Case study on motivational initiatives and emotional intelligence

In case of applying motivational initiatives and emotional intelligence in the workplace, let us relate some acquired literature in emotional intelligence and how it explains to performance and competence in the workplace. The first set of studies present significant relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational performance. We have shown that high performers have considerably higher Emotional Quotients than low performers and vice versa and studies show that high performers are more emotionally intelligent than low performers.

When utilized in our study, this would imply that employees and management personnel that are high performers are also emotionally intelligent and that they are able to further control their emotions and utilize it effectively. In addition, the study was also able to conclude that emotionally intelligent individuals are expected to perform better in the workplace than other people; as such employees with high levels of emotional intelligence and are highly motivated are predicted to perform better and maintain a stable emotional state regardless of the situation.

Results of the study presented above states that emotional intelligence has the capacity to identify occupational potential as well. More specifically, the results indicate that leadership potential, assessed by peer nomination and especially criterion group can identify membership, by EI assessment. Based on the population samples studied, emotional intelligence can explain approximately 20% of leadership potential as was shown.

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This also suggests that management can utilize the identification of emotional intelligence as a means of identifying if this person will perform or not. The EI models that emerged from the studies presented are expected to correctly predict performance in approximately 7 of 10 individuals. It is logical to assume that the use of such models could reduce the number of costly mismatches in organizations.

On the other hand, the leaders are the brains of the organization and are highly motivated, and without this key executive function, the organization would become immobilized and eventually cease to exist. The Emotional Intelligence model that best predicts effective leadership is a complex combination of competencies as can be seen from the results that emerged in the study that was made that can be compared to the tensions arising from the office.

Based on this model, nursing leaders need, first and foremost, to be aware of their emotions (Emotional Self-Awareness) and accurately understand themselves (Self-Regard); they also need to be adept in understanding others (Empathy) to relate well with them (Interpersonal Relationship). And to get the work done, leaders also need to be self-reliant and decisive (Independence) in making realistic (Reality-Testing) and effective solutions to problems as they arise (Problem-Solving).

And that which facilitates this process is apparently the ability to work well under pressure (Stress Tolerance) and maintain a positive approach (Happiness). The next part of this case deals with employee and their emotions and how emotional intelligence and motivational initiatives is able to help them cope with their problems. In a hospitality firm environment, the organization may want to deploy in such circumstances might resemble, at least to some extent, the profile of being highly critical and fast emerging.

As such, this organizational "top-gun" in this case the management personnel would have to be highly flexible and able to quickly adapt to the situation at hand, be highly motivated and positive to carry out nursing duties and simply do what must be done with a great deal of confidence and assertiveness; and as such management personnel would have to be adept at managing and management handling his or her emotions (Stress Tolerance and Impulse management) in order to get the job done at the same time be able to tolerate such high levels of stress.

Management personnel not only have to deal with their personal emotions but with the emotions of others as well. Nursing teams and groups are highly evident now in organizations. The purpose of organizing work around teams is to gain performance benefits (Beyerlein et al. , 1997). Study demonstrates that a number of factors influence group performance, including organizational culture (Ashforth, 1985), similarity-attraction effects, stages in nursing team growth (Gersick, 1991), and nursing team processes. This is also obvious not only in groups within the nursing profession but also in fields in other industries.

Other factors that can influence team performance are team diversity, length of tenure of the nursing team, and the homogeneity and heterogeneity of the team (Swezey, Meltzer, & Salas, 1994). In essence, high team performance emerges from the interaction between team members and the working relationships established in the nursing team. These interactions and relationships produce processes that enable teams to perform at a higher level than individuals. Consequently, and as Campion et al. (1993) reported, team performance depends ultimately on the effectiveness of team processes.

Being able to work as a team is highly crucial. Furthermore, based on the work created by Weiss and Cropanzano (1996), it can be asserted that interactions in work settings are essentially emotional. As team performance emerges from a process of team member interaction, it follows that high team effectiveness (and resulting high performance) must also be based on emotional origins. It was also noted that the episodic and situational specific nature of emotions could both engender and decrease personal effectiveness in business settings. Clearly, this must also carry over to teams.

For instance, emotions such as enthusiasm in a problem-solving situation can provide positive energy within a team that will invigorate others and lead to greater creativity. On the other hand, when linked to dysfunctional conflict, emotions can result in team members being distracted from their current work and focusing instead on their feelings about the conflict. A case in point of this occurs when nursing team members are subject to a potential restructure or realignment of their tasks and spend an inordinate amount of time in the office discussing potential outcomes as means to alleviate their anxiety.

Individuals who have high emotional self-awareness or high emotional intelligence and are highly motivated might be able to avoid this or be able to cope with this kind of organizational change. Previous study has shown that behaviours that engender team effectiveness include constructive controversy, cooperative behaviours (Eby & Dobbins, 1997), trust, and social approval. These behaviours, although not intrinsically emotional in nature, can be linked to emotional intelligence and motivation because they involve the management of emotional expression, being able to understand others' emotions, emotional awareness, and emotional knowledge.

These kinds of emotions are highly evident in the workplace and can’t be disregarded or be set aside. An examination of one of these factors, constructive controversy, in greater detail demonstrates the connection between emotional intelligence, motivational initiatives within the organization and team process effectiveness. The growth of constructive controversy in teams involves the ability to see a problem from other team members' perspectives and also to understand and to address any underlying emotions that may be attached to those perspectives (Alper et al., 1998).

Constructive controversy also requires the imposition of emotional self-management as any controversy in a team has the potential to be an extremely emotional event. As an emotional event, controversy can also be a source of dysfunctional disagreement in the hospitality firm in general, particularly if the disagreement results in the unrestrained expression of emotion as is always high when in stressful situations, particularly with the interactions between the employees and the management.

In other words, if team members allow issues to turn out to be personalized, the conflict can move away from the issues at hand to focus on individual personalities. In this case, emotional awareness, knowledge, and management are required to deal with this conflict constructively and to prevent the conflict escalating. It can be argued that the submission of these skills is an indicator of an attendant high level of emotional intelligence. Another part of this hypothetical analysis deals with self-awareness and its relation to team effectiveness.

One of the key premises of managing nursing teams is that feedback improves effectiveness and therefore performance. In other words, increasing individuals' understanding of their strengths and weaknesses allows them to take corrective action to change their behaviour and to become more effectual. The underlying assumption here is that being aware of existing behaviour allows individuals to undertake a diagnosis of their skill levels and abilities and work to improve any deficiencies.

This is particularly the case for nursing groups that are trying to adapt their suite of skills to fit into the nursing group’s needs and organizational objectives. It was argued earlier that working in teams is an inherently emotional experience. Furthermore, as Tuckman (1965) observed, when working in teams, individuals have to work toward a common objective that may require them to suppress their own desire for achievement to work toward a common goal.

In other words, the personal interactions that occur in teams as a result of striving for collaborative goals often require individuals to compromise their own personal goals, leading to an affective response. It is further explained that emotional self-awareness can have a positive impact on individual employee’s contributions to the performance of the group in the company on group effectiveness as it allows these group members to resolve their own feelings about their personal goals being subsumed into team goals.

One of the most useful tools consultants use when examining self-awareness is the Johari Window (Luft, 1970) and can be used in order to further our study in employees, motivational initiatives and how emotional intelligence and being highly motivated plays a role. The Johari Window is based on the premise that self-awareness of an individual's behaviours and traits can be understood by the intersection of four factors: things we know about ourselves, things we don't know about ourselves, things others know about us, and things others don't know about us.

Consideration of these four factors provides not only an understanding of an individual's own personality but also an insight into the personality of others, and an explanation of their motivations and behaviours. On the other hand, it must be noted that this study, though hypothetical, diverged from others who have used peer assessment measures of motivation, emotional intelligence and who argue that peer assessment can be used as a proxy measure for motivation and emotional intelligence.

Our arrangement is that comparative analysis of self-reports and peer reports can be used as a pointer of emotional self-awareness but that is hypothetical to be used for growth purposes only. To put it simply, a measure of emotional self-awareness can be used to provide feedback to the respondents on others' perceptions of their motivational and emotional abilities with the aim of improving their emotional self-awareness but not as a dependable measure of emotional intelligence.

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