Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence Model: A Summary
The term Emotional Intelligence was first coined by Salovey and Mayer (1989) as “a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.” Thus it can be referred to as the capacity of an individual to comprehend one’s own feelings and identify the emotions of the others and utilizing the knowledge to motivate oneself and manage relationships with others.
There exist many theories and models that further build upon the ideas presented by Mayer and Salovey. One of such models is that of Daniel Goldman. Daniel Goleman defined the term EI more broadly than Mayer and included competencies like optimism, conscientiousness, motivation, empathy and social competence (Singh, 2008). It was Goleman (1995) who first argued in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ’ that measure of emotional intelligence was more important than the measure of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) for accurately determining real world success. Goleman said that while IQ was just a measure of academic excellence and one needed EI so as to be able to be a master effectively perform his/her duties and succeed in an organization. He believed that EI could be built and learnt whereas IQ remains relatively fixed.
Goleman’s (1995) model of Emotional intelligence talks about five key concepts that each individual attains. They are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill (Bihm, 2010). The five concepts could be rearranged in two groups of competencies- personal and social. While self-awareness, self-regulation and motivation are personal competencies, empathy and social skill fall under the social competence branch.
In his paper ‘What makes a leader’ Goleman (1998) applied his model as an essential element of leadership and argued it to be the most important quality over others in defining a good leader. He applied the five components of Emotional Intelligence at work.
Self-awareness is defined as the one’s ability to recognize and understand his or her moods, emotions, and drives, as well as their effect on others (Goleman, 1998). People with high levels of self-awareness can correlate their thoughts better and recognize which emotions are partly involved in influencing their decision. Such individuals know their strengths and weaknesses very well. The hallmarks of an individual with higher degree of self-awareness include being self-confident, offering realistic assessments of one’s abilities, openness to criticism and potentials and self-deprecating humor.
Self-regulation refers to the person’s ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods (Goleman, 1998). In other words, it can also be referred to as the ability to think before acting. Self-regulation is built on the trait of self-awareness as it impossible to manage one’s emotions before accurately identifying them. An example of self-regulation is that if a person is upset, he realizes it takes responsibility for his actions that follow such emotions. Individuals armed with the ability of self-regulation are trustworthy and high on integrity. They are open and prepared to change for the better and are comfortable with ambiguity.
Motivation is a competence that dictates the individual’s will to work for and achieve a target. The reasons for achieving of the goals should be larger than monetary benefits or status. Such individuals strive towards the accomplishment of targets with enthusiasm, energy and persistence. Impulse is a component of motivation and points towards the person’s self control and provides a rationale for his behavior. Motivated individuals can be identified as being optimists and fully committed towards the organization. They possess strong drive to achieve and are not easily perturbed by small and momentary failures.
Empathy has been described as the person’s ability to understand the emotions and feelings of others and treat them according to their emotional reactions. Many refer to empathy as an art and it is this ability that successful relationships can be built. A successful relationship would require individuals to understand one another, be good listeners, cooperation, handle conflict and resolving of disputes. The empathetic leader in an organization can best retain the talent, offer superior service to the clients and be sensitive to other cultures than his own.
Social Skills are built upon the empathy. Such skills enable building of networks in the workplace and efficiently manage relationships. The social skill also helps in finding common ground for groups or teams to act on and builds rapport between the individuals in a team. High levels of social skills can be experienced effectively bringing about a change within the organization, persuasiveness and expertise in building teams.
Of all the concepts identified in building a higher level of Emotional Intelligence, I personally believe that Empathy is the most important challenge to overcome. Personal competence in Emotional Intelligence can get only you to perform effectively and efficiently as an individual. The success of an organization hinges on the success of the team or a group. It is only after every individual in a team performs his/her tasks effectively and the team as a collective unit excels that an organization has the scope to be successful. Thus it is important to be able to help the team members so as to the organization is successful as a whole. Thus success of the individual is largely dependent on the success of the group, thus making social competence to be of higher significance. Since social skills can be built only upon the virtues of empathy, I believe that it is this quality without which an individual and the organization cannot expect to achieve any degree of success.
The ways in which an individual high on empathy can contribute to the success of an organization is multi-dimensional. Grant (2011) in his research found that a scholarship recipient on building a contact with fundraising callers led to increase in the number of calls made and the money generated. This way the end user through a simple display of appreciation for their work and the impact they have had on him could lead to inspire the workers in performing even better. Thus showing of empathy by the end users towards the employees led to increase in productivity. Also it has been well documented that the reason for high employee turnover in an organization is due to low levels of employee satisfaction and poor relations with superiors. Empathetic leaders are thus best placed to retain the talents while also providing superior service to the clients with utmost humility. Therefore to be successful as an individual and within the organization, I believe empathy is the most important competency.
References
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
Goleman, D. (1998). What makes a leader?. Harvard Business Review, 76(6), 93-102.
Grant, A. M. (2011). HOW CUSTOMERS CAN RALLY YOUR TROOPS. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 96-103.
Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1989). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition And Personality, 9(3), 185-211.
Singh, K. (2008). Emotional Intelligence & Work Place Effectiveness. Indian Journal Of Industrial Relations, 44(2), 292-302.
