Intelligence and Emotional intelligence :
According to Douglas Hofstadter, Pulitzer-prize
winning author of the brilliant book Godel, Escher, Bach, intelligence can be defined in terms of the following eight abilities:
1. To respond to situations very flexibly.
2. To take advantage of the right time and right place.
3. To make sense of ambiguous or contradictory messages.
4. To recognize the importance of different elements of a situation.
5. To find similarities between situations despite differences that may separate them.
6. To draw distinctions between situations despite similarities that may link them.
7. To synthesize new concepts by taking old concepts and combining them in new ways.
8. To develop ideas that are novel.
Without the intelligent guidance of emotions, human beings cannot respond to situations
very flexibly, take advantage of the right time and right place, make sense of ambiguous or contradictory messages, recognize the importance of different elements of a situation, find similarities between situations despite differences that may separate them, draw distinctions between situations despite similarities that may link them, synthesize new concepts by taking old concepts and combining in new ways, or develop ideas that are novel. Without the guidance of emotions we cannot be intelligent. Without the guidance of emotions we cannot be rational.
• Emotional intelligence is registered through deep listening — listening to oneself and listening to others (Kramer 1995, 1999).
• People who are high in emotional intelligence know how to listen to their emotions and regulate their intensity so they are not hijacked by them.
• Emotionally intelligent people know how to keep disruptive emotions in check.
• Emotionally intelligent people sense the effect their emotions have on others.
• Emotionally intelligence people know how to deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.
• Emotionally intelligence people listen to other people’s emotions and can empathize with them.
• Emotionally intelligent people act ethically and build trust through integrity and
reliability.
• Emotionally intelligent people admit their own mistakes and learn from them.
• Emotionally intelligent people are comfortable with new ideas and new information.
• Emotionally intelligent people are skilled at listening to a group’s emotional currents and discerning the power relationships.
• Emotionally intelligent people can negotiate and resolve disagreements.
• Emotionally intelligent people listen to other people and know how to communicate effectively.
Emotionally intelligent behavior is a prerequisite for building bridges of mutual understanding and trust in the space between people — in “administrative space.”
Niccollo Machiavelli (1469-1527) said that there are two types of governments – monarchy and free state(republic). He said that free states require virtuous citizens who care more for the state than themselves, and realistically people generally care more about their private interests or group concerns. Overtime, eventually there is failure of republic since they corrupt the state to achieve their private interests at the expense of the state.
Paul Appleby, one of first presidents of the American society of Public Administration, counter argued above argument and felt that for a free state to remain a free state, virtuous public servants, who shared common social ethics of concern for public interest, were essential. A free state, where private interests think about maximizing their own good and refusing to consider common good is likely to self-destruct over time unless the nation’s leaders and bureaucracy act to focus public policy on public interests. He agreed that when citizens viewed their welfare as individuals and groups separate from the republic and, more important, from the welfare of the republic, then the society would become morally corrupt. To avoid that end, he argued that public servants must maintain democratic morality social ethics. He emphasized following fundamental values in civil servants
• Importance of public trust in leading nation
• The role of nation in curbing excesses and inadequacies of market system
• The need of civic virtue
• The commitment of the nation to continued social and economic progress.
And these values are now more important considering globalization of economics, political influence of corporate , crime and corruption, environmental pollution and terrorism. He felt that public administrators should always perform their actions withing the large context of democracy. Rule of law and Elections must overrule public administrators. Of the three contemporary theories of ethics that is rule based, consequential and virtue, Appleby advocated virtue ethics for public officials.
He said, “Moral performance begins in individual self-discipline on the partof officials, involving all that is meant by the word ‘character’” (1965, 344).But character is not enough for his democratic morality. The administrative process must also support individual group judgment that reflects a whole public or oneness responsibility. Individual public administrator’s honesty is not sufficient as there must also be “a devoted guardianship of the continuing reality of democracy”.
Ideally, democracy should force private and special interests into a pluralistic mill that creates a majoritarian calculus that reflects the larger public interest. Eventually, the mill grinds and blends the myriad of private and special interests into one public interest. Hierarchy forces top officials to homogenize and moralize the private and special interests through the mill of organizational echelons. The role of the public servant is to sort though those various private and special interests and help transform them into a “public will.” Thus, politics and hierarchy are causal agents to the public servant, who must creatively search for a “public will to be.”
He argued that this milling of private and special interests could occur only if legislative and administrative devices, such as due process and proper administrative notice, exist together. They must ensure that the public policy decisions emerged out of the complexity rather than out of the simplicity of particular private and special interests. Appleby said, “Our poorest governmental performances, both technically and morally, are generally associated with conditions in which a few citizens have very disproportionate influence”
Essential Wisdoms
Another challenge for the moral public administrator is to recognize that four essential wisdoms help us understand the context of public service.
• First, there is no way of avoiding personal and private interest in the calculus of public decision making. Whether the motivation is survival or greed, the human condition fosters personal and private interests.
• Second, as humans, we are as much rationalizers as we are sometimes rational beings. The more educated and sophisticated we are, typically the better we are at rationalizing our actions sometimes even to ourselves.
• Third, more successful public discourses require an effort to transcend, sublimate, and transform narrow vested interests (i.e., dialogical discourse) but this capacity is exercised imperfectly and intermittently. Dialogical discourse with others is difficult, time consuming, and often overly emotional to the point that it is unsuccessful. Too often such discourse requires skills that are not present in public situations.
• Fourth, there is no public decision that is a total victory for the right and a total defeat for the wrong. In the process of milling to arrive at the “public’s will,” all parties will ultimately feel either that they did not get all that they wanted or that they did not lose everything.
Beyond the simple recognition of these four wisdoms, the public servant must have the character virtues of optimism, courage, humility, and a willingness to offer compromise.
Bailey projected Appleby’s virtue ethics into three essential moral qualities for the ethical public servant:
Optimism
Public administrators must be able to face the ambiguity and the paradoxical nature of ethics without being immobilized by them. They must be purposive in their behavior rather than reactive and, most important, they must remain ever hopeful in their outlook. True optimism is the affirmation of the worth of taking risks. True optimism is also the capacity to see the possibilities for good in the uncertain, the ambiguous, and the inscrutable.
Courage
The uncertainty of the territory naturally creates timidity and withdrawal. Thus, the public administrator must come to the workplace with an inner courage that overwhelms the organizational factors that promote timidity and withdrawal in persons with a weak inner self. Certainly, cheerfulness, ambition, a sense of duty, and understanding are mitigating factors. Nevertheless, the person with a weak inner self rarely has sufficient courage to overcome the loneliness of authority. To be successful, the public servant must have the courage to overcome self-arrogance and be impersonal in her or his organizational performance.
Additionally, public administrators must have the courage to face down the expert opinion that the expert cannot defend rigorously, and sometimes resist the clamoring public opinion, powerful interest groups, or the media. Bailey tells us that possibly the most important act of courage for a public servant is ultimately the courage to decide. One of the most difficult things public servants must do is to overcome their tendency toward inertia as a means to protect themselves. In many cases, a so-called non-decision is a decision that has enormous and often unintended negative consequences.
Fairness tempered by charity
Courage can be dysfunctional unless it results in just and charitable actions and attitudes. The authoritative allocator in society is government and it must act with ineffable standards of justice directed to having a sound healthy state. That can happen only if its public servants have the correct moral quality of love toward all. People in society must feel that their public servants exercise their power with fairness and compassion for them. The public can eventually forgive almost anything if they know the ultimate motivation for the action is an attempt to be fair and act with charity. It is that virtue that compensates for inadequate information and for mistakes in judgments. Contrary to what some might believe, charity is not always best characterized by using the term soft; rather, it often requires moral toughness. It requires teaching the inner self to subjugate the personal recognition, power, and status demands of our egos. It is the losing of the ego-self to find the true inner self. This act of love defines the “good” in a society beyond a pattern of privilege.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the area of cognitive ability involving traits and social skills that facilitate interpersonal behavior. There are two dimensions in emotional intelligence – one is interpersonal emotional intelligence and other is intrapersonal emotional intelligence.
Emotional Intelligence has five essential components prescribed by Golemen:
• Self awareness – first crucial component is awareness of one’s emotions. The ability to recognize and understand personal moods and emotions. It drives their effect on others. Hallmarks of self-awareness include self-confidence, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humor.
• Self regulation – managing one’s emotions. The ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgment and to think before acting. Hallmarks include trustworthiness and integrity; comfort with ambiguity; and openness to change.
• Empathy- knowing about other people’s emotions (need to know different types of emotions). The ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people. A skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. Hallmarks include expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers. (In an educational context, empathy is often thought to include, or lead to, sympathy, which implies concern, or care or a wish to soften negative emotions or experiences in others.)
• Social skills – Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, and an ability to find common ground and build rapport. Hallmarks of social skills include effectiveness in leading change, persuasiveness, and expertise building and leading teams.
• Motivation (More recently, Goleman favors only Four Domains of EI as described in his 2002-book “Primal Leadership”. Motivation is missing in those domains). A passion to work for reasons that go beyond money and status. A propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence. Hallmarks include a strong drive to achieve, optimism even in the face of failure, and organizational commitment.
More recently, Goleman favors only Four Domains of EI:
• Self-awareness – awareness of one’s emotions (Emotional Self-Awareness. Accurate Self-Assessment and Self Confidence)
• Self-management – managing one’s emotions (Emotional Self-Control. Transparency (Trustworthiness). Adaptability. Achievement Orientation. Initiative. Optimism. Conscientiousness)
• Social awareness – knowing about other people’s emotions (need to know different types of emotions) (Empathy. Organizational Awareness. Service Orientation).
• Relationship management – managing other’s emotions. (Inspirational Leadership. Influence. Developing Others. Change Catalyst. Conflict Management. Building Bonds. Teamwork and Collaboration. Communication). Emotions should be managed in rational /intelligent manner.
Marshmallow experiment was done by a famous psychologist Walter Mischel to find out deferred gratification of people. In this experiment, 5 year children were given option of eating one marshmallow instantly but they will be 2 marshmallows if they will wait 15 minutes. Some waited for more time and they were found to be more successful in life. Based on this experiment following characteristics of emotional intelligence person can be listed:
• Ability to delay satisfaction of desires/ delay in gratification important for emotional intelligence
• Aware of his awareness
• Handle stress/setback
• Positive attitude
• Resilient on the face of adversity
Benefits of Emotional intelligence:
• Better dealing with different kind of conflicts
• Optimistic and resiliency
• Better decisions can be taken
• Person develops leadership qualities
• Wise and appropriate behaviour
• Better professional progress
• Help in managing stress
• Achieve positive mental health
• Employee commitment, morale, and health
• Innovation and improvement in productivity, efficiency and effectiveness
• Build public trust
Aristotle has said that “Anyone can become angry- that is easy, but to be angry with right person at right time and for the right purpose – that is not within everyone’s power and that is not easy” . Emotional intelligence can be developed and nurtured in individuals with proper guidance and training. IQ is relatively stable throughout life but much of emotional intelligence(EQ) is learned.
Public Administrators need high EQ because they represent the organization to the public, they interact with the highest number of people within and outside the organization and they set the tone for employee morale. Leaders with empathy are able to understand their subordinate’s needs and provide them with constructive feedback. Different job requirements call for different types of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence influences organizational effectiveness in a number of areas.
