“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to assess, control, and express one’s emotional welfare while navigating mutual relationships with discernment and empathy. It is a critical interpersonal skill that can impede or amplify success in the workplace in any industry. This article explores how emotional intelligence among team members and leaders impact team dynamics, productivity, and project success. It also details ways to assess emotional intelligence and develop it in software professionals.
The five components of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence has five core elements that uniquely define an individual’s capacity to shape the way they communicate with others.
Self-awareness
This characteristic describes one’s ability to recognize strengths, weaknesses, and core qualities. Self-aware individuals acknowledge their emotions and how they impact their peers, taking necessary steps to adjust their attitude.
According to a study performed by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich, only an estimated 10 to 15 percent of people are truly self-aware, meaning the remaining percentage is more likely to cause conflict in the workplace unintentionally. Productivity and success are significantly impacted depending on the degree of the lack of self-awareness due to increased tension and a decline in incentives to perform at one’s best. Those who are self-aware understand their strengths and weaknesses better and hence contribute and delegate accordingly. They are better able to understand their own thoughts and emotions as well as understand their colleagues’.
Self-regulation
Self-control is the ability of an individual to regulate and redirect their emotions given any disruptive circumstance. They are able to control and manage one’s emotions effectively, adapting to changing circumstances and avoiding impulsive reactions.
Motivation
Motivation represents the ability of individuals to harness emotions to set meaningful goals and achieve them. The motivation component of emotional intelligence is the ability to remain self-motivated, and pursue opportunities with persistence and optimism. It enables one to endure challenges and navigate through their goals until they accomplish them while developing intrinsically and maintaining a positive personal and professional outlook.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand the emotions and experiences of others and see circumstances from their perspective. Empathetic individuals can recognize another’s emotional well-being and comprehend the dynamics of a relationship. It involves adjusting to verbal and non-verbal cues.
Social skills
Social skills include the ability to resolve conflict in a dignified manner and communicate with each other to accomplish a shared goal. Emotionally intelligent people are able to build and maintain healthy relationships, communicate effectively, influence and inspire others, and manage conflicts constructively.
These components work together to enable individuals to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in themselves and others, ultimately leading to better decision-making, interpersonal relationships, and overall success in various aspects of life, including professional settings.
The importance of emotional intelligence in software development
Emotional intelligence has the power to boost software development workplace performance and help team members foster a collaborative environment that prioritizes accomplishing project objectives. The following sections detail the findings from research conducted on the impact of EI.
For team communication and collaboration
Matthew Cole, John Cox, and Jacqueline Stavros performed a study that analyzed team collaboration building through emotional intelligence. Their research utilized an eSurvey that analyzed 308 face-to-face and virtual team professionals to investigate emotional intelligence and SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results) as strategies to support collaboration. They discovered a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and collaboration, indicating that a team that possesses high emotional intelligence is more likely to cooperate.
For conflict resolution
In Peter Jordan and Ashlea Troth’s research, 350 individuals across one hundred and eight teams were surveyed based on individual, team, and conflict resolution assessments. The individuals were tested on their emotional intelligence in completing a problem resolution assignment, and the researchers found that team performance and conflict resolution strategies were positively linked with emotional intelligence traits.
For productivity
Kashumi Madampe, Rashina Hoda, and John Grundy, leaders in software systems and cybersecurity, conducted a study to understand the role of emotional intelligence in handling ‘requirement change’ (RC) situations in software engineering . They studied how well 124 software engineers could respond to RC and how they managed their emotions, relationships, and productivity. Some engineering groups collaborated to set and sustain team goals, contributing to commitment tracking, emotional awareness, and productivity. They found a strong correlation between strategies like empathizing, tracking commitments, having a dedicated RC lead, following team rituals and team productivity as well as setting and sustaining team goals.
For software quality
Based on studies, high emotional intelligence in team members does not seem to have a significant impact on the software quality produced by the team, though productivity increases. In “Personality, emotional intelligence and work preferences in software engineering: An empirical study,” the researchers studied associations between software engineers, their personalities, and their work preferences. Using 279 top students from a Swedish University, the scientists utilized the Five-Factor Model to assess their personality traits and compared their results to previously existing research about 47 software engineers. The authors revealed connections between work preferences and emotional intelligence but did not conclusively discover a significant impact on software quality.
For team satisfaction
In the software development workplace, Elizabeth Rozell and Wesley Scroggins found that companies should develop a balanced, emotionally intelligent workplace. While emotional intelligence tends to be related to team success, the researchers found that higher levels of emotional intelligence may significantly lead to a decline in team satisfaction.
Ways to assess emotional intelligence in individuals
The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, self-judgment, and informatics tests can help leaders assess the emotional intelligence of their group members. Other methods of EI assessment include ability tests and trait models, which necessitate empathic abilities to complete:
- Self-report and observer ratings – individuals and peers identify how effective a person is at managing their emotions: how do they respond to a stressful situation?
- Empathy tests – test coordinators may ask a person to evaluate a person’s facial expression in a photograph
- Conflict resolution scenarios
- Inclusivity sessions to get all team members’ voices and encourage collaboration
How to cultivate emotional intelligence in teams
Managers can train their teams in emotional intelligence in an effort to improve communication, teamwork, and productivity. They can use various methods:
- Communication cult development – team leaders should start encouraging employees to speak and listen to their colleagues
- Self-awareness skill practice – employees should experience in defining their emotions and feelings and understand how they guide them in their behavior and decisions
- Praising positive emotions – team members should focus on a positive attitude to challenges as the only effective way to accomplish tasks and move forward.
Limitations and gaps in existing research
Emotional intelligence research addresses how EI can influence outcomes in relationships and the workplace, but the measurement tool tends to be inconsistent across each study. Furthermore, the study groups tended to be students rather than industry professionals, which can impact assessment scores and EI research applications. Similar methods should be used to evaluate performances rather than mixed methods so results are less likely to be biased.
In some studies, the control groups were analyzed under various circumstances: some pre-COVID, some during COVID-19, and some post-COVID-19. This factor can influence an individual’s EI depending on their reaction to the situation.
Conclusion
Emotional intelligence is emerging as a key indicator of software engineering team task performance. A balanced EI can contribute to team satisfaction, productivity, and collaboration. Workplace leaders can employ strategies to increase their members’ emotional intelligence via training programs, but they should balance EI so that highly emotionally intelligent members are not dissatisfied. All IT workplaces should consider emotional intelligence training.
This work is not related to my position at Amazon.
References
- https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2016.43
- https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327043hup1702_4
- https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3664600
- https://bth.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:834097/FULLTEXT01
- https://doi.org/10.1108/13527591011028915
- https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195181890.003.0009
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-88370-0_4
- https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/emotional-intelligence-in-leadership
Featured image credit: Emile Perron/Unsplash
