EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND BULLYING Dr Sabir Giga Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster University. ESRC Seminar Series: Sustaining Employee Well-being in the 21 st Century, 29 th May 2015, University of Sheffield Management School. Overview My general research interests Bullying: definition and findings from previous research Emotional intelligence: A double-edged sword? EI theory Social intelligence Self-efficacy Self-serving strategic behaviours Questions and discussion 1
My general research interests Occupational stress and bullying Causes and consequences Interventions The employee-organisation relationship The psychological contract Organisational citizenship behaviour Organisational / employee commitment Power Roles 4 Bullying defined A situation where one or several individuals persistently over a period of time perceive themselves to be on the receiving end of negative actions from one or several persons, in a situation where the target of bullying has difficulty in defending him or herself against these actions. (Einarsen & Skogstad, 1996). Negative behaviours Persistency Duration Imbalance of power formal power informal power Intent of action??? 2
Types of bullying Predatory bullying (Einarsen, 1999) Dispute related bullying (Einarsen, 1999) Bullying as conflict escalation (Glasl, 1994) Risk factors of bullying: A review of the literature Destructive leadership High workload Lack of control over workload / time Role conflict Team-conflict Organisational culture / politics / change 3
Hoel and Giga (2006) Intervention Study Key features: Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches Randomised control design Case studies/local steering committees 5 organisations (three National Health Trusts, a large Police Force, and a Civil Service Department) Focus groups (pre and post intervention) Interventions (informed by the literature and focus groups/risk identification total 55 groups) Evaluations (baseline and post-intervention measures) Pre-post intervention findings: Experiences of bullying in the last 6 months All bullied Yes, weekly/daily Baseline 13.3% 1.9% Postintervention 13.8% 1.9% Baseline (N=1041, response rate 41.5%) Post-int. (N=884, response rate 35.4%) 4
Varying levels of bullying within participating organisations: Experiences of bullying in the last 6 months No Total Yes Civil Service 87.5 12.5 NHS 1 89.2 10.8 NHS 2 84.1 15.9 NHS 3 83.4 16.6 Police 86.9 13.1 Perpetrators of bullying Spvsr / manager(s) Colleague(s) Subordinate(s) Client(s) 61.3 42.3 9.5 14.6 5
No major differences in organisational level of victims of bullying No supervisory responsibility Spvsr. Middle Mgmnt. Snr. Mgmnt. Other 13.5 13.0 12.6 11.9 18.0 Other key findings (Hoel and Giga, 2006) Nearly half all employees (44%) had witnessed bullying in the previous 6 months The most widespread negative behaviours: Withholding information which affects your work Having your opinions / views ignored Danger of raising awareness of negative behaviour in organisations and doing very little 6
Emotional Intelligence (EI) The capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intelligent growth. (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). EI therefore focuses on the recognition, appraisal, expression, and management of one s own emotions as well as those of others. (Carmeli & Josman, 2006) Emotional Intelligence: Different conceptualisations (Cherry et al., 2012; Middleton, 2015) Although there are many distinct models of EI, there are three main components common to all: Emotional awareness: recognising our emotions and those of others; Adaptability: adapting/managing our behaviour appropriately in line with the emotions of another; Empathy: the dual capacity to understand others perspectives and emotionally resonate with others. 7
Emotional Intelligence: Different conceptualisations (Kokkinos and Kipritsi, 2011) EI as a cognitive ability Measurable on an achievement scale; Possible to improve through experience, training and development. EI as a trait Personality characteristics and behavioural tendencies; We either have it or don t. Dimensions and subscales of the EQ-i (Bar-On, 1997) Intrapersonal Interpersonal Adaptability Self-regard Empathy Reality testing Stress management Stress tolerance General mood Optimism Emotional selfawareness Social responsibility Flexibility Impulse control Happiness Assertiveness Interpersonal relationships Problem solving Service Independence Selfactualization 8
Emotional Intelligence (EI) Is seen as more important than IQ (Goleman, 1998); It provides the basis for competencies essential for most jobs (Cherniss, 2000); Is positively related to Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (Yaghoubi, Mashinchi & Hadi, 2011) and a number of enhanced work outcomes (Carmeli and Josman, 2006); On the other hand. Emotional Intelligence (EI) It has been labeled as an elusive concept (Davies, Stankov and Roberts, 1998); It appears to be more myth than science (Matthews, Zeidner and Roberts, 2002); Self-report measures of EI are considered to be limited because individuals lack self-knowledge and can also distort the truth by presenting a socially desirable self (Cartwright & Pappas, 2008). 9
What is the high EI individual like? (Mayer, Salovey and Caruso, 2004) can better perceive emotions, use them in thought, understand their meanings, and manage emotions better than others. Higher verbal, social and other intelligences; More open and agreeable; Less likely to engage in problem behaviours; Avoids self destructive negative behaviours including smoking and drinking, as well as violent behaviour with others. Emotional Intelligence as a tool to tackle bullying Anti-bullying interventions in schools could benefit from focussing on deficits in EI in children who bully as well as those who are at risk of victimisation (Lomas et al., 2012). The development of people s emotional intelligence skills is suggested as one way to help address workplace bullying - more co operative workplaces would deal with problems in a supportive rather than punitive fashion (Sheehan, 1999); It s development is seen as very important to organisations because better understanding amongst employees could help to foster a more cohesive and satisfying working environment as opposed to one that is conflict ridden (Dulewicz, Higgs & Slaski, 2003). 10
Hoel and Giga, 2006 I do think HR has become more removed from it, the emphasis is moving much more, especially in this organisation which is relatively new, moving towards line managers managing their staff and dealing with situations but I m not sure that a lot of people have got the competencies and skills at the moment to do some of the things that they re asked to do or are asked to do and it s all a little bit too much. (Civil Servant) Emotional Intelligence as a tool to tackle bullying: An example of a bullying intervention (Hoel and Giga, 2006) Management training to raise awareness of negative behaviour Rational: reduce and control negative behaviour by raising awareness of types of negative behaviour and their impact Content: Acceptable & unacceptable behaviour, development of transactional analysis skills for managing interpersonal relationships 11
Emotional Intelligence as a tool to tackle bullying: Post intervention focus groups (Hoel and Giga, 2006) The training has usefully indicated to people that they think of their behaviour with subordinates, colleagues, superiors etc. We ve been making sure that those negative traits and tendencies were managed better We are slightly uncomfortable because we feel quite heavy on our shoulders the responsibility to be diverse and not to intimidate anyone or harass them. Emotional Intelligence and Bullying: Research from schools (Sutton et al., 1999) When considering EI as a cognitive ability it is closely related to the social intelligence construct; High social intelligence is linked to more sophisticated (subtle) forms of bullying; Low social intelligence is linked to more direct and physical forms of bullying. 12
Self-efficacy and bullying: Research from schools Self efficacy determines the way children interact with their environment and arrange their social relationships. Children with low self-efficacy are more likely to engage in maladaptive behaviours and bullying (Kokkinos and Kipritsi, 2011) Self-efficacy in the workplace Managerial self-efficacy is seen as the perceived capacity to be effective and influential within the organizational domain in which one is a manager (Fast et al., 2014) 13
Low managerial self-efficacy and the aversion to employee voice (Fast et al., 2014) Soliciting and incorporating employee voice is essential to organisational performance Managers with low levels of self-efficacy are less likely than others to solicit input, leading to lower levels of employee voice Low managerial self-efficacy and the aversion to employee voice (Fast et al., 2014) Low managerial self-efficacy leads to intentional voice aversion: decreased voice solicitation negative evaluations of employees who speak up reduced implementation of voice Link to ego defensiveness 14
Emotional intelligence and self-serving strategic behaviours (Kilduff, Chaiburu and Menges, 2010; Jain, Giga and Cooper, 2013) High-EI employees (relative to those low on EI) are likely to benefit from several strategic behaviors in organizations including: Focusing emotion detection on important others; Disguising and expressing emotions for personal gain; Using misattribution to stir and shape emotions, and Controlling the flow of emotion-laden communication. Summary There is a growing interest on EI in organisational practice and research, although there are major problems with the definition and operationalisation of the concept; Disregarding clarity in regard to definitions, some findings linked directly to EI as well as related concepts such as social influence and cognitive ability suggest that there is a complex relationship with organisational citizenship behaviours; In the pursuit of personal goals, employees can exhibit behaviours that range from being selfless / altruistic to egotistical / manipulative; More research is needed on the relationship between EI and destructive / abusive behaviour such as bullying. 15
Select references Fast, N.J., Burris, E.R., & Bartel, C.A. (2014). Managing to stay in the dark: Managerial self-efficacy, ego-defensiveness, and the aversion to employee voice, Academy of Management Journal, 57(4): 1013-1034. Hoel, H. & Giga, S.I. (2006). Destructive interpersonal conflict in the workplace: The effectiveness of management interventions. British Occupational Health Research Foundation: London. Available online at: http://www.bohrf.org.uk/downloads/bullyrpt.pdf Kilduff, M., Chiaburu, D.S., & Memges, J. I. (2010). Strategic use of emotional intelligence in organizational settings: Exploring the dark side, Research in Organizational Behavior, 30: 129-152. Mayer, Salovey & Caruso (2004). Emotional intelligence: Theory, findings and implications, Psychological Inquiry, 15(3): 197-215. Questions and discussion Contact details: Dr Sabir Giga Senior Lecturer in Organizational Health and Wellbeing Division of Health Research, Faculty of Health & Medicine C08 Furness College Lancaster University Lancaster, LA1 4YG. Email: s.giga@lancaster.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1524 594033 16