Leadership Effectiveness

Leadership, Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement: Creating a Psychologically Healthy Workplace
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. Envisia Learning [e-mail] www.envisialearning.com What is Emotional Intelligence? The most widely accepted model of emotional intelligence (EI) has been influenced by several scientists and researchers. Sternberg’s (2003) theory of multiple intelligences suggests that interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence are unique and different from the mathematical and logical type recognized today as "IQ" or general intelligence. Peter Salovey and John Mayer first proposed their own theory of EI in 1990 and Reuven Bar-On (1988) has placed EI in the context of personality, health and well-being. Daniel Goleman (1998) reformulated EI in terms of a theory of organizational and job performance. All these models, however, share a common core of basic concepts including Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. The Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations (www.eiconsortium.org) is a useful website that serves as a resource portal on the topic of emotional intelligence including information on measures, current findings and EI resources. Research on EI and Performance A growing research literature suggests that EI may play a far more important role in career success and job performance than general intelligence (cognitive ability). A recent meta-analysis of 69 independent studies explored the predictive validity of emotional intelligence with diverse job performance outcomes (Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004). Results suggested diverse measures of EI correlated .23 with job performance (k=19, N=4158) and .22 with general mental ability. These correlations suggest that EI can be considered a moderate predictor of job performance and success, relative to other types of personnel selection techniques including interviews, personality inventories and assessment centers. Other recent

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