Emotional Intelligence at Work: A Professional Guide

Citation

Mann, S. (2009), "Emotional Intelligence at Work: A Professional Guide", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 495-495. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730910968778

When this book landed on my desk, I have to confess that I could barely suppress a yawn at the prospect of yet another tome on emotional intelligence – so much so, that it was a good while before I could muster up the necessary enthusiasm to actually read it. Yet, when I started to turn the pages, in a somewhat lacklustre fashion, I began to pay more attention as I started to realise that this book actually has a lot of merit.

For a start, it is extremely readable, even for my jaded palette, and my initial plans to “skim‐read” could not be followed through as I was drawn more deeply into the text. The style is pleasant and fairly easy – this is a nice book to accompany you on a train or plane journey. The text is punctuated rather satisfyingly with real‐life anecdotes, personal experiences and even experiments, that bring the material alive (but without distracting too much which boxed text can sometimes do).

The book starts typically enough, with an introduction to the main concept; what emotional intelligence is, how one might acquire it and some interesting myths about it. Singh then moves on to look at the relationship between emotional intelligence and personality and whether emotional quotient (EQ) can be developed or whether we are born with (or without) it. This is followed by a great chapter about the emotional skills that managers should learn including sections on recognising your own emotions, learning to empathise with others, how to manage your anger and most tantalisingly, how to be an “emotional winner”.

This is all followed by a rather dry chapter on the empirical evidence about EQ which, if you are a practitioner, you might want to skip, but if you are an academic, you might find of interest. At the very least, it provides some rather reassuring meat to this particular bone. Singh then gets back on his practitioner‐focused track with some basic guidelines for training and development in EQ. Probably, the most intriguing part of the book is actually tucked away at the end – a self‐test questionnaire to determine your own EQ.

Dalip Singh in based in India and it is quite refreshing to read a management book that is not US‐ or UK‐centric. There is a slight Indian flavour to some of the material (which I think adds to its interest), but this is truly an international book that will appeal to anyone in management roles, or with any management aspirations. This is the third edition of Emotional Intelligence at Work: A Professional Guide and a good book to read to either get started in EQ, to refresh your memory, or to update your empirical awareness of the subject.