DOES MINDFULNESS HAVE A ROLE IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-PERCEIVED JOB PERFORMANCE?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the existing body of literature on emotional intelligence (EI) in the workplace by empirically studying its effects on employees’ job performance. Different studies on EI and job performance have produced conflicting results. To have a better understanding of the relationship between EI and job performance, some scholars suggested that pairing EI with another individual trait would be beneficial to that effect. This study sought to examine mindfulness as the mediating factor between trait EI and employees’ self-perceived job performance, utilizing the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire – Short Form (TEIQue-SF; Petrides, 2009), Work Effort Scale (WESC; De Cooman et al., 2009), and mindfulness at work (Zivnuska et al., 2016) for data collection. A total of 111 participants participated in the study on SurveyMonkey. The results show that there is no positive relationship between trait EI and employees’ self-perceived job performance. Conversely, the results indicate a significant relationship between mindfulness and employees’ self-perceived job performance, as well as identifying mindfulness as the mediator between trait EI and employees’ self-perceived job performance. Keywords Emotional intelligence, job performance, workplace, mindfulness, self-perceived performance, work engagement.