Personal effectiveness through emotional intelligence

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Purpose and Scope

INTRODUCTION:

Without fuel, a car cannot move; similarly, without self-belief, how can an individual be the
driving force behind tertiary educational success? Emotional Intelligence is essential for any
individual because they are the leaders in their own lives and determine whether or not they
obtain a degree. As any individual is aware, the motivation to succeed must come from within,
as the demands and stress levels are all part of the pursuit of professional and personal success.
Together with the leaders, who should be emotionally prepared to identify their own emotions
as well as the emotions of other subjects, and the management, they play an important role in
the individual’s performance and success.
Whereas individuals should criticise theory and apply their mind to solve broader social
problems, they will have the ability to perceive and understand their own emotions, emotions
of others, effectively express these emotions, incorporate emotional information in reasoning,
planning and decision making, effectively control emotions.
Traditionally the institutions have mostly concentrated on logical and verbal intelligence, with
less concentration on other kinds of intellect. Yet many academics begin to contend that
intrapersonal and interpersonal skills or the knowledge of emotions are more significant than
logical or linguistic intelligence for life's success (Tucker, Sojka, Barone & McCarthy, 2000).
Furthermore, management derailment studies have shown a lack of emotional knowledge.
Derailment is often attributable to personalities (for example, lack of self-consciousness),
incapacity to adapt, bad treatment of others and interpersonal connection issues (Tucker et al.,
2000).
The goal of this research is to study emotional intelligence among people and to see how it can
enable improvement in the personal effectiveness.

MOTIVATION FOR THE TOPIC:

In Gardner (1983; 1991), business-related graduate programmes focus mainly on individual

competence indicators such as the logic and linguistic intelligence and pay less attention to
spatial, interpersonal and naturalistic forms of intelligence. Epoch-related intelligence and
applications for education were reported.
Emotional intelligence's usefulness and growth in higher education have been extensively
investigated. According to Boyatzi et al. (2002), cognitive and emotional intelligence
competences can be fostered in Master of Business Administration (MBA) students, but not
through a traditional MBA curriculum. Assessment methods and experiential exercises can be
used to include emotional intelligence into the business curriculum.
Entrepreneurship teachers employed emotional competencies to teach students how to deal
with failure anxiety and entrepreneurial ambitions (Shepherd 2004). Scott and Yates (2002)
investigated the qualities deemed most necessary for successful engineers during the first
several years following graduation and assessed whether institutions were fostering these
competencies. These findings reinforced that technical competence is necessary for effective
practise, but it is far from sufficient, as graduates and their supervisors both regarded emotional
intelligence competencies as key success criteria.
PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH

Individuals with a higher level of Emotional Intelligence are thought to be better suited to drive
themselves and others to attain even greater goals than they set for themselves. Individuals
with a greater level of Emotional Intelligence develop stronger interpersonal relationships, are
better suited to lead individuals more effectively, are more successful in their respective careers,
and have better health prospects than those with a lower level of Emotional Intelligence.

SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH

The primary objective of this project is to investigate if there is a difference on effectiveness
when Emotional Intelligence is involved in the calculation.

Goleman (1995) has described EQ in terms of knowing what you are feeling and being able to
manage these feelings without being swamped. Emotional Intelligence is not about playing it
nice, but being real, open and honest about the feelings. Emotional intelligence does not mean
giving free rein to feelings and letting it all hang out, rather it means managing feelings so that
they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together common
goals. In addition, it is about being able to motivate yourself to get the job done and being
creative. Hence, it is essential for the students to possess these qualities, in order to meet
deadlines and to maintain a balance between their personal life and the stressful demand of
university life.