Emotional Intelligence

In their day-to-day work, it is possible for managers to feel intense emotions, triggered by different challenges and opportunities they face in their work. For example, managers may feel excited about new ideas, anxious when handling a difficult situation or angry with management. Research indicates that managers who can apply emotional intelligence in their job have the potential to accelerate their careers and improve organization performance. By contrast, those who are unable to exercise emotional intelligence might face difficulties in their careers. Virtually, emotional intelligence is the ability to control or manage one’s emotions and use them appropriately. Leaders who apply emotional intelligence in their decisions find it easy understanding other people’s emotions and managing them. In light of this, this study investigates the impact of emotional intelligence on employees’ work outcomes in job satisfaction and employees performance at Macy’s Inc. We explore the EI building blocks that would influence the leader’s ability to enhance employee performance and job satisfaction. Consistent with the relationship between job satisfaction and employee performance, it is clear that leaders must apply all the emotional intelligence to ensure job satisfaction and improve employee performance. The study also considered the core concepts of emotional intelligence that can enhance social skills and improve decision-making among leaders. Ideally, emotional intelligence enables development of social skills by enhancing the ability of the individual to express themselves during social interactions and to read and understand social norms. Additionally, the study established that the acquisition of basic skills, personality, and emotional intelligence are some of the core attributes of effective teams. Lastly, we recommended that the most effective reward system for Macy’s would be the adoption of extrinsic and monetary rewards based on employee performance to motivate employees and influence organizational behavior.

Emotional Intelligence

Currently, the notion of emotional intelligence is one of the most researched topics in the organizational study. EI has been termed an important predictor of desirable organizational outcomes such as improved job performance, job satisfaction, organizational behavior, and commitment. In its most basic terms, emotional intelligence is the ability to manage one’s feelings to be able to express them appropriately, with the intention of enabling people to work towards a constructive and transparent work environment. Importantly noted, emotional intelligence is based on four dimensions; self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management (Suifan, Abdallah, & Sweis, 2015). Virtually, self-awareness is concerned in understanding the determinants and consequences of moods, emotions, and their evolution. There are variances in people’s self-awareness and their understanding of different situations and events. Thus, self-awareness is often viewed as the ability to recognize one’s emotions as they happen and forms the basis of emotional intelligence. Self-management captures the extent to which an individual successfully manages their emotions. In other words, self-management is also referred to as self-control. Social-awareness is the fundamental competency of an individual’s ability to handle relationships by understanding other peoples’ emotions. Relationship management involves social interactions and the ability to use emotional awareness to manage interactions successfully. In this context, the objective of the study is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and motivation, in particular, employee performance and job satisfaction. We will also evaluate the core concepts of emotional intelligence that are likely to influence social skills and improve decision-making of the management team. Along with that, the study will give an overview of the core attributes of an effective team and strategies of developing team dynamics. Lastly, we will recommend an effective reward system for Macy’s Inc and strategies that would be incorporated to motivate employees.

Emotional Intelligence and Motivation

Research indicates that there is a close relationship between human capital competencies such as knowledge, skills, personality, and emotional intelligence with work-related attitude and behavior (Suifan et al., 2015). Defined as the cognitive or evaluative reaction of an individual towards their work, job satisfaction is an essential work-related attitude that leaders seek to achieve in their workplace. Ideally, although job satisfaction is viewed as a set of complex reactions to one’s job, study shows a close correlation between job satisfaction and emotional intelligence construct. Simply put, employees who have their emotions regulated even in difficult situations are more likely to have a positive attitude towards their job and increased job performance levels. Thus, leaders must be able to understand their employees’ emotions to be able to influence them for increased job satisfaction and employee performance. This also means that leaders must possess and apply all blocks of emotional intelligence to motivate employees and ensure job satisfaction and improved employee performance. Consequently, to achieve this, it is important to understand how human beings are motivated. Ideally, using Maslow’s motivational theory, humans are motivated by a five-tier model of essential human needs. People feel motivated to achieve certain needs, with the most basic being physical survival. The first two levels, which consists the basic needs are concerned with safety and psychological needs such as food water, and shelter. Employees need a job to enable them to meet their basic needs. They also need job security and safety through good work conditions. The third and fourth levels are concerned with the psychological needs, which is where leaders can utilize positive or negative reinforcement. At this stage, employees need to have a sense of belonging, to be part of a group. This stage also defines the last stage, which is the self-actualization. Leaders can initiate positive reinforcement in the form of rewards or promotion, where the employee who records the highest number of sales get a certain percentage as commission. Negative reinforcement can be in the form of punishing employees who display unethical behavior towards clients.

Emotional Intelligence and Social Skills and Decision Making

As compared to emotional skills, which involve the ability to read, understand, and express emotions, emotional intelligence is broader and includes ways that emotions influence the cognitive ability (Riggio & Reichard, 2008). Emotional skills as a faction of EI represent a more social perspective of emotional intelligence based on how emotions are conveyed among individuals in social interactions. In essence, EI enables development of social skills by enhancing the ability to express oneself during social interactions, read, and understand social situations, and knowledge of social norms. Along with strengthening social skills, emotional intelligence also plays a significant role in enhancing decision-making among leaders. In leadership, decisions are determined by both the cognitive and emotional capabilities of leaders (Sumathy, Madhavi, & Felix, 2015). For instance, emotional intelligence allows leaders to become more aware of their emotions to conduct accurate evaluations of employees. Similarly, the ability to read other people’s minds allows leaders to select the best way to influence employees and solve conflicts in an amicable manner.

Effective Teams

Research indicates that certain characteristics of team members are significant for effective teams. Although it may be hard to define the characteristics of an efficient team, employees should at least have certain basic skills, personality, and emotional intelligence. Skills such as technical skills relating to the kind of job assigned, problem-solving, decision-making, and people skills are necessary to allow teams perform some of the basic tasks successful (Makepeace & Hewett, 2009). Along with skills, certain personalities are a necessity to individual teams. For instance, at Macy’s the task of the teams is to interact with clients, it is then expected that their personality should be agreeable, cooperative, welcoming, warm and even if they disagree with customers, they should not get nasty. Additionally, it is a well-known fact that people do not leave their feelings at home, and this can significantly affect their work. Emotional intelligence in employees gives them the ability to recognize and manage their emotions and those of others around them.

Strategies to develop dynamic teams

Team dynamics are unconscious and psychological forces that determine the behavior of the team and performance (Hiyiyappa, 2013). They are often associated with the nature of work that the teams are expected to undertake and the personalities of the individuals in the group. Leaders can improve team dynamics by first knowing their team, and ways in which various roles can affect the group as a whole. When problems arise, leaders should be able to solve them quickly to prevent influencing the whole group. Roles and responsibilities should also be defined correctly to ensure each person understand their position. Open communication should be encouraged in the group so that everyone is updated on the teams progress and know their current and next move.

Reward Systems

Effective reward systems in an organization help in maintaining their competitive advantage, improve employee performance, and reduce staff turnover. They can also boost employee motivation and enhance the brand image among key stakeholders who are the clients. Consistent with this knowledge, Macy’s will have a reward system that gives extrinsic rewards and monetary rewards based on the performance of the employees. The external reward system will be tied to specific employee skills, role in the organization, time, and behavior towards clients. The rewards will be in the form of praise, awards for best employee of the month or year, tickets, vacations depending on the most appropriate. Monetary bonuses based on performance will be on a commission basis, where the employee with the employee who records the highest number of sales gets a certain amount.

References

Hiriyappa, B. (2013). Team building and group dynamic management. Bloomington: Booktango.

Makepeace, R., & Hewett, G. (2009). Advertising and promotions. Cape Town: Pearson Education South Africa.

Riggio, R. E., & Reichard, R. J. (2008). The emotional and social intelligences of effective leadership: An emotional and social skill approach. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(2), 169-185.

Suifan, T. S., Abdallah, A. B., & Sweis, R. J. (2015). The Effect of a Manager’s Emotional Intelligence on Employees’ Work Outcomes in the Insurance Industry in Jordan. International Business Research, 8(9), 67-82.

Sumathy, L., Madhavi, C.,& Felix, A.J.W. (2015). Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Decision Making by Leaders. American International Journal of Social Science, 4(1), 134-140.