The covid-19 pandemic led many companies to go virtual through the entirety of the pandemic. Businesses are hiring employees but never seeing them face to face. This may result in emotional intelligence decreasing in the workplace especially those that require face to face encounters such as, teaching, sports, managing, and recreational companies. Public health strategies required through a mandatory isolation such as social distancing, quarantining, and lockdown may increase the probability of suffering mental health implications from the boredom of isolations(Elsevier, 2021). In this blog, I will highlight key points about the pandemic and its effects of emotional intelligence in the work place.
First of all, employees are starting to all go virtual and the idea of virtual work is becoming normalized. You can now get your therapies at home, send your boss an email of a spreadsheet, or send emails to clients all while watching TV in your living room at the same time. This can cause employees to get really comfortable with having virtual work and making coming in to work abnormal. Let alone the fact that coming in to work will feel odd, employers will get used to hiring employees virtually and never be able to actually meet them and get to know them emotionally. Sure, you can have emotional connections with someone through the phone or internet but it is not at its best capability.
According to Northouse, “emotions drive people and people drive performance.” How are employees going to drive their performance if it is all virtual?(Northouse, 2021) Some employees may beat around the bush to get their work done while others need more of an emotional drive to get the work finished. Many jobs require that one on one connection. For example, therapists likely need to see their clients current behavior state rather than seeing a “Camera off” screen or shoulders and above of their client. Teachers need to build those connections with students to help them in the future build connections with employees and employers. Kids are not getting that proper social interaction needed to expand growth and communication skills with one another.
In the study performed by Max Sadovyy, Martin Sanchez-Gomez, and Edgar Breso, they were able to find a correlation between stress, work performance and emotional intelligence and hypothetically through the stress generated by COVID-19 (Elsevier, 2021). Based on the results, it showed that emotional intelligence correlated positively with work performance and covid-19 stress correlated negatively with emotional intelligence (Elsevier, 2021). The researchers were also able to distinguish PTSD and the effect of it on the performance of the workplace through the pandemic. Meaning, many people may develop post traumatic stress symptoms after going through the pandemic. Also known as, PTSS. This result may lead to more people wanting to stay in the current conditions of their work because of the fear of going back to work and having another pandemic or drastic change happen to their schedule.
Northouse explains that the trait approach is one where someone can exhibit their strengths and weaknesses in being a leader. “Emotional intelligence can be tested using a scale called the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)(Northouse, 2021). The MSCEIT measures emotional intelligence as a set of mental abilities, including the abilities to perceive, facilitate, understand, and manage emotion (Northouse, 2021).” Researchers found that emotional intelligence has been declining over time based from this scale. The possible cause of that is because of the lack of empathy and social skills that the generation is now encountering (Northouse, 2021). I believe that may be happening due to all of social media and technology taking over.
In the near future, hopefully everything will be as they were before. Businesses will be able to reopen fully and hiring employees will become a normal thing in person. Employers will possibly need to relearn how to establish emotional intelligence within their performance. In doing so, they will need to ask themselves these personal reflection questions(Goleman and Boyatzis (2017)):
- What are the differences between how you see yourself and how others see you?
- What matters to you?
- What changes will you make to achieve these goals?
Becoming a good leader under all these circumstances will need to be re-evaluated as all of our current employees will be the leaders of the future. Can we trust that those people will be able to be strong leaders for our kids?
References:
Elsevier. (2021, October). COVID-19: How the stress generated by the pandemic may affect work performance through the moderating role of emotional intelligence. Max SadovyyMartín Sanchez-GomezEdgar BresoLake,2020Lake, 2020Moreno et al., 2020Wiebers&Feigin, 2020Drigas&Chara, 2020Morenoet al., 2020Alonazi, 2020Volk et al., 2021Whitehead, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.110986
Northouse, P.G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice. 9th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.