Organizational researchers and practitioners have known about the importance that emotions play in the workplace for some time, but emotion seems to have made its way to center stage of organizational life. This is seen most clearly from the positive psychology movement and happiness studies to the growing interest in emotional intelligence. Part of this growing interest is no surprise, given that emotions are a fundamental part of being human. But on the other hand, part of the growing appeal to take emotions seriously seems novel in light of our more “rational”, knowledge centered approaches to understanding and intervening in organizations. Of course, people are both thinking and feeling creatures so it makes sense that we’d have both thinking and feeling approaches to business.
Emotional intelligence, although bursting with life and possibility, is still in its infancy in terms of the research that backs up what we know about where it comes from and all the outcomes it promises to affect. Many scholars agree that this is an innate ability to perceive and manage the emotions of one’s self and others. But like many aspects of our biology and psyches, they are always shaped and interact with the worlds we live in. This means that even though there seems to be a set of baseline emotions that are universal across the world, it is still culture that writes the script for when and how emotions are performed. When something scary happens, the emotion of fear is a natural response. But what is considered scary differs wildly across time and place (a lion in a zoo versus a lion in Zimbabwe).
Similarly in our workplaces, emotions show up in both similar and dissimilar ways. And part of being culturally competent and emotionally intelligent is being able to perceive and manage emotions in all of its diversity. For example, there is evidence that some Asian cultures are more emotionally restrained and some African-American cultures more emotionally expressive. Emotional intelligence that takes culture seriously will be attuned to those differences.
Emotions also shape the way we experience bias and micro-inequities at work. Feeling ignored or disrespected can lead to feelings of despair, anger, and frustration, which over time can lead to mental and physical inequalities. In this way, emotions surface and operate differently for different groups—providing another layer of complexity for what emotional intelligence means for us going forward. It must include recognition that although all people have emotions, they do not always surface at the time or for the same reasons. The future of emotion work in organizations is promising for opening up another layer of organizational life that affects everyone; but for it to be true emotional intelligence, it must take into account the variety of culturally different ways that we all experience emotions.
