Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance

General studies part IV - Ethics Integrity and Aptitude 

Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance Part 2

Another case of relation between EQ and good administration/ governance

Let’s say that a major natural disaster occurred. The relief and rebuilding of the place needs good coordination between state and centre, officials of different departments. In short the decision has to be made by a group of people. Imagine that all these officials are holding a meeting to discuss future strategy. The IQ of all the people would combine in such a situation (Group IQ). A heated debate or a angry emotional outburst by a department head (person with low EQ) can spoil the whole discussion. This is something that occurs so commonly in the meetings. Here the low EQ of a person can change the whole direction of talks.

<<  Angry comment during a important meeting--> a lot of hue and cry over this silly occurrence -->discussion is lost  >>

A real life case scenario:Role of EQ in profession

The importance of EQ is high is certain professions. Eg: health care,social justice,ngo’s, rehabilitation etc. The doctor has to be a good listener and good communicator who understand the emotions of the patient while taking decision.

 Eg : A doctor working in government hospital comes across a patient who is poor. He has two choices.

Option A: Prescribe a drug available in his government hospital which is free but has higher side effects and low cure rate.

Option B: Write for a better drug which is not available in government supply but available in medical shops for a price.

If the question asked is “Which is the best treatment for the disease?” then answer would be Option B.

But when the patient is poor and doctor knows that the person won’t buy the better drug from outside, shouldn’t he go for Option A. In that way, at least he will get treatment, even though the treatment is not the best. The above said problem is one which commonly comes in real life scenarios for doctors working in government setups. How should he act? In case some side effect comes up after he prescribed drug thinking about the wellness of patient, can doctor be blamed? Here the judgement of “right” and “wrong” are based on the situation. Not on the research as to “which drug is the best for that particular disease”.

The persons working in social welfare departments continuously come upon such situations.

Measuring Emotional Intelligence

The Baron EQ-I and Goleman’s ECI are the two most widely
used tests for measuring EQ

This earlier part of this article can be read here (Part 1 - Click here)

General Studies Paper IV - Ethics, Integrity and Aptitute

Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance. PART1

Emotional intelligence: The ability to identify your own and other people’s emotions accurately,express your emotions clearly, and regulate emotions in yourself and others.

The construct of the emotional intelligence can be seen in earlier studies. It was Daniel Goleman who popularised the term “Emotional intelligence” through his book with same name. The word appears in the studies by Mayer and Salovey during 1990’s.

Earlier IQ or intelligence quotient was seen as the measure for intelligence. Later it was identified that all High IQ persons aren’t very successful. It was suggested that something “other than IQ” was needed for success in certain fields, the EQ was an answer to this question.

The components of EQ according to Goleman are

Self-awareness – the ability to know one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives values and goals and recognizes their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

Self-regulation – involves controlling or redirecting one's disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

Social skill – managing relationships to move people in the desired direction

Empathy - considering other people's feelings especially when making decisions and

Motivation - being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.

The EQ added a new dimension to the way administration is conducted. Earlier stress was only on performance and not on human relations. The EQ studies indicate that organisations/governments should invest more time in maintaining good relationships too.

The importance of EQ is that it is related to decision making. The understanding of emotions of people is especially important in areas of governance.

Let take a real world case. Say a particular economic decision will be good for the people in long term. Eg: removing unwanted subsidy on agriculture. The rational decision suggested by the economist would be to remove subsidy as soon as possible. A good administrator would not jump to implement such a decision. He would take decision slowly keeping in mind the emotions of people. (the sudden removal of subsidy to farmers will get lot of crocodile tears from various stake holders which inturn may create a big strike bringing the state to paralysis). Here the administrator has to take decision that is good for farmers keeping in mind their emotional stand on the issue.

Note: There is a trend to project EQ as the most important form of intelligence. But this may not be true. While high EQ may be good in certain professions, it may not be not be a good thing in some other profession. Eg: An officer in charge of Intelligence. He would need for of strategic intelligence than EQ.

Another relation between EQ and governance is with regard to Leadership style. The transformational leadership (understand that there are many type of leadership like charismatic, transactional etc.. and transformational leadership is one type) is regarded as one which can bring a great change to a society. The skills possessed by the transformational leaders are similar to that with better EQ. This means that persons with high EQ can be better in certain leadership roles. Eg: Mahatma Gandhi was a transformational leader who found plenty of supporters due to his humble ways of living. His dress, his thoughts, simplicity etc could connect with millions of followers who were ready to act in ways he would ask for.

Part 2 (click here)