Develop and use Emotional Intelligence Sample Assignment

Assignment Case 1. Australian Hardware

Vanessa Cardona Urueta

Term 1

Question 1.

Describe what you think is the best way to respond to the Store Manager’s behaviour. Describe how you would model positive leadership behaviour.

Good Morning, May I have a word with you? I was looking forward to talk about the meeting we had. I recognize that bringing all managers together required a lot of effort and that know you’re dealing with a lot of pressure, but I would like to be honest with you, the way the meeting came out wasn’t the best. I think you were clear about how important is the situation and that now all of our efforts are crucial to get the things better, but simply the way you expressed leave a bad feeling behind and is getting everyone to their limits. We know how stressful could be to manage an entire department and sometime things can get out of control, but that when we need our leader to be focus and calm. Also, I would like to add that you have all our support and as your team we want to stick together and get the things done, but we need the support from other areas too. We can start analysing what can we do, even small changes could help, but we need to integrate the other areas that participate in the process as marketing and logistics. And not to blame or put all the responsibility in one area, if we want results the best way is to organize a meeting were all can be informed about what we want, what are we missing and thinking about how to do it together.

Describe the principles of emotional intelligence that the Store Manager did not demonstrate.

Self-awareness: Is the ability to recognize your own emotions especially in the moment when they arise, which is often the easiest time to get swept away by them. As we could see in the case the Store Manager’s answer was 100% emotional. Being emotionally self-aware, would allow her to diffuse strong emotions long enough to realize why they are happening and react with self-control.

Self-control: Once you recognize your own emotions (Self-awareness), self-control means being able to manage them with relative thoughtfulness and balance. It allows to meet challenges in a clear way. The manager showed her team her lack of self-awareness and self-control, by not being able to keep the calm in difficult circumstances.

Empathy: Being empathetic means having the ability to see from the perspective of others and respond naturally to their feelings and is the best way to form a deep and good relationships.

Is clear that she didn’t care about who was listening to her. Yelling at someone isn’t the best way to communicate a message. She just concentrated herself in the negative feelings and she let her go by her triggers causing an unnecessary concern and bad atmosphere at work.

Describe how the Store Manager should have acted and communicated.

She could have started the meeting by telling the managers how important is their role in this circumstance and pointing the positive efforts that all were doing. Then show what was the situation, and encouraging them talk about their points of view and to create ideas about what could have being done better to improve the situation. Also let them know that the responsibility wasn’t only from her department, but that she needed all their commitment. Then suggest how will be a better way to integrate all the efforts follow by a message of support and calm. “Everything will be all right if we work together to achieve a common objective and if we plan it we will make it, let’s keep positive and don’t lose the focus, we are a team we are here to support each other”

Describe the connection between the store manager’s behaviour and store morale. Describe what effect the Store Manger’s behaviour could have on the store performance.

Store Manager’s behaviour created a negative work environment by causing an unnecessary concern about job security and undermined trust. Also, the circumstances made the managers push unreasonable sales demands onto their staff.

The store morale is very clear about people being the success of the business, for the same reason it insists that managers should respond to the employees needs such as fairness, job security and skills development. It’s also based in a good leadership that means that their leaders need to demonstrate keen emotional awareness and promote positive team building behaviour in others.

Based on that we can conclude that the Store Manager’s behaviour was against the store morale and made the employees questioned about how value they were for the company and if they were in the correct place under the correct management.

Question 2.

Provide at least 2 examples of possible misinterpretations of expressions or behaviour that may arise in the context of a diverse workforce.

Different culture and religions: Some religions don’t allowed people to drink.  Some cultures don’t allowed women to be seated in the same table with men or simple things like driving aren’t allow to women.

Family issues: Sometimes we can take for granted someone else’s life. Some people are reserved about their personal life even if they are passing by a difficult moment as having someone with a critical disease that requires all their attention and time.

Describe how you would explain to the employee who came to you with the issue how cultural expressions may be misinterpreted.

I would tell the person that he has to be conscious that nowadays the world has expanded and we live in a multicultural age, where there are different points of view about things, what could be normal for someone could represent something not allowed in someone else culture or beliefs, and that does not mean someone is wrong it means that we need to open our mind to the differences between cultures and try to understand as much as possible the other. I would say that they took for granted that she didn’t want to, instead of thinking the different reasons about why she wasn’t sharing social spaces with them, and as a result of that she also had felt excluded at work. So to bring a solution I would suggest that during the week we can take 15 minutes of our daily routine at work to try to talk about different topics in a small meeting that are related with our lifestyle, positive things that had happened to us during the week or something that we saw in the news, things that make us happy, all of this as an effort to get to know each other more and integrate our team.

Discuss how the team can raise their awareness of cultural expression and promote effective communication to avoid misunderstandings in order to resolve the differences.

I will encourage the use of different tools and activities that could help us to know each other better and the role that we play according to our personality as team member. One of the tools that I would use is DISC, which allow us to have a clear view about our personality without being judgmental.

Question 3.

Describe how you would set aside your own emotions to focus on and identify how the employee feels. Refer to relevant principles of emotional intelligence.

First, I need to be clear about that what works for someone it doesn’t mean that works for everyone.

Based on the principles of emotional intelligence I would contain myself of focus in negative things and would analyse his behaviour and my reaction in the circumstances that triggers me.

What he is doing is not against me as far as I can see, the only problem is with him are he’s participation in our team building sessions, so I think I would have a meeting with him to talk about how he feels during the sessions without judging his answer even if I don’t like it, I know the best way to solve a situation is asking and talking about it. Also, I will encourage everyone in the team to prepare a small activity that we could include in our training in order to encourage him to bring some ideas to the table. In this case, Self-control and Empathy are crucial to not lose the focus and show a correct leadership by being able to understand other points of view. But also, I would remind him the importance of being part of the team, by adapting himself to the team’s rhythm.

Describe how knowledge of learning styles, personality types or communication styles, might be able to help you relate to and understand the employee better and adapt your response.

My awareness of the team members' learning helps me to implement effective strategies for an assertive communication. According to the employee learning style which could be:

• Verbal
• Kinesthetic
• Auditory

I would plan the way our meeting will be. In order to be clear and cause a positive effect on him. Is about identify who is listening to make sure that we are sending the message in the correct way to the receiver. Also, our body language is as important as our verbal language, if is someone has a challenging personality acting like if I’m afraid of him won’t help to transmit the message and won’t have the same effect.

Describe how could you use your awareness of your own feelings and those of the employee to adapt your response so that your needs and the employee’s needs are satisfied

In this case I can use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to try to analyse myself and the employee to plan a better strategy of communication and relationship according with our needs, and just focusing on what I want. If I know myself, I know what triggers me what are my strengths and I’m clearer about how to manage a difficult situation without losing control of my emotions. Another point to show is when you are aware of your weaknesses it gives you the opportunity to transform them into strengths by thinking your response and your actions in those challenging situations. Also, I’m able to recognize characteristics in others, and being empathetic in order to put myself in the other person’s shoes. As a leader is important to be an active listener, so ill be able to listen his opinion from the beginning to the end, so at the end I could give him a response based on his message and not a response base on supposition or just in a small part of the conversation. If I’m capable of listening him, I would get to know him better which would make my decisions and communication easier and assertive. And would help me to create a plan to integrated him without forcing him, and make him feel as a team player. Also, if I have the knowledge and practice emotional intelligence can also encourage him to do then same, so he could develop his skill in order to perform a better role in the team.

Question 4.

Describe the relationship between emotionally effective people and the attainment of business objectives.

A business in which the employees are emotionally intelligent is one which enables them to work together to maximum effectiveness. An organisation which has staff who feels motivated, productive, efficient, aligned with the business, and committed is an organization destined to success. That’s the relation between the people and the attainment of business objectives, if the employee’s needs are being satisfied the would work in order to success, the most important value of a business is the people. An unhappy employee is noncommitted one. People how are emotionally intelligent aren’t afraid of change, they understand that it’s necessary and they would adapt, they explore the possibilities, ask questions and are open to new solutions and changes.

Describe how considering the emotional impact of decision-making could lead to better decision-making (with respect to business objectives)

Important decisions may result in organisational challenge. People usually resist change, because they’re afraid about what is coming could change their comfort and not satisfied their needs. In other words, they fear the unknown. That where considering emotional impact of decision making could lead to a better way of facing the changes. As we can manage to present the new situation in a way that people can understand the change, why is need it and the benefits and be aware their needs are still an important part for the company. Think about how the changes are going to impact people’s emotions help you to create a strategy in order to have the support of your team. If the employees feel that their need are not being considerate they would resist to changes and the achievement of the objectives would be difficult. Effectively communicating change is one of the most successful change management strategies.

Describe what a possible process of decision making that takes into account emotional impact could look like.

1. Gather the people and get the facts

   Every staff member of the sales revenue at the Wollongong store in Timber and Plumbing & Electrical department. Managers will be responsible to transmit the info to their areas. Collect the information about the sales, the targets and the impact of the competition in their sales. The resources necessary to start the improvement plan, and the resources that are being dedicated to the programs that want to delayed, and the positive impact of doing the change. In numbers.

2. Sense the affect

   Analyse the feeling of the people who will be impact directly by the change. The use of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs could be useful to understand what is important.

   Analyse you feeling about it, is a change and is a difficult path and the reaction of the people could be unexpected. Face the change, and be clear about what you feel, what needs to be done, why, and the best way to project security in others in order to help the to face the challenge with a good attitude.

3. Blend and transform information to reach decision

   Think about what would be a win-win-win strategy based on the analysis before

4. Communicate the decision and manage the change

   This part is crucial to the success of the change. Have a good communication strategy is the way to make people understands that the changes are necessary and support them. The way that the new strategy is communicated to the managers ahs to be clear and show negative and positive effects about the changes also give all the information required to answer the question that could appear during the communication to their areas. Is important to let the know that we are looking to work as a team and support each other.

Identify policies, procedures, or legislation that will need to be adhered to in order to satisfy internal and external requirements related to managing emotions in the work place.

The manager must provide information to employees (in such other languages as appropriate) concerning health and safety at the workplace, including the names of persons to whom an employee may make an enquiry or complaint about health and safety.

The employees should be communicated about the changes and the impact on them, also in every step of the process to avoid misunderstandings and make sure that the information is known by all the participant in the process.

Describe how OHS/WHS legislation is relevant to how managers implement business decisions.

They give a general overview of how to make workplaces safe and healthy. They outline the legal responsibilities and duties as an employer based on the principle that workers and other persons should be given the highest level of protection against harm to their health, including psychological health, safety and welfare from hazards and risks at work. Based on them manager can apply them to their policies in order to create a better workplace and to make sure that the impact of changes doesn’t affect in negative way to the employees. Also help them to be fair and think about the entire picture when they need to make a decision.