How to Bring Out the Best in Your Boss

How to Bring Out the Best in Your Boss

Emotional Intelligence and Crisis Management

For many the term Emotional Intelligence, has been defined as "the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, and regulate emotion in the self and others" (Mayer, Solovey, & Caruso, 2000, p. 396), has become a known everyday term. For others, it is simply another management fad and cool term to throw around.

However, to those involved in the study of organizational leadership, organizational psychology, and HRM, emotional intelligence can be seen as a key factor to becoming a successful organizational leader.  As a field of study, the topic of emotional intelligence is pretty new, becoming an increasingly popular field of study in psychology and management during the last two decades. Its impressive growth in scholarly and applied work has been fueled by claims that emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of job performance (Joseph & Newman, 2010).

While several studies have been conducted to examined the relationship of emotional intelligence to education, social adjustment, health, personal relationships, and work (Mayer, Roberts, & Barsade, 2008); none seem to address how and to what extent emotional intelligence may account for leadership effectiveness under a crisis management situation. Thus, as a manager or organizational leader, what role does emotional intelligence may play in effective leadership while managing an organizational crisis? Is there a connection between effectively managing a crisis and the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, and regulate emotion and self and others while as a crisis management leader?

Joseph, D. L., Newman, D. A. (2010). Emotional Intelligence: An Integrative Meta-Analysis and Cascading Model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95 (1), pp. 54-78

Mayer, J. D., Roberts, R. D., Barsade, S. G. (2008). Human Abilities: Emotional intelligence. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, pp. 507-536

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2000). Models of Emotional Intelligence in R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence (2^nd ed., pp. 396-420). NY: Cambridge University Press.