Organizational Behavior – Introduction

What is behavior?

Behavior is made of word behave means “act or conduct oneself in a specified or certain way.”

Behave is made of be+have means “bear onself in a particular way”.

Behaviour is the way in which someone or something behaves

Behavior is aggregate of the responses or reaction or movement made by organism or individual or group to an action, environment, person or stimulus in any situation.

Overt and Covert behavior.

Overt means “out in the open” easily observable and measurable. Overt behaviour is any bodily action that persons can directly and sensorily observe. Some examples of overt behaviour include walking, dancing, running, using body language such as hand gestures and facial expressions.

Covert means hidden not easily or immediately observable measurable. Covert behaviour is any mental, social, or physical action or practice that is not immediately observable. Some examples of covert behaviour include deception and lying, systemic discriminatory practices against certain social groups, and political candidates omitting important information to make their case seem strong.

Organization:

 An organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as a business or government department.  

A social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals.

So  Organisational behaviour is systematic study of human beahviour both overt and covert at work place to understand analyse and prediction of behabour to channelize  utilize and manage the people in order to achieve predetermined organizational goal.

Why study human behavior in organization?

• Humans may be physically alike but not behaviourally. In fact, the same person behaves differently in different situations. So understanding human behavior in organsation helps us to devise strategy to predict and mange human behavior in work setting in organistion.
• Human behavior is complex and dynamic. The study of human behavior helps to understand varied and diversified behavior of a person or groups and takes steps to unify to diversified behavioral aspects of person and diversified groups and channelize these unified behavioral aspects towards the fulfillment of organizational strategies and goals.
• Most of organizations realized that the diversified behavior and skills of persons are the most important assets and strength of organization. And if it is properly managed, it can be channelized towards accomplishment of organizational goal.
• Lasting competitive advantages can be realized through its people’s diversified skills, knowledge, attitude, innovativeness, creativity and problem solving capabilities. If it is not properly managed organization cannot survive in long run and lag behind in competitions.
• Research study says that effective human resource management has positive impact on productivity and financial performance of company. Thus understanding diversified behavior of person and group, we can unify this behavior according to the requirement of organization and direct it towards the realization of organizational strategy and to make oraganisation successful.

Individual differences:

• Humans may be physically alike but not behaviorally. Individuals differ from one to another within the broad spectrum.
• Individual behaviour is a complex phenomenon. We should understand the total human being by studying  the total man concept.
• Some individuals attach importance to extrinsic rewards while some other individuals attach to intrinsic rewards.
• Some individuals prefer challenging and risky jobs while others prefer routine and secure jobs.
• Some people prefer salaries linked to performance while others prefer uniform salaries for all irresp  ective of their performance.
• Some people differ in the type of compensation plan they want or desire. Some people like to work under time wage system some like piece wage system
• People differ in style of supervision and autonomy in decision making
• People differ in their preferred schedule of work hour.
• Similarly people do also differ in tolerance for tension, stress and ambiguity. Thus, individuals differ from each other within a broad spectrum.

Factors Affecting Individual Differences

The factors that influence individual differences are classified into three categories

Hereditary

• Age
• Sex
• Physiological
• Psychological

Environment

• Physical Factors
• Socio-cultural Factors
• Economic Factors       

Situational

• Organisational
• Job Variables

Now, we shall discuss these factors.

(i) Hereditary Factors:

Even two people do not have identical heredity. Hereditary factors include physiological factors and psychological factor.

 Physiological factors includes height, weight, skin colour and other physiological factors

Psychological variables include perception learning, leadership, motivation, attitudes, values, emotions, etc.

(ii) Environmental Factors:

 Environmental factors include physical factors socio-cultural factors and economic factors.

Physical Factors:

Physical factors include climate, demographical factors etc.

People live under diverse physical conditions.

The body structure and facial, skin colour, hair etc. Vary from one geographical area to the other.

Structures of the people vary based on the physical factors. Eating habits, dressing habits and other cultural factors depend upon the physical factors.

Socio-cultural Factors:

The socio-cultural factors include the family, neighborhood, School, college, university working place and other social groups and institutions transmitting socio-cultural values, attitudes, likes and dislikes, aspirations, moral standards, living habits, eating habits, dressing habits, treating others etc.

Economic Factors:

Economic position of a person influences different aspects of his development viz., Physical, motivational, emotional, social, education, living, career, interacting with others etc.

(iii) Situational Factors:

 Situational varia bles affecting individual differences include: type of organisation or institution,  organizational structure, type of supervision, training received, type of incentives, social and cultural environment at workplace,nature of job, methods of work, work design, conditions of equipment and machinery and physical work environment.

 Thus, Individual differences are the result of the interactive product of hereditary, environmental and situational factors.            .

Implications of Individual Differences

The individual differences result in variations in individual behaviour and performance in terms of perception, personality, motivation and other behavioural issues.

Further, different jobs need different job behaviours. Individuals with different behavioural patterns are essential to p erform the jobs which need varied behaviours.

So for a manager, the understanding of individual diofference  based on individual variable id important to undersatnad the different behavior pattern caused by by different factors to achive desired beahviour from individual by treating them differently.

 A research study conducted at the Texas Instruments establishes that different types of individuals prefer different behaivoural and managerial patterns.

They are:

• Tribalistic: This category of people prefer directive, strong leadership from their boss     
• Ego-Centric: This category of people desire to work alone in their own entrepreneurial style
• Socio-Centric: This category people seek social relationship from their job
• Existential: This category of people strive for satisfying the growth and self-fulfilment needs from their jobs.

Model of man

Management should understand the individual differences in order to understand their behaviours and assign the appropriate jobs to the individuals based on their behaviour.

 The different models of man help to understand the individual differences further. Managers try to understand individual differences in order to understand human behavior and assign different jobs to different people. In other words, managers understand individual differences in order to make a balance between the individual behavior and job demands.

 Managers make assumptions about man while understanding their differences. These assumptions resulted in developing various models of man.

Schein and William H. Whyte Jr. have developed seven models of man viz.,

 (i) Economic Man, (ii) Social Man, (iii) Organization Man, (iv) Self-Actualising Man, (v) Complex Man, (vi) Impulsive Man, and (vii) Compulsive Man

Now, we shall discuss these models.

Economic Man

This model is built around the assumptions that man behaves based on his income levels or salary levels, works more and better when his/her wage/salary is more and works less when the wage/salary is low.

 He or she starts making contributions to the job only when salary/incentive is assured.

In addition, man evaluates the cost of his efforts, to the value of the salary. He compares the cost and return and prefers to contribute to the job when the return is more than the cost of his contributions. Further, he also evaluates the available alternative income sources for his efforts and selects that alternative sources which yields highest income. Thus, the man prefers to maximise his satisfaction level through monetary emoluments.

Organisation can predict human behaviour though controlloing economic incentives.

Social Man

Man is a social animal. Man lives in and along with the society. He cannot live in isolation. He prefers to create and develop social relations with other members of the society like affiliation, belongingness, acceptance by the others, association with others etc. Individuals would like to satisfy their social needs. As such individuals can be motivated by satisfying their social needs.

Man values the social relationship more than the control by the management through economic incentives.

Management can motivate the individuals by satisfying their social needs only.

Managements should design the jobs in such a way that they provide the opportunity to the employees to satisfy their social needs.

Organisation Man

People live in the society by cooperating, associating and interacting with other members of the society. Similarly employees in an organisation work and live along with others by cooperating, interacting and associating with others. Thus, an organisation man is committed and loyal to the organisation, works and lives along with others by involving, interacting and associating with others. Thus, organisation man model is an extension to social man model. William Whyte developed this model.

According to this model, individuals sacrifice their needs for group needs and organisational requirements.

Henry Fayol’s principle of subordination of individual interest to the general interest supports this model. Social ethics and social responsibilities guide the individuals in sacrificing their needs for the achievement of organisational needs.

Assumptions: According to William Whyte social ethics guide organisation man based on the following assumptions:

Group and collaborative activities contribute for creativity. Individual by himself can not be creative. In other words, the interactive and collaborative work is more meaningful as it has synergitical impact i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of the individual contributions.

Man prefers to live and work along with others as his belonging and affiliation needs are ultimate.

Individual and social needs are balanced by eliminating the conflicts between them by creating an organisation and also by applying scientific methods.

Self-actualizing Man

Individual employees are satisfied when they achieve something different and create certain special things by using their capabilities, potentialities and distinctive abilities.

This model criticises that organisations assign the work to individuals which may not be challenging and creative, and as such organisation man cannot be satisfied. Similarly, this model also criticises the social man on the ground that employees are not satisfied with the group and social relations. Thus, this model specifies that employee behaviour depends upon the challenging creative work which exploits employee potentialities. Employees are satisfied most when they achieve and create something special. Self-actualising man behave constructively and efficiently.        

Assumptions: The assumptions of self-actualisation model include:

The human needs are hierarchical in the order of physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualisation needs. People satisfy their needs-one after the other. They get ultimate satisfaction when they satisfy their self-actualisation needs. Satisfied needs are no more motivators. Therefore, self-actualisation needs provide greatest satisfaction to the employees.

Employee behaviour is changed from one level of needs to the another level of needs.

External incentives and controls do not affect the employees as human beings are self motivated and self-controlled.

There would be conflict between organisation man and self-actualisation man.

Complex Man

Various models of man discussed earlier analyse the man from only one aspect or the other. All these models could not specify the human behaviour independently.

Predicting and managing human behaviour is a complex task as complex variables determine human behaviour. Further, the actual human behaviour may not be in accordance with the established cause-effect relationship. Thus, human behaviour is quite complex and it is more unpredictable.

Assumptions: This model is built based on the following assumption:

Man is motivated by a complex variables and factors. These complex variables include physiological, psychological, social, political, religious, climatic and geographical factors.

Interaction of the man with the organisation enables the employee to learn motives.

Variations in terms of need pattern, behaviour, direction and control exist among people.

Human behaviour can not be understood, even though the needs are understood due to the absence of cause-effect relationship.

Man can behave differently in similar situations due to the absence of cause- effect relationship.

This model establishes that complex man presents human behaviour.

Impulsive man

According to this concept, man acts and reacts immediately and quickly. The impelling forces result in sudden inclination to act.

The impulsive forces make the man to act suddenly without thinking rationally. It would be highly difficult to predict the behaviour of impulsive man.

Compulsive Man

A number of factors viz., social factors, cultural factors, political factors, economic factors, natural factors affect human behaviour. In addition, the personality factors of other persons particularly superiors, subordinates and colleagues, company policies, rules and regulations, customers and other stockholders’ behaviour affect the behaviour of an employee.  

Compulsive man does not act or react quickly. He takes into consideration the influence of various factors, situations and personalities, collect the necessary data and information, analyse the interactive output of these factors, analyses the consequences of this output and behaves in a more desirable way. Thus, the behaviour of individuals is compulsive.

Withdrawal Patterns of Subordinates

Subordinates are delegated with the responsibility and authority. They are naturally accountable for their activities. Globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation resulted in severe competition. The competition led the subordinates to achieve the targets and benchmarks in the limited span of time. Some subordinates are unable to achieve their targets due to high competition and prefer to withdraw from the job. In addition, subordinates fail to act and behave as per the expectations of the superiors. Subordinates prefer to withdraw from the situation when they fail to meet the expectations of the superiors, job and the company.

Thus, globalisation along with information technology make the jobs competitive

and challenging. This, results in increase in withdrawal behaviours of Some

employees and enhance the job satisfaction of others.

Implications of Models of Man to Human Behaviour

As discussed earlier, the different models of man indicate various diversified

characteristics. These varied characteristics result in diversified human behaviour.

This in turn, influence the behaviour of the people at work in organisation. In addition, the process of globalisation results in conglomeration of people with diversified culture in one organisation, which in turn, complicates understanding of human behaviour. Added to this, the strides in information technology led to the complexity of understanding human behaviour.

Having studied the human behaviour in general, now we shall study the human behaviour related to organisations.

What is OB?

John W. Newstrom and Keith Davis define the term organisational behaviour as, “the study and application of knowledge about how people as individuals and as groups – act within organisations. It strives to identify ways in which people can act more effectively.”

This definition deals with the behaviour of the people as individuals and as members of groups within the organisations. It also deals with diverting the human behaviour towards organisational requirements.

Stephen R Robbins defines organisational behaviour as

“a field of study that investigates the-impact-that individuals, groups and structures have on behaviour within organisations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organisation’s effectiveness.”

This definition deals with the development of knowledge regarding the behaviour caused by individuals, groups and structures in an organisation. It also deals with utilization of such knowledge for “enhancing organisational effectiveness.

Steven L. McShane and Mary Ann Von Glinow define organisational behaviour as “the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organisations.”

The authors view that organisational behaviour includes the study of the impact of individual, team and structural characteristics on behaviour in organisations and understanding and predicting the impact of these behaviours on organisational success.

Fred Luthans defines organisational behaviour as “the understanding, prediction and management of human behaviour in organisations.”

Contributing discipline to OB

Organisational behaviour is a multidiscipline and applied behavioural science. OB is derived from and built upon a number of behavioural disciplines

The important among them are: Psychology Sociology, Social Psychology, Anthropology,  Political Science, Technology, Management and Economics

Psychology

Psychology is science of mind and behavior.

Psychology contributes maximum inputs to organisational behaviour.

Psychology studies, predict and manage the behaviour of human beings and animals.

 The psychological concepts relevant to organisational behaviour include:

• Perception       • Emotions
• Personality      • Leadership
• Motivation      • Values
• Learning          • Attitudes
• Job satisfaction

Psychology helps to understand individual behaviour and interpersonal behaviour.

Sociology

Sociology is study of human social life and group and society.

Sociology also made significant contributions to organisational behaviour. Sociology studies the human beings in groups. The contributions of sociology to organisational behaviour include:

• Group Dynamics         • Organisation Theory
• Team work                  • Organsiation Design
• Communication          • Organisation Change
• Power and Politics      • Intergroup conflict and behaviour

Social Psychology

Social psychology is the blend of psychology and certain sociology concepts. Contributions of social psychology to organisational behaviour include:

• Attitude change          • Communication
• Group process • Group decision-making

Anthropology

Anthropology is scientific study of the origin, behavior, physical, social and cultural development of human.

Anthropology studies the societies in order to understand the human beings an their activities. The contributions of Anthropology to organisational behaviour include:  

• Cross culture               • Comparative values
• Comparative attitudes            • Organisational culture
• Organisational environment

Political Science

 Politics is art and science of methods or tactics involved in managing and governing the internal or external conflicting interrelationships among the people in the society.

It is social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and analysis of political behavior.

Political Science studies predict and manage the behavior of individuals and groups in the political environment. The contributions of political science to organisational behavior include:

• Structuring conflict     • Allocation of power
• Political behaviour

Technology

Technology is application of knowledge. Technology influences the human behaviour directly and significantly by influencing job designs, relationship between employees, machinery, organisational structure, working styles of employees etc.. The contribution of technology to organisational behaviour include:

• Perception                   • Work environment
• Communication          • Team work

Information technology still makes phenomenal contributions to organisational behaviour. They include:

• Team Dynamics          • Decision-making
• Communication          • Knowledge Management

Management

Management is getting things done by the people. In other words, people are directed and motivated to get the things done. Thus management contributes to organisational behaviour in building decision -making models, communication patterns, leadership styles etc. Management contributions to OB include:

• Decision-Making         • Communication
• Leadership                  • Organisational Structure
• Motivation

Predict the behavioural requirements of organisational strategies and

Manage the behaviour towards the strategic requirements.

Economics

Economics is social science that analyses the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.

Economics is the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses. The contribution of Economics to OB includes:

• Motivation      • Decision-making
• Learning

Thus, various disciplines contribute to the development of organizational behaviour as a multi-discipline.

Scope of OB

OB is the study of human behavior at work in organizations.

Human  Behaviour can be studied at the individual level, interpersonal level, group level and intergroup level

Accordingly to the scope of OB it includes the study of Individuals, Groups  And Organization structure

Individual level

Organization is the association of Individuals. Individuals differ in many respects. These includes: Personality, Attitude, Perception, Learning and Motivation.

PERSONALITY  Personality is the combination of Inner and Outer Quality of a Human Being interacting with each other. Here OB helps the organization to Perceive the Employee Personality towards the Organization.

ATTITUDE  Attitude is a Action or Tendency to Behave Positively or Negatively towards a Certain Idea, Person or Situation.
Tere OB helps to Perceive how a Employee Develop and Change their Attitudes towards the Organization.

PERCEPTION Perception is the process of receiving information andmaking sense of the world around us. OB helps in deciding which information to notice, how to categorize the information and how to interpret it within the framework of existing knowledge.

LEARNING Learning is defined as “a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.” OB helps the Employee in Modification of their Behavior through Practice or Training.

MOTIVATION It is an Internal energy which Energies a Person or Employee to complete his/her Activity. Here OB helps in Motivating the Ability to Change the Behavior of a Person or a Employee.

GROUP LEVEL

GROUP : An organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual and organizational goals. A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that function on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Or in a simple Manner Group is a collection of Two or more Individuals to achieve a common goal.

GROUP INCLUDES

Leadership: Leader is a person who influences the activities of his or her subordinates. Leader is a person who takes initiatives, risks to achieve the overall organizational Goal.

Power :- Power is a Exercise of Authority with or without the consent of others.

GROUP CONFLICTS: Any disagreements or misunderstandings between Two Person or Two Groups is known as Group Conflict.

GROUP DYNAMICS: Individual behavior is influenced by the presence of others. Studies have found that individuals work harder and faster when others are present. And when more than 2 individuals are present they become a group. It means Improving the Relationship Between the Group Members.

Organizational Level

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE: Organizational structure refers that how the work of individuals and teams within an organization is
coordinated.

It is a valuable tool in achieving coordination, as it specifies reporting relationships and describes how separate actions of individuals are linked together.

organizational climate : An organizational climate refers to the conditions within an organization as viewed by its employees. The word climate usually describes the practices involved in communication, conflict, leadership and rewards.

Organizational Culture: The Believe, Tradition, Rules, Custom that Employee Follow in the Organization is known as Organizational Culture.

Organizational Change: It helps in changing the attitude of the employees to accept new technologies, ideas or concept.

Organizational Development: It helps in developing people and Organization to achieve long term objectives.

Organizational design : Organizational design is a step-by-step methodology which identifies dysfunctional aspects of work flow, procedures, structures and systems, realigns them to fit current business realities/goals and then develops plans to implement the new changes. … 

S-O-B-C

Process of Behavior

• If we assume that behavior is caused, and this assumption is true, behavior takes place in the form of a process.
• Based on the analysis of behavior process over period of time, three models of behavior process have been developed. These are S-R model, S-O-R model, and S-O-B-C model. S-R Model S-R model of human behavior suggests that the behavior is caused by certain reasons.
• S-O-B-C stands for Stimulus, Organism(a person), Behavior and Consequence.
• It helps to understand the  process of behaviour
• Organization Behaviour  is always vitally concerned with understanding, predicting and controlling of human behaviour for improved organization performance.
• O.B. mostly deals with the overt kinds of behaviour which are directly observable or measurable.
• A model specifies the variables and how they relate to each other. S-O-B-C is a model which helps to understand, predict and control O.B. on the basis of managing the contingent (conditional) environment.
• This model is useful for identify  the major variable in OB and show how they relate on another

• Stimulus (S):   is any event that happens in the environment, it can be a sound (like someone shouting) a scene (a car accident, a fight. etc…), events (like receiving a paycheck).

• Organism (O): Here organism means  a person, so in OB you can consider that to be an employee or an employer. It includes specifically cognitive process. It includes his perception,  Personality,  Motivation

• Behavior (B):   the organism behavior and response in regards to the stimulus    ( for example a child (Organism) may hit (Behavior) his brother after seeing a violent movie(Stimulus).

• Consequence (C):  is the the outcome that comes after the behavior, it either reinforces (thus repeated) the behavior or punished (thus not repeated). In the child example previously mentioned, his mother can reprimand (Consequence: punishment) him for doing what he did.

S-O portion deal with understanding  and B-C portion deals with prediction and control.

Introduction to Emotional Intelligence

Intelligence, IQ and EQ

Intelligence is ability to understand and process the input information from various sources and to bring out respective desired level of outcome. Intelligence is “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations, the skilled use of reason and the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria.” 

Ever since the first intelligence test was made by French psychologist Alfred Binet in 1905 and the term “Intelligence Quotient” was coined by American psychologist Lewis Terman in 1916. IQ has been the most discussed topic across the globe. Although there is no argument over the fact that a person who has a high IQ is considered as a genius. The concept of IQ is measured as a ratio. It compares an individual’s ‘chronological age’ with his/her ‘mental age’. For example, if a person’s mental age is 30 and chronological age is 20, then his/her IQ is 150. The average intelligence of the majority of people is 100, that is, their mental age equals their chronological age (the actual age). It measures the mathematical and logical powers of an individual. IQ is something you are born with and there is little chance to increase IQ level to a greater extent.

Since last many decades person’s IQ level was considered a major factor in his development and success in his managerial and executive life. But despite his high IQ level many people fail to succeed up to desired level of performance effectiveness. As a result in recent years many researcher and psychologist believed that IQ is not an ultimate predictor of success in personal and professional life.

Notion of intelligence has been extended and defined for other areas or aspects of our lives, such as social intelligence, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, and positive intelligence.  Out of these aspects of intelligence emotional intelligence is considered as most important one that defines manager’s effectiveness more accurately.

It is based on the fact that man, he feels more than he thinks or reason. Emotion is a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Emotions are specific and intense psychological and physical reactions to a particular event.

It is any of the particular feelings that characterize such a state of mind, such as joy, anger, love, hate, fear, likes and dislikes. Emotional Intelligence is used interchangeably with EQ denotes ‘Emotional Quotient’ a term derived from ‘Intelligence Quotient’ (IQ).

Emotional intelligence can be defined as knowing what feels good, what feels bad, and how

to get from bad to good. A more formal academic definition refers to emotional awareness and emotional management skills, which enable you to balance emotion and reason so as to maximise your long-term happiness and success. Emotional intelligence includes qualities such as self-awareness, ability to manage moods, motivation, empathy and social skills like cooperation and leadership.

 According to Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. Emotional intelligence describes abilities distinct from, but complementary to, academic intelligence or the purely cognitive capacities measured by IQ.

Emotional intelligence examples

Two people had a fight with their boss at work. One of them was emotionally intelligent and the other wasn’t.

On returning to their homes the first, who wasn’t emotionally intelligent, started shouting at his children. This guy acted based on his emotions without thinking about them in an emotionally intelligent way.

when the second person returned home and found that the kids were noisy he just told himself, “well, why should I shout at the kids, they are not the ones to blame for my feelings, they always make that loud noise while playing. The main reason i am feeling bad is because of my boss”

That person recognized his emotions, thought about them, then acted in an emotionally intelligent way

According to the proponents of emotional intelligence (EQ), a person’s emotional make-up largely determines his or her professional success. They believe that EQ is the most important determinant of the extent of professional and personal success in life. It is interesting to note that so many people with high IQ fail whereas those with less intellectual endowment are extremely successful. Even in certain renowned business establishments, where people are trained to be smart, the most valued and productive managers are those who have a high emotional intelligence level, and not necessarily those with the highest IQ. Such examples abound in business, politics, academia and administration.

It is increasingly recognised that IQ may account for only about 20 per cent of a person’s success in life. The remaining 80 per cent depends largely on a person’s emotional intelligence.It is said that in the corporate world a person is recruited on the basis of his or her IQ, but is promoted on the grounds of his or her EQ. These new rules predict who is most likely to become a successful manager and who is most prone to failure.

Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved throughout life. In the normal course of a lifetime, emotional intelligence tends to increase as you learn to be more aware of your moods, to effectively handle distressing emotions, and to listen and empathise. In short, as you become more mature, you can acquire certain emotional competencies that lead to outstanding performance at work.

Emotion is a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling. A state of mental agitation or disturbance. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility.

Negative and positive emotions

Some of the negative emotions which require emotional management and regulation are anger, failure, fear, disappointment, frustration, obligation, guilt, resentment, emptiness, bitterness, dependence, depression, loneliness and lethargy.

Similarly, positive emotions such as motivation, appreciation, friendship, self-control, satisfaction, freedom, fulfillment, autonomy, peace, desire, awareness, contentment, elation and happiness can be used effectively as and when the situation demands

Significance of High EQ

People with high EQ are happier, healthier and more successful in their relationships. These people strike a balance between emotion and reason, are aware of their own feelings, show empathy and compassion for others, and have high self-esteem. Emotional intelligence can be instrumental in many situations in the workplace and can help achieve organisational effectiveness.

On the basis of advanced research on the requirements of a CEO’s office, psychologists concluded that in the fast-changing corporate environment you need more than just brains to run your business. You also need high EQ for making the right decisions and solving problems. Some of the immediate benefits of high EQ are that it can lead to increased productivity, enhanced leadership skills, improved responsiveness and greater creativity. It can also create an enthusiastic work environment, reduce stress levels and resolve emotional issues, improve the well-being of employees and improve relationships all round. EQ can enable employees to resolve past issues and both external as well as internal conflicts, help them attain emotional power and accomplish their goals at all levels physical, mental, emotional and spiritual and improve psychological abilities such as memory, clarity of thinking and decision making.

Components of EQ

The ability to solve the problems in our lives is all dependent on our emotional Intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is a combination of competencies. These skills contribute to a person’s ability to manage and monitor his or her own emotions, to correctly gauge the emotional state of others and to influence opinions (Caudron, 1999; Goleman, 1998). Goleman describes a model of five dimensions. Each area has its own set of behavioral attributes as follows.

1. Self-awareness is the ability to recognize a feeling as it happens, to accurately perform self-assessments and have self-confidence. It is the keystone of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995).
2. Self-management or self-regulation is the ability to keep disruptive emotions and impulses in check (self-control), maintain standards of honesty and integrity (trustworthiness), take responsibility for one’s performance (conscientiousness), handle change (adaptability), and be comfortable with novel ideas and approaches (innovation).
3. Motivation is the emotional tendency guiding or facilitating the attainment of goals. It consists of achievement drive (meeting a standard of excellence), commitment (alignment of goals with the group or organization), initiative (acting on opportunities), and optimism (persistence reaching goals despite setbacks).
4. Empathy is the understanding of others by being aware of their needs, perspectives, feelings, concerns, sensing the developmental needs of others.
5. Social skills are fundamental to emotional intelligence. They include the ability to induce desirable responses in others by using effective diplomacy to persuade (influence); listen openly and send convincing messages (communicate); inspire and guide groups and individuals (leadership); nurture instrumental relationships (building bonds); work with others toward a shared goal (collaboration, cooperation); and create group synergy in pursuing collective goals.