The Emotional Intelligence Explained through Starbucks

It was Daniel Goleman whom greatly popularized the theory of Emotional Intelligence, EI or EQ, defining it as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships. (Goleman, 1998). Organizations in the present day, especially in the service industries, are embracing the notion of emotional intelligence at the workplace because of its relationship towards employee’s performance, quality of service, and customer loyalty. All in which ultimately contributes to better reputation and higher returns. At Starbucks, emotional intelligence plays an important role in job performance, as the company enjoys a loyal customer base and a reputation as one of the most admired companies in America. (Robbins, Judge, 2013). An employee with high emotional intelligence will be able to handle his own impulses rationally, able to react quickly in tensed environment, solve problems and remain composed even in the face of adversity. In 1998, Goleman conducted a research and discovered that 67% of the competencies management outlined as determining factors of excellence within a job was correlated to emotional abilities. (Khalili, 2012). This summarizes the implication of emotional intelligence as a way to increase the success of an organization today.

This naturally leads to Horchschild’s commercialization of human feelings, which is referred to as emotional labor. Emotional labor is mainly adapted in the service industry. Hochschild define emotional labor as the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display, emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value. (Hochschild, 1983; p.7). When our j...

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...s are required to project an emotion while feeling another. This disparity is emotional dissonance. Emotional dissonance is the inconsistencies between the emotions people feel and the emotions they project. (Robbins, Judge, 2013, pg143). The larger the gap between the required and true emotions, the more employees tends to experience stress, job burnout, and psychological separation from self. (Mcshane, 2010 Chapter 4 unsure of page). Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals especially when the job relies on social interaction. Individuals who put more effort into making emotional facilitation in thinking, and analyzing their own and others’ emotions, this process may generate a feeling of stress, frustration, or burnout/emotional exhaustion. (MOON, T, & HUR, W 2011, pg 7)