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The leader of the knowledge‐based organization is faced with the continuing dilemma of delivering the highest quality and most technologically innovative products or services at the lowest possible cost in a rapidly changing environment. This paper aims to start with the identification of the complexities of managing the knowledge‐based organization, using emotional intelligence to balance the interests of the individual and organization, and it may also be redefined as an organizational development process rather than an outcome.

In order to be effective the knowledge‐based leader must possess the characteristics most often associated with the description of emotional intelligence and must also be effective at injecting these same characteristics throughout the organization. Utilizing the premises of Stewart's intellectual economy and adapting the work of Buckingham and Coffman to the knowledge‐based organization, a series of questions is outlined to assist leaders, managers and workers in the improvement of emotional intelligence awareness and the utilization of emotional intelligence as an organizational development process.

Knowledge‐based organizations may benefit from the utilization of behaviors most often attributed to emotional intelligence, and emotional intelligence may be redefined as a process rather than an outcome for organizational development.

The knowledge working environment must utilize innovative processes to maintain the engagement and effectiveness of the workforce. Applying emotional intelligence as an organizational development process rather than an outcome, it becomes a strategy for the development of the individual and the organization concurrently rather than treating them as opposing interests.

Prati, Douglas, Ferris, Ammeter, and Buckley (2003) have proposed that emotional intelligence is a critical component in effective team leadership and team outcomes. John Antonakis (2003) questioned whether the first claim in this article, that emotional intelligence is critical for effective team leadership, is justified. He presents six questions that illuminate his reservations. In response, the present authors attempt to answer his reservations by clarifying and explicating the reasoning behind this claim.

Eighty elected leaders and 388 followers were sampled to test the relationships between leaders’ emotional intelligence and the quality of leader-member exchange. Results of the field study found a significant relationship between leaders’ emotional intelligence (total) and leader-member exchange quality. Specific subscales of emotional intelligence were also predictive of leader-member exchange theory. Leaders’ empathetic response and interpersonal skills each correlated with leader-member exchange. Implications and directions for research are discussed.

To explore the feasibility of utilizing the Bar-On mixed model of emotional–social intelligence as a framework for the competencies and traits needed for reference and information services librarians. Through a survey of the literature, the author created a baseline list of competencies, which was compared and contrasted with the abilities, traits, and competencies that comprise the Bar-On model of emotional–social intelligence. The author conducted a pilot study with a small group (n = 10) of reference and user services librarians who took the EQ-i 2.0. The competencies and traits of reference and user services librarians identified in the literature compare favorably with those measured by the EQ-i 2.0. Overall, a majority of the participants (70%) obtained a total score on the EQ-i 2.0 in the mid or high range. Composite scales with the highest overall mean scores were decision-making and self-perception. Subscales with the highest scores included the following: impulse control, self-actualization, social responsibility, problem solving, and reality testing. As a pilot study, it was conducted using a small population of academic reference and user services librarians. Further research should be conducted utilizing a larger population of reference and user services librarians or librarians who have been recognized as exemplary in reference librarianship. The findings of this study could assist pre-service and in-service reference and user services librarians in further developing their emotional–social intelligence competencies and abilities by identifying areas where improvements could occur.

We review the literature on stress in organizational settings and, based on a model of job insecurity and emotional intelligence by Jordan, Ashkanasy and Härtel (2002), present a new model where affective responses associated with stress mediate the impact of workplace stressors on individual and organizational performance outcomes. Consistent with Jordan et al., emotional intelligence is a key moderating variable. In our model, however, the components of emotional intelligence are incorporated into the process of stress appraisal and coping. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of these theoretical developments for understanding emotional and behavioral responses to workplace.

This study seeks to examine how follower’s emotional intelligence influences their emotional reactions to leadership.

Data were collected at two points in time. First, I assessed the emotional intelligence of 157 participants in a laboratory setting. Then, a few weeks later, an experiment manipulating leadership behavior was conducted with same participants. After viewing the leader, the participants’ emotional reactions to their attributions of the leader’s behavior were assessed.

In line with expectations, emotional intelligence was associated with different emotional responses to attributions for the leader’s behavior. Specifically, participants lower on emotional intelligence had more extreme emotional responses to the leader than their more highly emotionally intelligent counterparts.

Although emotional intelligence has received a lot of scholarly attention with regard to predicting performance and leadership emergence, we need to learn more about how it influences emotional responses at work.

If emotional intelligence helps promote less extreme emotional reactions at work, emotional skills should be developed in employees.

This study is the first to examine emotional intelligence as a moderator of emotional reactions to attributions of leadership charisma and intent.

Theory suggests that affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior are positively correlated. Previous studies, however, report weak relationships between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. The present study provides an interactive perspective in which we propose that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between affective commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs) – altruism and compliance. We found significant interaction between emotional intelligence and affective commitment in predicting altruistic behavior. In other words, the positive relationship between affective commitment and OCB-altruism was stronger for high emotional intelligence individuals. Our prediction for compliance behavior was not supported.

The relevance of affective factors in the charismatic leadership process has been widely acknowledged in leadership research. Building on this notion, the present study empirically investigated the role of leaders’ positive mood and emotional intelligence in the development of charismatic leadership behaviors. We developed hypotheses linking these constructs and tested them in a sample of 34 leaders and their 165 direct followers from a multinational corporation. Results showed that both leaders’ positive mood and leaders’ emotional intelligence were positively related to their charismatic leadership behaviors, as rated by followers. Further, we found leaders’ emotional intelligence to moderate the relationship between leaders’ positive mood and their charismatic leadership behaviors. Emotionally intelligent leaders exhibited charismatic leadership behaviors to a high extent, largely irrespective of their degree of positive mood. In contrast, leaders low on emotional intelligence were more likely to exhibit charismatic behaviors when their positive mood was high, while they were less likely to exhibit such behaviors when their positive mood was low. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for leadership theory, research, and practice.

In organizations, it is common to talk about how wisely people manage their emotions. Even so, it is often not obvious whether a particular act of emotion regulation is wise or unwise and, to date, research has provided little guidance to judge the wisdom of emotion regulation efforts. We develop a model that construes wise emotion regulation as a process that involves: (a) setting an effective emotion regulation goal, (b) choosing an appropriate strategy to achieve that goal, (c) implementing that strategy effectively, and (d) adapting emotion regulation over time. We also develop propositions linking emotional intelligence to wise emotion regulation. Finally, we discuss the implications of our model and propositions for research and practice.

Many organizational problems are poorly defined, emotionally laden, and ambiguous. These types of problems rarely have one right answer and the criteria for evaluating the appropriateness of solutions is likely to be context dependent. Further, although cognitive skills are important to effective problem solving, the nature of these problems may also require emotional skills as well. This chapter presents a study which set out to determine whether emotional intelligence as an ability contributes above and beyond cognitive intelligence to the quantity, flexibility, and quality of solutions generated to ill-structured problems. Although support was not found for the notion that emotional intelligence explains the indices of solution generation beyond that of cognitive intelligence, the findings did show that emotional intelligence was a significant predictor of one of the solution metrics, namely the average resolving power of solutions across the two problems. The findings demonstrate that emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence are separate constructs and suggest that caution be used in proposing the pervasive effects of emotional intelligence. In particular, the results of this study suggest that emotional intelligence may not equally influence all activities, highlighting the need to investigate which steps of the problem-solving process it does indeed impact.