Recruiting the best: using Emotional Intelligence as a selection criteria

Abstract

Right leadership is believed to have a strong influence on the perceptions and attitudes of the employees towards the organization which is defined as organizational Culture (Momeni 2009)). There is also a strong association between the leader’s ability to arouse the motivation of the employees by appealing to human needs for achievement, affiliation and power. Business organizations try to achieve a favourable organizational culture because it has been proved that it decreases cost of turnover and employees’ resistance to change and improves quality and turnover (Ayers 2005). For instance, research has proved that between 1990 and 2000 the 100 best US public companies rated as best places to work realized 70% higher returns than the other companies (Goleman et.al 2001). They argue that such returns are influenced one third by a positive organizational Culture and Chen et.al (1998) also argue that 90% of the business success is attributed to the organizational culture of the company. While organizational culture is considered as a significant factor in the company returns, feelings of employees about the management is seen as the main facet that creates an improved feeling about the organizational culture (Lyman 2003). On these ground the organizational leaders are expected to make a serious commitment to develop a positive attitudes towards the management by the employees in order to develop a positive organizational culture. In this endeavour, the leaders’ mood and behaviours are the most influential in affecting the employees. Effective managers with appropriate moods and behaviours who can create positive organizational cultures conducive for high returns are a vital asset for any business organisation. This appropriate moods and behaviours were defined as emotional intelligence (Salovey and Mayer 1990). They concluded that smart decision-making requires more than the intellect as measured by traditional IQ. This leads us to another major drive for increasing recognition of emotional intelligence - the failure of IQ alone to account sufficiently for differences in success levels in individuals in both education and organizational contexts. When IQ test scores were correlated with how well people performed in their 2 careers, analyses proved that the difference that IQ accounts for no higher than 10% and as low as 4%. For example in a 40 year longitudinal study of 450 boys in Massachusettes, IQ had little relation to their work or rest of their lives. The biggest difference was made by their emotional abilities (Sternberg 1996). Cherniss (2000) also mentions a study of 80 science PhDs which proved that their social and emotional capabilities were four time more important than IQ in determining their professional success and prestige. However it is does not mean that the cognitive ability of individuals is irrelevant for success but that cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are very much related. Contemporary libraries are not different from business organizations as far the organisational culture is concerned. Librarians, the organizational leaders of the libraries are expected to make a serious commitment to develop positive attitudes towards the management by the employees in order to develop a positive organizational culture. At the same time Librarians are expected to develop a positive attitude among the Chief Executives, Funding bodies and the user communities in order to develop an optimistic work environment for the library staff. Effective librarians with appropriate moods and behaviours who can create positive organizational cultures conducive for high returns are a vital asset for any library and emotional intelligence therefore cannot be ignored in recruiting future leaders of the libraries.