While
reading the case study entitled “Susie Wong”, I began reflecting about my experiences
as an employee. I met a lot of “Susie Wong” in the workplace, and honestly, I became
like “Susie Wong” in the past. I have learned how to
deal with this type of situation. I have made the best solution, as well as the
best decision from this experience.
Truly, it is
a great advantage to take a Master’s Degree which focuses on management,
specially taking the course “Human Capital Management” which unlocks and reveals
what’s going on in the management side; on how the management assess an
employee, and what are the considerations of promoting an employee in the company.
The case of
Susie Wong emphasized the importance of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace.
No doubt, Susie Wong has impressive credentials, an MBA degree, and a 2nd
placer in the CPA licensure examination, what else can you asks for an
employee. Susie Wong has high levels of
IQ, and unfortunately a low EQ. Studies have shown that EQ is more important
than IQ. Emotional Intelligence is really what you need to succeed in work, as
well as in life. Susie Wong has an attitude problem. She can easily discourage
when there’s a problem within her team. She has a superiority complex, and she
think that she is more effective than her manager, and anybody else. She is
impatient and always bad tempered in the team causing her not to gain respect
from her peers. She always compares her experiences in the current company with
her past employer.
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| Emotional Intelligence |
The story of
Susie Wong reminds me of the film “Hanggang Kailan Kita Mamahalin” which starred
Richard Gomez and Lorna Tolentino. This is a story of a couple who are both
employed in the same company. Lisa (Lorna Tolentino) has shown exceptional
skills in promoting the product lines of the company. She has a very good
leadership and management skills that’s why the top management have decided to promote
her, and become a Product Manager. On the other hand, Mike (Richard Gomez) is
an opposite of Lisa, he is always irritated; he even treated her subordinates
like slaves. He lacks professionalism, and he even shout in the workplace whenever
he is disappointed. He felt dishearten when he knew that his wife has been
promoted, and become his own manager. Because of feeling of resentment, he
confronted a board member asking why he was not considered in the position,
since he has been in the company for almost 10 years. His superior said “We haven’t
considered you in the position by which you are not able to handle, and also
because of your bad attitude.” Mike became frustrated, inefficient to his work,
have decided to leave the company, and have started his own fishing business,
and unfortunately, it was unsuccessful. The relationship with his wife was
affected, because he envies Lisa for being successful.
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify,
assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. It has
five components: self-awareness, self-regulation, social skill, empathy, and
motivation.
Self-Awareness means, “Having a deep understanding
of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives”. People who have a
high level of self-awareness are very honest with themselves and others. They avoid
the extremes of being overly critical and unrealistically hopeful. Furthermore,
these people know how their feelings affect them, others, and their job
performance.
Self-Regulation involves controlling
or redirecting one's disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing
circumstances. People
with a high degree of self-regulation are more capable of facing the ambiguities
of an advancing industry than those whose degree of self-regulation is low. Furthermore,
people with a high level of self-regulation can help to enhance the integrity
of an organization by not making bad decisions through impulse behaviors.
Self-regulation will help individuals stay in control of their feelings and
make thoughtful decisions.
Social skill refers to managing relationships
to move people in the desired direction. Individuals use their friendliness in order
to have people do what they want. Social leaders are able to build a rapport
easily by finding some type of common ground with everyone, thus establishing a
broad circle of acquaintances. In addition, the social individual is an
effective persuader and is able to manage teams effectively.
Empathy is considering other people's
feelings especially when making decisions. The empathetic person combines employees’
feelings and other factors in order to make decisions. There are three reasons
why empathy is important to leadership in today’s business world: “the
increasing use of teams, the rapid pace of globalization, and the growing need
to retain talent”. When using teams, empathetic individuals can be astounding
leaders because of their abilities to recognize and understand other opinions.
Empathetic leaders play a key role when globalization is a factor, because they
can understand the importance of others’ cultural differences. Empathetic individuals
are also effective in retaining talent because they are able to develop
personal rapport with new employees or protégés during coaching and mentoring
stages.
Motivation refers to being driven to achieve
for the sake of achievement. Motivation makes people restless; therefore, they
continuously explore new horizons to find better ways of doing their jobs.
Highly motivated people constantly raise their performance expectations for
themselves, their team, and their organization.
The story of
“The Bone of Contention” is ubiquitous in workplace. Bella is a CPA, and an
effective employee, and been working in the Food Corporation for the past three
years. And then, Patty is a newcomer but has lot of experiences from different
industries. The case shows the comparison between loyalty and experience. I
believe Patty has a great advantage over Bella in terms of skills that she
acquired from different companies. The behavior of Bella, being depressed and
demotivated, is unjustifiable. She should
not act that way, and made Patty felt limited. If she’s not contented on what
she’s getting then, she must resign in the company, and look for the better
opportunity. Another problem that has been identified is the confidentiality of
the salary information in the company. The employee’s compensation and benefits
information must be secure, and should be treated with high confidentiality.
These two
stories reflect a reality, and truly happening in the workplace. It helps me to
identify and evaluate different types of human behavior in an organization.
“The man of character,
sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the
ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.” – Earl Warren -
