An Ei-based Theory of Performance

In 1998, in Working with Emotional Intelligence, I set out a framework of emotional intelligence (EI) that reflects how an individual's potential for mastering the skills of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management translates into on-the-job success. This model is based on EI competencies that have been identified in internal research at hundreds of corporations and organizations as distinguishing outstanding performers. Focusing on EI as a theory of performance, this chapter presents a new version of that model, looks at the physiological evidence underlying EI theory, and reviews a number of studies of the drivers of workplace performance and the factors that distinguish the best individuals from the average ones. As I define it, an emotional competence is " a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work " (Goleman, 1998b). To be adept at an emotional competence like Customer Service or Conflict Management requires an underlying ability in EI fundamentals, specifically, Social Awareness and Relationship Management. However, emotional competencies are learned abilities: having Social Awareness or skill at managing relationship does not guarantee we have mastered the additional learning required to handle a customer adeptly or to resolve a conflict—just that we have the potential to become skilled at these competencies. Emotional competencies are job skills that can, and indeed must, be learned. An underlying EI ability is necessary, though not sufficient, to manifest competence in any one of the four EI domains, or clusters that I introduced in Chapter Two. Consider the IQ corollary that a student can have excellent spatial abilities yet never learn geometry. So too can a person be highly empathic yet poor at handling customers if he or she has not learned competence in customer service. Although our emotional intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills that underlie the four EI clusters, our emotional competence shows how much of that potential we have realized by learning and mastering skills and translating intelligence into on-the-job capabilities. Figure 3.1 presents the current version of my EI framework. Twenty competencies nest in four clusters of general EI abilities. The framework illustrates, for example, that we cannot demonstrate the competencies of trustworthiness and conscientiousness without mastery of the fundamental ability of Self-Management or the Competencies of Influence, Communication, Conflict Management, and so on without a handle on Managing Relationships.