Relationship between Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Team Processes Essay

Clarke’s article seeks to use the emotional intelligence ability model to establish emotional intelligence’s significance as part of individual difference among team members and if it can affect team effectiveness. It is a report on a research conducted using the ability model of emotional intelligence to identify the relationship between EI and the transitional, action-based and inter-personal team processes aspects of team-work behaviours. The article also considers the base set by other researchers’ findings and theories concerning EI and its relationship to team-work behaviours. In this research paper, Clarke discusses several previous researches done, on this topic, using different models and then conducts his own research using the emotional intelligence ability model. The reason for this research conducted by Clarke was to have better knowledge of the nature of teamwork and also the factors contributing or underpinning team effectiveness, in order to help organisations the expected gains brought by understanding emotional intelligence abilities. This study also sought to establish the significance of perceiving emotion, understanding emotions and using them to facilitate thinking, and managing one’s own emotions as well as those of others. The Main Theoretical Predictions of This Study Clarke looks at previously conducted studies by other researchers. One of the things is that when the ability based measure is used there is positive relationship between the ability of a team leader to have an understanding of emotion and the team’s customer-service team-rating based performance. Another thing is that there is a negative correlation between a team leader’s EI and a managers’ ranking of a team’s overall performance. Another thing is that aggregated measures of team-members ability emotional intelligence show positive correlations with a team’s ability emotional intelligence and a team’s performance. Also, there is no significant relationships between the level measures of individuals, but rather noteworthy positive relationships between a team’s civic virtue ratings by the participants’ and about all the individual emotional ability scores. The other part of the previous studies is where researchers used the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence Profile, the WEIP. This measure assesses emotional intelligence using self/peer-report responses instead of tests based on performance. Some of these tests show a significant correlation between the average emotional intelligence of a team and goal focus. In other words, team members who showed they had higher skills and more familiarity caused a team’s effectiveness to improve. The studies also showed positive relationships between a team’s emotional intelligence and the use of differing collaborative and competing approaches to conflict resolution. One prediction is that EI will be found to be positively related to transition team processes. Clarke predicts that if relationships are examined a more direct way between EI abilities and the differing transition, action as well as inter-personal team processes already pointed out as important to team effectiveness then the potential role of EI ability in team effectiveness would be become clearer. In this case, EI abilities are predicted as directly affecting some of these specific team-work processes and interaction. Another prediction is that there is a stronger correlation between EI and actions, transitions and inter-personal team processes than between EI and individuals who are more oriented towards higher collectivism. Recognising the potential influence of emotion on decision making, problem solving, and creativity is a clear indication that EI plays an important part in team processes associated with formulation of strategies like the planning of tasks and allocation of roles and those related to goal specification. The relationship between EI and team-work behaviours which are associated with team processes can be moderated by a person’s motivational nature towards team-work. Collectivist orientation is related to team behaviours like individual input to a team, and a group’s cooperative team behaviour and negotiation behaviours. Higher efficacy for team-work as well as positive past experiences in a team are related to individuals’ self-report collectivism. Therefore, individuals’ collectivist orientations may show their degree of motivation for team-work. Consequently, there are interaction effects between EI abilities and individuals’ collectivist orientations. The Findings of Clarke’s Study Clarke’s study established that EI explained direct, unique variance in transition and inter-personal team processes as the two team process sets regarded as important role-players in team-effectiveness. But only three EI individual branches were of any importance, and they still were different in each case. Concerning transition processes, there was found a positive connection for the emotional ability only: perceiving emotions in oneself and in others. This was a confirmation of previous research that showed a positive significant connection between goal focus and team-level EI ability measures. Also Clarke did not discover any significant connections between transition processes and the rest of the emotional intelligence abilities, suggesting that the transition processes is the most significant emotional ability when it comes to contributing to team behaviour associated with this particular team activity phase. The ability of an individual to perceive and appraise emotions accurately is the most important when it comes to using and acting on the emotional knowledge. This suggests that team members who have greater sensory awareness levels can engage to a great deal of effectiveness in team behaviours like setting tasks and time-scales associated with means of achieving the team tasks. It was found that general mental ability is important at this team activity phase, but the ability of perceiving emotions accounted for 3% more variance to team members’ engagement in necessary team behaviour linked to this team effectiveness aspect. These two emotional abilities were the most important in helping team members to take part in inter-personal team processes, when they use emotions to facilitate thinking and managing one’s emotions or those of others. The relationship between EI and team-work behaviours which are associated with team processes can be moderated by a person’s motivational nature towards team-work. Collectivist orientation is related to team behaviours like individual input to a team, and a group’s cooperative team behaviour and negotiation behaviours. Together, the two emotions accounted for 8% variance, while general mental ability was insignificant. Surprisingly, no significant correlations were found between any of the EI abilities and team processes. These findings also suggest that where individuals in a team have a bigger share of outcomes in a team, or where are much longer team durations or work cycles, emotional intelligence abilities can affect team action processes more significantly. 7 specific context variables were found to influence team type. These included the temporal duration, basic work cycle and teams’ task structures. Another finding is that there is a stronger connection between emotional intelligence and actions, transitions and interpersonal team processes than between EI and individuals who are more oriented towards higher collectivism. The potential influence of emotion on decision making, problem solving, and creativity clearly shows that emotional intelligence plays an important part in team processes associated with formulation of strategies like the planning tasks and role allocation and those related to goal design. This research paper shows how simplistic the obscure assertions on emotional intelligence’s importance to team effectiveness are. Differing emotional intelligence abilities are related to specific teamwork behaviour, which become significant during the stages of team activity. The findings also show that there is need for much more complex structures on the relationship between emotional intelligence and particular cognitive, verbal, and behavioural activities in a team. The findings can therefore be concluded thus: EI explains direct, unique variance in transition and inter-personal team processes; only three individual EI branches, however, have any significance, and still, they were different in each case. How Organisations Can Make Use of These Findings These findings show that emotional intelligence is a significant part of individual differences among team members contributing to the effectiveness of a team. A team’s effectiveness depends on its team members’ abilities to perform behaviours that are related with specific processes at different stages of team activity. Individuals who have more developed emotional abilities in these circles will most likely make more significant contributions during such times. This may make team leaders’ role of allocating roles and responsibilities in a team less complicated. The instruments used to make assessments regarding these emotional abilities can help organisations to identify team members demonstrating strengths in particular emotional abilities. Organisations can be able to call upon those individuals who show high levels of sensory awareness that is related to perceiving emotions to play more important roles during transition stages while focussing on setting of goals and planning of tasks. On the other hand, those individuals with better developed emotion management abilities may be called upon to play the more important part of supporting the teams’ inter-personal team processes. Team can also be able to focus on particular emotional abilities, by considering more focussed developmental activities. Learning interventions that are team-based and undertaken in a place of work can help individuals in an organisation to use their emotions more efficiently to enlighten their thinking. If understood better, the differential roles of emotional abilities in the performance of necessary team processes can bring about development of more effective, focussed interventions. By identifying how EI is related to particular team processes linked with differing stages of team activity, organizations can be able to identify operational conditions of emotional intelligence. Emotional abilities were found to be directly related to transition as well as interpersonal team processes, although EI abilities were not related to action team processes. The crucial finding that EI abilities’ variation in inter-personal team processes are greater than for any other team process suggests that EI could be of far greater importance in teams where interpersonal team processes are by far more dominant. Therefore, selecting team members on the basis of their strengths in particular emotional abilities can help organizations develop more focussed ways of attaining more effectiveness in their teams at differing stages of team activity. These findings can also help organisations have a clearer picture when it comes to conducting future research. References Clarke, N. (2009). Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Their Relationships with Team Processes. Team Performance Management, 16:1/2, 1352-7592.