Critical Appraisal

Running Head: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE
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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKPLACE PERFORMANCE
Abstract
This study seeks to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI), personality, cognitive intelligence and leadership effectiveness. According to several past made researches, it has been evidenced that employees with higher Emotional Intelligence are more inclined to achieve success than people with lower level of this specific factor. For increasing the understanding, this study aims to shed light on a structured literature review of the topic, where different theories will help to critically analyse the topic. Moreover, a reflective analysis will also help to form several research questions, which will further extend quality of the study.
Table of Contents
Introduction    3
Theories and frameworks    3
Concept of Emotional Intelligence    3
Mayer and Salovey’s Model of Emotional Intelligence    4
Bar-On’s Theory of Emotional Social Intelligence    5
Critical review of current research    6
Critical review of issues and controversies    7
Reflective analysis of the topic    8
Research question    9
Gap of study    9
Conclusion    10
References    11
Introduction
Emotional intelligence and workplace performance are two most crucial aspects of today’s situation. According to several past made researches, it has been evidenced that employees with higher Emotional Intelligence are more inclined to achieve success than people with lower level of this specific factor. Moreover, EI enables employees to acquire a good leadership skill, enhances their job performance and also motivates them to maintain a healthy relationship between each other. Currently most of the organisations get confused about Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EI). Despite of having numerous researches on leadership skill, there is yet confusion about the best leadership skill. For increasing the understanding, this study aims to shed light on a structured literature review of the topic, where different theories will help to critically analyse the topic. Moreover, a reflective analysis will also help to form several research questions, which will further extend quality of the study.
Theories and frameworks
Concept of Emotional Intelligence
Figure 1: Emotional Intelligence
(Source: Created by Author)
Emotional intelligence as mentioned by Schutte & Loi (2014) is the ability of individual persons to identify and recognise their emotions related to personal and professional life. Additionally, Emotional Intelligence is the way of managing own behaviour and process of thinking to adapt with new environments and to achieve goals easily. Despite of being established by Michael Beldoch, the term officially got introduced by Daniel Goleman in 1995 (Serrat, 2017). On the contrary to Krishnakumar et al. (2016), generalised definition of EI is further broken down in different components such as: perceiving, understanding, managing and using of personal emotions in different segments to join empathy and intelligence. There are three existing models or frameworks of Emotional Intelligence: Ability Model, Trait Model and Mixed Model.
Mayer and Salovey’s Model of Emotional Intelligence
According to the model of Mayer and Salovey, though Emotional Intelligence is a cognitive ability, yet it is associated with general concept of intelligence (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2016). This particular model is associated with four different branches or capabilities and they are: perceiving emotion, facilitating emotion, understanding emotion and managing emotion efficiently. All these branches in reference to Mayer, Caruso & Salovey (2016) are in hierarchical order and these branches help to develop the maturity of individuals.
Figure 2: Mayer and Salovey’s Model of Emotional Intelligence
(Source: Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2016)
· Perception of emotion is the capability of understanding owns emotion as well as others’ also. Perception also includes understanding nonverbal signals and recognising emotion in different stimuli including art and landscapes (Caruso et al. 2015).
· After perception, facilitation comes in the scenario and it refers to the ability of individual emotion to help thinking critically in three different ways: with the help of signalling important changes in environment, by changing mood of individuals to enable them to interpret a situation in different ways and assisting different kinds of reasoning to interpret the situations (Martin-Raugh, Kell & Motowidlo, 2016).
· Once facilitation of emotion is done, understanding is the next important step of this model. Understanding involves: emotional knowledge vocabulary and change of emotion over time (Grunes, Gudmundsson & Irmer, 2014).
· Managing does not only include own emotion but others’ as well to handle the entire situation efficiently (McFarland, Rode & Shervani, 2016).
Bar-On’s Theory of Emotional Social Intelligence
On the contrary to Model of Mayer and Salovey, Bar-On’s Mixed Theory is associated with four different interconnected aspects:
Figure 3: Bar-On’s Theory of Emotional Social Intelligence
(Source: Allen, Shankman & Haber‐Curran, 2016)
· Interpersonal emotional awareness, self-regard, independence, assertiveness and self-actualisation.
· Empathy, interpersonal relationships and social responsibility.
· Stress management along with impulse control and stress tolerance
· General mood such as optimism and happiness.
Critical review of current research
Emotional intelligence in workplace has a wide range of area covered. In most of the models and theories, emotional intelligence has been considered as a ideal form of intelligence. However, it is controversial to define Emotional Intelligence with one single definition, as it is associated with a huge area including Intelligence Quotient (pattern recognition, cognitive functions and language skills) (Sternberg, 2015). Unlike IQ Test, Emotional Intelligence as opined by Barron & Hurley (2018) enables the management of any organisation to test memory of their employees, ability to...