32, 0.34, 0.44, 0.26, 0.33, 0.32 and 0.48 (p < 0.01) are found between self-awareness, empathy, self-motivation, emotional stability, managing relations, integrity, self development, value orientation, commitment, altruistic behaviour and work performance, respectively.

Table 1. Inter-correlations among the Study Variables (N = 160)

Note: ** - p < 0.01; * - p < 0.05

Discussion and Conclusion

The major objective of the present research is to explore the relationship between EI, and work performance, and it also aims to investigate the influence of EI on work performance. The key finding of this study is that executives& emotional intelligence can be important for their work performance. The study reveals emotional intelligence factors, which are predictive of work performance of executives. Results are in favor of emotional intelligent executives as they are having emotional competency which give them a realistic confidence to perceive challenges. As a result, they constantly grow and improve their quality, and the work performance. Study conducted by Goleman (1998) and Mayer, Selovey and Caruso (1998) emphasize that emotional intelligence by itself is probably not a strong predictor of job performance. Instead it provides a foundation for emotional competencies which are strong predictor of job performance They are more creative and practical towards emotional prompts elicited from the inner self and the immediate environment and try to manipulate the ongoing environment to their advantage by reacting appropriately which enhances their ability to handle different jobs, they take much care in handling company, and also have a better

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planning ability. As they have developed an accurate and better vision for their task they are less dependable and are able to work properly even without supervision. This finding is supported by (Khokhar Kush, 2009) that executives having higher emotional intelligence show better quality of work performance as compared to their counterparts. Highly emotionally intelligent executives are more punctual and take maximum initiatives on the job, they put much amount of efforts to expended their job and have better work performance as compared to their counterparts. Results also favor the same and this finding was also supported by Len Tischler et al (2002) he examined the linking emotional intelligence, spirituality and work place performance and displayed a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and work place success and also by (Cooper and Sawaf, 1997; Megerian and Sosik, 1996; Wright and Staw, 1999) according to them Emotional intelligence has also evoked a keen interest among practitioners because of its wide applicability to a host of work place issues including job satisfaction, absenteeism, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship Emotional intelligence has been identified as one of the important behavioral constructs considered to be a major contributor to performance (Goleman, 1995; Goleman, 1998).

The study has implications for research and industrial practice. Entrepreneurship scholars may like to consider using the entrepreneur&s emotional intelligence as crucial elements of work performance. In entrepreneurial practice it may be useful for entrepreneurs to recognize the importance of their emotional intelligence for work performance and in cases of poorly fitting emotional intelligence characteristics consider decisions to include better emotional intelligence fitting persons in their entrepreneurial teams. In addition, entrepreneurship policymakers may like to consider promoting and enhancing emotional intelligence factors early on in the educational system among children, teens and young adults, who may still have the potential for alterations in their emotional intelligence.

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