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Weekly UpdatesEmotional intelligence (EI) refers to understanding and recognition of oneself and others-abilities, perception and attitudes. This mental ability has an important influence on the other abilities of a manager, especially leadership. In this article, I consider the important issue of whether and to what extent a manager's EI affects organizational climate (OC).
OC can be understood to be the perceptions of the outward features of an organization's culture. That is, employees' perceptions and attitudes toward their organization at a given time is the organization's climate. Researchers believe that the behavior of a manager has a great influence on staff's perceptions and attitudes that create OC. (1) Great OC improves the efficiency of an organization and decreases costs of turnover and problems with staff.
On the other hand, behavior results from emotions and perceptions, (2) so EI is reflected in a manager's behavior. For this reason, this research analyzed the relationship between El of managers and OC.
This article addresses two gaps in the literature: First it presents definition of OC and its association with leadership. Second, the EI of managers is directly assessed, and the association of managers' EI with OC is studied.
Organizational Climate
Researchers believe that OC is a snapshot of the surface features of the culture resulting from a workforce's attitudes and perceptions at a given point in time. A useful metaphor is to consider culture and climate as, respectively, the invisible and visible portions of an iceberg. (3)
OC has been defined as a "set of characteristics that describe an organization and that (a) distinguish it from other organizations, (b) are relatively enduring over time, and (c) influence the behavior of people in the organization" (Forehand & Gilmer, 1964, 362). (4) Stated plainly, an employee answering the question "What is it like to work here?" will offer a description of OC (5).
On the other hand, influencing OC is believed to be a function of leadership. (6) For example, researchers have revealed strong associations between OC and leaders' ability to arouse motivation by appealing to human needs for achievement, affiliation, and power. (7) Studies (8) show that a great OC decreases cost of turnover and employees' resistance to change and also improves quality, creativity, and the accepting risks, all of which lead to the loyalty of customers.
Goleman and his colleagues' research on private organizations (9) shows that OC influences one third of return and two thirds of the return is influenced by economic situations and competitive dynamics. Figure 1 shows that between 1990 and 200, the 100 U.S. publicly traded companies rated as the best palaces to work realized the highest returns as measured by the S&P 500 Index. Over the decade shown, the 100 best workplaces returns were about 70% higher than other companies. When the chart was created, the prediction was that stock returns would 500% higher than other companies by 2002. (10)
The Relationship Between Organizational Climate and Leadership
Lyman (11) has found that employees' feeling about their workplace is the principal determinant of whether an organization is a great place to work, topping policies, organizational programs, financial situation, and value of stock. She also identified the following three components of employee feelings about the place where they work:
* Feelings about management: An employee should trust the people for whom he or she works.
* Feeling about the job: An employee should have pride in what he or she does.
* Feelings about other employees: An employee should enjoy the people with whom he or she works.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
More than three decades of research by SixSecond Consulting Group (12) shows that more than 70% of employees' perceptions of OC is directly shaped by managers' style of leadership and behavior. It is therefore reasonable to claim that the OC which employees experience in the workplace is more influenced by the sense employees have that their managers will behave in a reliable way.
In fact, Lyman (13) found that among the components of employees' feelings about their workplace, feelings about management is the main facet that creates and improves feelings in employees about OC.
In order to create and improve these feelings, successful managers seriously and eagerly follow these issues:
* Developing and improving face-to-face communications with employees and giving employees enough information, as well as proving their credibility and improving it through honesty and good morals.
* Showing care for and respect to employees by expressing appreciation and gratitude, creating chances to improve, getting employees involved with solving organizational problems, being receptive to new ideas, and caring about the employees' problems.
* Showing fairness through fair salaries and rewards, behaving towards employees as a family, being unbiased in recruitment and promotion, and handling grievances seriously and fairly.
* Making jobs worthwhile and meaningful, encouraging and facilitating teamwork, creating situations in which employees get a sense of pride about working as a members of the organization, and making the work environment friendly through sincerity and sympathy, all of which increase employees' loyalty to the organization.
The Relationship Between the Emotional Intelligence of Managers and Organizational Climate
As mentioned above more than 70% of employees' perceptions of OC are directly formed by managers' style of leadership and behavior, particularly how managers work to improve employees' performance and reward them.
Goleman and his associates (14) have found that of all the elements affecting bottom-line performance in private organizations, the leader's mood and behaviors are the most influential. This means there is a powerful chain reaction in which the leader's mood and behaviors drive the moods and behaviors of everyone else. A cranky and ruthless boss creates a toxic organization filled with negative underachievers who ignore opportunities; an inspirational, inclusive leader spawns acolytes for whom any challenge is surmountable. The final link in the chain of performance is organizational profit or loss. Therefore, Goleman et al. claimed that efficient manager with high El can create environments where loyal, intelligent, risk and reward-seeking-risk, and emotionally invested employees strive towards great goals.
EI was initially studied within academic psychology. (15) From there, educators, psychiatrists, human resources specialists, and others became interested, and the field grew. A foundational ability definition of El was stated by Salovey in 1990. According to Salovey, EI is "a type of emotional information processing that includes accurate appraisal of emotions in oneself and others, appropriate expression of emotion, and adaptive regulation of emotion in such a way as to enhance living" (Ciarrochi, Forgas, & Mayer, 2001, 9). (16)
This definition was expended in 1999: "El refers to an ability to recognize the meaning of emotions and their relationships, and to reason and problem- solve on the basis of them. El is involved in the capacity to perceive emotions, assimilate emotion-related feelings, understand the information of those emotions, and manage them" (Ciarrochi, Forgas, & Mayer, 2001, 9). (17)
During the popularization of EI, the construct's definition has been changed quite substantially. Goleman, writing in 1995, emphasized social relationships, generally speaking. In his early definition, El became the five area of knowing one's emotions, managing emotions, motivating oneself, recognizing the emotions of others, and handling relationships. (18) A few years later, Goleman et al. simplified this model into a two-by-two matrix with four domains of self awareness, social awareness, self management and relation management and twenty competencies (see Figure 2). (19) The belief was that "an emotionally intelligent leader can monitor for the better through self-management, understand their impact through empathy, and act in ways that boost others' moods through relationship management." (20)
After conducting a factor analysis, Bar-On (2000) explained EI as "one's ability to deal with daily environment challenges and helps predict one's success in life, including professional and personal pursuits" (Vosuqikiya, 2000, 2). (21) In comparison with other researchers, Goleman associated social skills such as communication, influence, leadership, conflict management to EI. These are the skills more approachable and useful for managers than the skills identified in other models, so Goleman's most-recent definition of EI was employed for this study.
Different studies have explored the association between OC and productivity, commitment, and effectiveness. (22) Some studies have supported links between styles of management and training and OC. (23) These studies also support the effect of manager's moods on OC. Among these studies, Goleman (24) looked at the effect of 6 management styles on OC and revealed the strongest relationship between EI and OC. Since styles of management that have different effect on OC are driven from different EI factors, it seems possible that different emotional behaviors give rise to different management styles and different perceptions of OC. The study reported in this article was aimed at determining whether the El of mangers was the main factor in creating great OC.
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive correlation between the EI of managers and the OC they create. That is, if a manager's EI increases, the OC is improved.
Hypothesis 2: Dimensions of EI have positive correlation with dimensions of OC.
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