Introduction
A company’s success relies on the intelligence of its workers. However, another element of this equation is defining the ethical climate of the organization. This act provides the workers with a set of rules that shape the way they should behave and ensure mutual respect and accountability. However, this step can be unnecessary if one hires people with high emotional intelligence. These individuals will know how to act even if the company does not enforce certain guidelines. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of having an ethical climate and employees exhibiting high emotional intelligence within a place of work.
Ethical climates
An ethical working climate is achieved by the company enforcing specific guidelines according to which their workers should behave. These rules can try to achieve different results, from festering teamwork to emphasizing making a profit (Elçi & Alpkan, 2009). For instance, in the bank where I work, the management has created a climate that encourages the employees to help outline the company’s goals. This gives everyone a chance to voice their opinion and establishes a common objective in which everyone is interested. Additionally, this climate ensures that everyone does their work diligently as they understand their responsibility.
Emotional Intelligence
One way to bypass the step of establishing an ethical climate within the company is to hire people with high emotional intelligence. This metric is defined by an individual’s ability to modify the way they act based on how others feel in a particular moment, which is useful in the context of creating a good working atmosphere. As it is not always possible to hire people with high emotional intelligence, it can be helpful for the company to teach its employees this skill (Mattingly & Kraiger, 2018). For instance, in the bank where I work, the managers encourage the employees to work on their ability to understand mood-related cues and modify their behavior accordingly. This has helped create a more harmonious atmosphere within the company and prevented the escalation of several conflicts.
Conclusion
To achieve success, a company needs to ensure that its employees enjoy working there and understand what they are striving for. For this specific reason, organizations create ethical climates that can serve as guidelines for how an individual should act. Another way of achieving a pleasant working atmosphere is having the employees learn the skill of understanding emotional cues and modifying their behavior accordingly.
Reference
Elçi, M. & Alpkan, L. (2009). The impact of perceived organizational ethical climate on work satisfaction. Journal of Business Ethics, 84, 297-311.
Mattingly, V., & Kraiger, K. (2018). Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation. Human Resource Management Review, 29(2), 140-155.