Emotional Intelligence: The Most Potent Factor of Job Performance Among Executives

Abstract

Nowadays, we observe that some organizations are successful and others are not. One of reasons can be related to ability of organization‘s executives. The important factor which has a significant role in success of an executive is emotion. Emotions are an important part of any person‘s life which seriously affects all aspects of life. Each emotion has a motivating characteristic, a personal meaning, and an expression reflected in behaviors (Cecen, 2006). The term emotion encompasses an item, which is Emotional Intelligence (EI). Emotional Intelligence (EI) is often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), term (EQ) was coined by (Bar-On, 1988) and can be traced to early studies in 1920s (Bar-On & Parker, 2000). The concept of ‘social intelligence’ was introduced by (Thorndike, 1920), who defined it, as ability to understand and manage people to act wisely in human relations. The concept of EI grew out of this particular definition, which influenced how EI was understood and conceptualized. In early 1980s, scholars began to systematically conceptualize idea of EI. Notably, (Gardner, 1983), a psychologist at Harvard University, initiated theory of multiple intelligences and proposed that intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence are as important as type of intelligence typically measured by Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and related tests and after that (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) introduced term EI and defined it as ability to deal with emotions. Then concept of EI was made popular by (Goleman, 1995) with his famous book Emotional Intelligence: Why It can matter More Than IQ. Daniel Goleman explains that IQ is considered to account for approximately 20% of factors that determine life success, and he argues that EI can account for remaining factors. The importance of emotional intelligence is emphasized because human relations in organizations are affected by emotional factors more than by rational factors (Jung & Yoon, In Press). There are many definition of EI; (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) defined emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. Salovey & Mayer (1997), revised definition to complement it. They defined emotional intelligence as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. Martinez (1997), refers to emotional