“Who’s Who” in Corporate Behavior

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“Who’s Who” in Corporate Behavior
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james ogweno, Entrepreneur, Kenya

The recipe for corporate success lies in astute leadership. Importantly, contemporary leadership should be conscious of people. An individual’s traits are incessantly associated with organizational effectiveness. This paper is a report on self-assessment for emotions, emotional intelligence, and values and the effects that the same have on one’s corporate leadership role.

Introduction

Organizational Behavior (OB) investigates the action of individuals and groups within an organization. Particular focus is often on how such actions may be beneficial to an organization. An individual’s traits, organizational studies suggest, are incessantly associated with organizational effectiveness. Recent studies in leadership within organizations have shown corresponding worth of self-assessment and leadership capacities (Antonakis et al, 2009; Harms & Crede, 2010).

By taking a system approach to individuals, human objectives have been matched with organizational goals to derive apposite orientations for achieving both. Self-assessment for personal traits has yielded interesting correlations regarding one’s ability to lead an organization toward effectiveness. This paper is a report on self-assessment for emotions, emotional intelligence, and values and the effects that the same have on one’s corporate leadership role.

Self-Assessments

To ascertain if your leadership skills fit the challenges, you can undertake self-assessments that test core traits incidental to these skills. In particular, scores in emotional intelligence, feelings and values provide reliable measures for fitting a leadership cognizant of strong connections between organizational personnel. The following section suggests typical self-assessments for these three central leadership traits.

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) defines self-perceived capacity to make out, appraise, and manage one’s emotions and further manage the emotions of others within a group setting. There are different methods for assessing one’s EI. The technicality inherent in these tests notwithstanding, IE demands the ability to attune to group or social norms. In an EI self-assessment model adapted from Daniel Goleman’s 1995 publication – a scaled test that ask a number of reactions that target one’s approach to personal and group dynamical emotional reactions- a score of 40 or higher depicts a high EI while a score of lower than 20 is suggestive of a low EI. As a predictor of strong interpersonal skills, high EI is a plus for leadership, especially in management (Mayer et al, 2008).

Feelings

Until recently, feelings were regarded as too personal to affect organizational dynamics and in particular, were relegated to solving extra-mural encounters within work places. However, the value of personal feelings (also called emotions) and the capacity to control or use the same in fostering organizational effectiveness has since gained cognizance in contemporary organizational behavior studies managements. Emotional competencies, in particular, refer to one’s ability to release inner emotions while around others.

In the self-assessment for feelings, a scaled test targeting responses to a myriad of adjectives describing different states of emotions that one is likely to feel at particular times is appropriate. A scale of 1-5 adapted from Tim Judge’s How Are You Feeling Right Now?, one is required to indicate (in) to what extent he feels each emotion at the time of the test. According to the interpretation of the test, the higher the score, the higher the degree of one’s positive emotions.

Teamwork

Values are the tenets upon which a society progresses. They must not only be shared to be valuable; they must also be kept. In organizations as in other aspects of social lives, values define the missions, objectives and other unique aspects upon which organizations thrive. Passion, wisdom, being of service and teamwork are aspects that are held high in contemporary workplaces. In fostering appropriateness in-group dynamics, a member should be a team player.

Based on 12 capacities associated with leadership and teamwork, suggested by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, (Wharton School, 2001), an action oriented, persevering, and knowledgeable team member should be a blessing to an organization. in addition, scoring highly in business acumen, trust and integrity, managerial courage, strategic agility, and in time management are all indications of a team player. Other traits indicative of teamwork are the capacity to deal with ambiguity, interpersonal sense, good listening skills, and the capacity to motivate others. Importantly too, the author commands high knowledge of self.

Discussions

An organization’s effectiveness rests on astute management philosophies, values, visions and goals. The availability of these traits in the workforce and leadership and the capacity to embed the same in the organization’s culture makes it stand out or more competitive than others of the same ilk. Systemic approaches to the analysis of these traits conjecture several benefits to an organization. Self-assessments provide the most immediate authentication to these individual traits. The values of the three traits discussed above – emotional intelligence, feelings, and teamwork- in promoting a corporate leadership role are particularly clear.

For a corporate indulgence, one’s high EI will certainly help in sustaining a strong rapport with other members of the organization on the basis of his/her capacity to appeal to and command their emotions toward achieving organizational effectiveness. The strength of a high EI also be a benefit in teamwork- it will increase one’s capacity to appeal to roles requiring team building and management.

That the emotion one experiences has overwhelming influence on one’s behavior within an organization is not in doubt. However, the impacts of one’s emotions on leadership and the effectiveness thereof have their interpretation on his/her creativity and job satisfaction (Goleman, 1995). Importantly, it shows that one is capable of helping his subordinates and superiors. The converse is often true; with negative emotions, one is likely to engage in interpersonal conflicts and deviant behavior. Emotions are also contagious to others.

Essentially, displayed positive emotions are likely to cheer up others. The ease of showing emotional competence depicts the one's ability to express self and lead others in doing the same. It is a mark of quality leadership that is not only conscious of essential social skills. It expresses one’s ability to recognize, construe, and act responsibly and constructively to emotions in self and in others.

Teamwork, on the other hand, is the basis of strong interpersonal relationships in organizations. In attempting to achieve organizational objectives, a corporate leader must not only say what s/he wants done but must also be seen to be doing so. By giving an example worth emulating, one will be posting a profound effect on how the subordinates perceive his leadership and capacities.

Readings

Antonakis, J., Ashkanasy, N. M., and Dasborough, M. (2009). Does leadership need emotional intelligence? The Leadership Quarterly 20, 247–261.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books
Harms, P. D., & Crede, M. (2010). Emotional Intelligence and Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 17 (1), 5–17.
Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P. & Caruso, D.R. (2008). Emotional Intelligence: New ability or eclectic traits. American Psychologist, 63 (6), 503-517.
Wharton School. (2001). Leadership and Teamwork Assessment: An Inventory of capacities. PRISM Leadership Group. Accessed 10 November 2010, from prismleadership.org/inc/Leadership_and_Teamwork_Assessment.doc

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