Submitted by: Submitted by Enzo
Views: 653
Words: 708
Pages: 3
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 06/11/2011 12:56 AM
BUILDING THE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF GROUPS
So far Emotional Intelligence has been viewed only as an individual competency, when the reality is that most work in organizations is done in teams. Individual emotional intelligence has a group analog and it is just as critical to groups’ effectiveness. Teams can develop greater emotional intelligence and, in so doing, boost their overall performance.
To be more effective, the team needs to create emotionally intelligent norms (attitudes and behaviors that eventually become habits), that support behaviors for building trust, group identity and group efficacy.
There are three levels of emotional interaction within a group:
• Individual level
• Group level
• Cross-boundary level
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
A group, in an individual scale, must create norms that encourages:
• Interpersonal understanding. Team members should understand one another’s feelings and concerns, act accordingly, and in that way there will be better member morale and willingness to cooperate.
• Perspective taking. By that, team members should ask whether everyone agrees with a decision, should question decisions that come too quickly and moreover, should appoint a devils advocate.
Interpersonal understanding and perspective taking must be done in such way that there is a balance between team’s cohesion and members individuality.
The most constructive way of regulating members emotion is by establishing norms both for:
• Confrontation. The members must feel comfortable to confront another member when the last one crosses the line. It has to be done in a gentle way or by using humor. Without confrontation, the team will eventually face trust issues.
• Caring. The members must display positive regard, appreciation and respect through behaviors such as support and compassion.
GROUP LEVEL
The most critical parts of group’s emotional intelligence are:
• Group self-evaluation. That can be done by...