Background to the development of emotional intelligence

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How do leaders create organisational culture?

The six primary embedding mechanisms and the six secondary reinforcement mechanisms as shown Table 2.6: (adapted from Schneider, 1990) create what would be called the “climate” of the organisation. At this stage the climate created by the leaders precedes the existence of the group culture. At a later stage climate will be a reflection and manifestation of the cultural assumptions, but early in the life of a group it reflects only the assumptions of the leader (Schein, 1992, 2004).

How leaders react to critical incidents and organisational crisis

When an organisation faces a crisis, the manner in which the leader deals with it creates new norms, values, and working procedures and reveals important underlying assumptions. Crises are significant especially in organisational culture creation and transmission because the heightened emotional involvement during such periods increases the intensity of learning. Crisis heightens anxiety, and anxiety reduction is a powerful motivator of new learning. If people share intense emotional experiences and collectively learn how to reduce anxiety, they are more likely to remember what they have learned (Schein, 2004: 254).

Observed criteria for allocation of rewards and status

Members of any organisation learn from their own experience with promotions, performance appraisals, and discussions with the leader about what the organisation values and what the organisation punishes. Both the nature of the behaviour rewarded and punished and the nature of the rewards and punishment themselves carry a message. Leaders could quickly get across their own priorities, values, and assumptions by consistently linking rewards and punishments to the behaviour they are connected with. What Schein (2004: 259) referred to here were actual practices, what really happened, not what is espoused, published, or preached.

The balanced scorecard

The balanced scorecard (BSC) is one of the most highly discussed management tools today (Atkinson & Epstein, 2000) and fortune 500 companies are increasingly using it. A survey found that approximately 50 percent of fortune 1000 companies in North America and 40 percent in Europe use a version of the BSC (Kaplan & Norton, 2001). BSC is now being listed as a value methodology along with cost-benefit analysis and return on investment (Field, 2000); it is being used to help change organisational culture (Simpson and Cacioppe, 2001); and several companies have reported improved operational efficiency and profitability as a result of using BSC (Atkinson & Epstein, 2000; Gumbus, Bellhouse & Lyons, 2003).

Research approach selected

The purpose of this research is to examine the dynamic effect of a leader EQ (measured using the HayGroup ECI 2.0 instrument) and organisational culture strength (measured as values and norms) on the performance of an organisation. It is argued that the extent to which a leader is successful in building a strong culture will positively correlate with organisational performance. However, extant theory suggests a leader’s EQ does influence the leader’s success in building a strong culture. While a great deal of research has been done on EQ, there is no systematic research that has examined the black box of the hypothesized relationships suggested by the work of Schein (1992, 2004) and that of Goleman et al. (2002).

Sample selection criteria

In the first stage, the founding and early growth of a new organisation, the main cultural thrust comes from the founders and their assumptions (Schein, 1985). In choosing the sample to undertake the study it is important to make sure that the founders/ original leaders were still in place at the TSCs. The TSCs were created in early 1997 in response to the changes in the way the organisation delivered its field services and also to address the key growth and equity issues highlighted by the new South African government. Most of the TSOs (approx 80%) initially chosen to create the new TSC structure were still in their current position.

Table of Contents :

• 1 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
  • 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.2 Background to the research problem
    • 1.2.1 Leadership theories – a historical perspective
    • 1.2.2 Leadership and EQ
    • 1.2.3 Background to the development of emotional intelligence
  • 1.3 Statement of the research problem
    • 1.3.1 Major research question
    • 1.3.2 Secondary research questions
  • 1.4 Aim of the research
  • 1.5 Research design and methods
  • 1.6 Methodological assumptions
  • 1.7 Demarcation of the research
  • 1.8 Concept clarification
    • 1.8.1 Emotional intelligence
    • 1.8.2 Organisational culture
  • 1.9 Defining organisational performance
    • 1.9.1 Measuring organisational performance
    • 1.9.2 Organisational performance measures
  • 1.10 Approach to data analysis
    • 1.10.1 Canonical correlation
    • 1.10.2 Multiple regression
  • 1.11 Significance of the study
  • 1.12 Outline of the research
• 2 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE STUDY
  • 2.1 Introduction
  • 2.2 Leadership and emotional intelligence
  • 2.3 Effective leaders have emotional intelligence
  • 2.4 Development of the ECI instrument
  • 2.5 Criticism of emotional intelligence
  • 2.6 Leadership and organisational culture
  • 2.7 Three theoretical views of organisational culture
  • 2.8 Leader EQ, organisation culture and organisational life-cycle: A theoretical linkage
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Research approach
    • 3.2.1 Scientific beliefs
    • 3.2.2 The qualitative and quantitative approaches
    • 3.2.3 Research approach selected
  • 3.3 Research objectives, problems, hypotheses, constructs, variables and ………… empirical research questions
  • 3.3.1 Problem statement and objectives of the study
  • 3.3.2 Research hypotheses
  • 3.3.3 Research concepts and constructs
  • 3.3.4 Research variables
  • 3.4 Research methods
• 4 Chapter 4: Results
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Sampling the independent variables
  • 4.3 Empirical Question 1: What are the basic statistical features of the data?
    • 4.3.1 Descriptive statistics for the ECI instrument
    • 4.3.2 Descriptive statistics for the OCP instrument
    • 4.3.3 Descriptive statistics for performance
    • 4.3.4 Initial data screening
  • 4.4 Empirical question 2: What are the reliability and construct validity of the ………. dimensions of the ECI and OCP instruments
  • 4.5 Empirical question 3: What are the descriptors of ECI, OCP and organisational
• 5 Chapter 5: Discussions, conclusions and recommendations
  • 6 Bibliography
  • 7 Appendix A: The Technical Services Officer (TSO) Questionnaire
  • 8 Appendix B: The FSAM and FSE Questionnaire
  • 9 Appendix C: The TSC staff Questionnaire
  • 10 Appendix D: List of Technical Services Centres
  • 11 Appendix E: Descriptive statistics for the ECI, OCP and Organisational

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THE DYNAMIC EFFECTS OF LEADER EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE ON ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE