Emotional Intelligence
An investigation of the employee perceptions on the relationship between employee job satisfaction and the leader’s emotional intelligence among the workers of Eskom in Alice Town
1 INTRODUCTION For organisations to survive in today’s changing world they should maintain their competitive advantage through the use of the whole workforce. In order for the change to take place, the employees, and the leaders should be adaptive to the environment, effective working and the continuous improvement of the processes and systems they use to achieve the objectives. Being able to get the results within the set time frames and those that are considered proper in their industries will make up an effective leader (Goleman, 2000). Great leaders are the ones that are able to direct their subordinates and they are able to make the best of us be visible and ignite our passion. When we simply explain why leaders are so effective we talk of the ideas they bring to the organisation, their vision and the strategy they apply in achieving objectives. But according to Goleman; Boyatzis and McKee (2000) great leaders are the ones that work through their emotions.
Emotional intelligence has been identified as the most important element that leads to effective leadership; this was recognised through some researchers. Goleman (1998) has said that, “the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way; they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence”. He further says that “sine qua non” of leadership is the emotional intelligence (1998). Until recently, many organisations are beginning to acknowledge the importance of emotional intelligence, it is said to be important as an individual’s IQ to his/her effectiveness (Druskat & Wolff, 2001). Although the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been identified as an important element in an organisation but still it is under-researched (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002). EI can be defined as the abilities to be
1 INTRODUCTION For organisations to survive in today’s changing world they should maintain their competitive advantage through the use of the whole workforce. In order for the change to take place, the employees, and the leaders should be adaptive to the environment, effective working and the continuous improvement of the processes and systems they use to achieve the objectives. Being able to get the results within the set time frames and those that are considered proper in their industries will make up an effective leader (Goleman, 2000). Great leaders are the ones that are able to direct their subordinates and they are able to make the best of us be visible and ignite our passion. When we simply explain why leaders are so effective we talk of the ideas they bring to the organisation, their vision and the strategy they apply in achieving objectives. But according to Goleman; Boyatzis and McKee (2000) great leaders are the ones that work through their emotions.
Emotional intelligence has been identified as the most important element that leads to effective leadership; this was recognised through some researchers. Goleman (1998) has said that, “the most effective leaders are alike in one crucial way; they all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence”. He further says that “sine qua non” of leadership is the emotional intelligence (1998). Until recently, many organisations are beginning to acknowledge the importance of emotional intelligence, it is said to be important as an individual’s IQ to his/her effectiveness (Druskat & Wolff, 2001). Although the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has been identified as an important element in an organisation but still it is under-researched (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002). EI can be defined as the abilities to be