An Assignment Report on

A STUDY ON EMOTIONS AND MOODS THROUGH THE EYES OF

‘THE OFFICE’

Submitted for Trimester I Assignment of

Organizational Behavior

By Section F, Group 10

Aadit Aggarwal (311)

Krishna Gopal Mahor (337)

Umakanta Kissan (366)

Vedant Damani (368)

Yashika (371)

Under the guidance of

Prof. Rajeshwari C

Post Graduate Program in Management

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE NO.

DO EMOTIONS BELONG IN THE WORKPLACE 1

WORK-RELATED EMOTION TYPES 2

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION 7

MANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS 11

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 13

EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 14

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE OFFICE 16

ARE EMPLOYEES AWARE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 17

DETERMINANTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT WORK PLACE 19

APPENDIX 20

REFERENCES 21
DO EMOTIONS BELONG IN THE WORKPLACE?

It's a loaded question, but one that every company should consider. Employees are humans, and
people are inherently wired to experience emotions, regardless of where your company stands.
Even if our personal life and emotions could be safely stowed away at home, that doesn't account
for the plethora of emotional triggers we confront on a daily basis at work.
for example:

After laughing at a coworker's joke, I was overjoyed.

Rejection on a sales call causes disappointment.
Dealing with an unpleasant coworker or customer causes frustration.
Boredom at a weekly team meeting
Excitement at achieving a significant goal

These are just few examples from thousands of emotional events that occur every day in the
workplace. Whether or not you feel emotions have a role in the workplace, they do. What is your
company doing to deal with and encourage all of these feelings? We polled more than 50
individuals about their emotional experiences at work in order to get to the bottom of workplace
emotions.

EMOTIONAL CULTURE IN YOU

The manner of life of a group of people, as evidenced by their everyday actions and routines,
their attitudes toward one another, and their beliefs. At all costs, some businesses avoid
expressing or addressing emotions. Others allow any and all emotions to run wild, sometimes to
the point of toxicity. Others have discovered the perfect blend of providing support while still
establishing boundaries.

1. CULTURES OF STRONG EMOTIONS

Emotions are welcomed in healthy emotional societies, not tolerated. These are the cultures:
1. Recognize that employees are people and seek to provide a positive work environment.
2. Put transparency, honesty, and employee well-being first.
3. Be upbeat and fast to bounce back after a setback.
Leadership and managers understand the need of communicating with employees on a
regular basis to listen to their views, ideas, and concerns. Employees at all levels feel
prepared to deal with their emotions and effectively share their concerns when anything feels
off or a stressful circumstance develops. These companies also recognize that work and
personal life are often inextricably linked, and they encourage employees to take steps to
improve their physical, mental, and emotional health. Flexibility and work-life balance are
top considerations.

2. CULTURE OF STRUGGLING EMOTIONS

Employees who work in an unhealthy emotional culture often feel like they're walking on
eggshells. Employees are not treated as individuals, and bringing personal matters into the

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 workplace is frowned upon. Because employees feel they can't have honest and direct
interactions with one another, there may be a lot of gossip and avoidance. On crucial
problems, leadership rarely consults people, resulting in a gap between employees, their
work, and the business. Employees hide their genuine feelings the moment they walk through
the door in firms where emotions are strictly controlled. This state of suppression is not only
unpleasant and ineffective, but it is also harmful to one's health. Heart disease, mental
sickness, digestive issues, migraines, insomnia, and autoimmune disorders have all been
linked to suppressing emotions, according to studies.

Things can swiftly spiral out of control in organizations when emotions run wild. Negative
emotions typically outnumber positive emotions, and persons who do not know how to
communicate their emotions in a courteous, professional manner are likely to feel uneasy and
disengaged.

Why Does It Matter How Employees Feel at Work?

Let's use the renowned documentary "The Office" as an example. On his 10-year anniversary,
the leader, Michael, arrives at work to find a gift card and a sticky note on his desk. His staff had
written him a note congratulating him on his anniversary. Michael rolls his eyes when he realizes
there was no thank-you or congrats.
While most firms have some form of employee recognition programme, all too often they result
in reactions like Michael's. Rather than providing a meaningful sense of recognition, they
become just another box for managers to check, and they are entirely isolated from their
employees' accomplishments. Some firms aim to make programmes more relevant by awarding
special awards to people who have, for example, established and led a big new initiative,
"embodied" the organization's principles in their actions, or made a substantial influence.
However, there are drawbacks to this strategy as well: Awards can be viewed as a privileged
chance for a select few, leaving the majority of the workforce feeling excluded and
unappreciated.

WORK-RELATED EMOTION TYPES

Organizations must understand which emotions are prominent in the workplace and how they
affect people in order to develop fantastic emotional cultures. Employees were asked to choose
the feelings they experience most frequently at work. On the next pages, you'll find their
responses, real employee feedback, and some data-related actionable insights.

1. POSITIVE EMOTIONS AT WORK

Beneficial employee emotions have a positive impact on the workplace, which isn't exactly
breaking knowledge. Positive emotions have been shown to have an impact on a variety of
areas at work, including:

• Making decisions based on performance

• Turnover
• Turnover

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 • Group dynamics in conflict resolution
• Leadership

The pages that follow detail the most common happy emotions that our survey participants
identified.

1. Comfortable

Employee feedback:
1. Employee 1: "I feel at ease and proud of my job when I speak with my supervisor in one-
on-one settings." She is very involved with her team and provides both supporting and
constructive criticism.”
2. Employee 2: "I felt at ease since I was understood."
3. Employee 3: "The job load was high, and the teammates were enjoyable to be around." I
was engrossed in my work and felt happy and at ease in my surroundings.

2. Satisfied

Employee feedback:

1. Employee 1: “I was thrilled to see the results of my efforts, and I was overjoyed when my
efforts were recognized at team/department meetings when a project on which a partner
and I had been working tirelessly began to produce excellent results.”
2. Employee 2: “Completing a project that has a significant influence on the team excites
and satisfies me.”
3. Employee 3: “I enjoy working with clients and being able to assist them,” says employee
number three. Making people happy gives me pleasure.”

3. Enthusiastic

Employee feedback:

1. Employee 1: “When my manager and other senior leadership at a new position gave me a
lot of responsibility and trust, I felt proud and enthusiastic.”
2. Employee 2: “I become motivated, excited, and energised when I can get everyone on the
same page to work and contribute together.”

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Our findings revealed some notable distinctions between the most prevalent happy feelings
experienced by individual contributors and managers.

Individual Contributors vs. Managers

Individual contributors are more likely than supervisors to feel at ease. This could indicate that
bosses are stressed or that they do not feel supported at work.
On the other hand, Managers are more likely than individual contributors to be active,
passionate, and cheerful. This could be because managers frequently serve as team cheerleaders,
facilitators, coaches, and conflict resolvers.

2. NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AT WORK

Employees, teams, and organizations can all suffer as a result of unresolved and bottled-up
negative emotions. They increase employee stress, create barriers between them, and may
have an impact on other aspects of the organization, such as productivity, innovation, and
customer service.
Negative emotions are dangerous because they can multiply and spread like a virus.
Understanding the most frequent types of negative emotions in the workplace, how to
manage them in a supportive manner, and how to proactively limit their frequency is critical
for your organization.
The pages that follow detail the most common negative emotions that our survey participants
recognized.

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1. Frustrated

Employee feedback:

1. Employee 1: “I was angry and annoyed that the on-call manager refused to come in and
assist me at such a critical time.”
2. Employee 2: "I was frustrated since I wasn't performing well in my job."
3. Employee 3: “What irritates me the most is when people refuse to disclose knowledge
that I require in order to do my work properly.”

2. Stressed

Employee feedback:

1. Employee 1: "My boss refused to communicate with me, curtailed my tasks, and made
me feel like I wasn't a valuable employee." I was agitated, depressed, and dissatisfied.”
2. Employee 2: “I was frightened and stressed since there was so much work to be done in
such a short period of time.”
3. Employee 3: "At my previous job as a project manager, I experienced a lot of anxiety and
stress." It was quite stressful because there was so much work to be done, and my client
was neither helpful nor understanding.”
4. Employee 4: "Customers irritated me by being unreasonable and nasty, as well as
unwilling to accept actual helpful information." They only wanted to complain and point
the finger at someone.”

3. Anxious

Employee feedback:

1. Employee 1: "When I was told to do something I didn't know how to accomplish, I felt
anxious." I was too nervous to ask for further instructions.”
2. Employee 2: "I was anxious since my firm informed me that they were no longer
profitable." This made me concerned about my career and future.”
3. Employee 3: “A customer misunderstood what I was saying and mistook me for being
deliberately harsh with her. I was very worried about the situation and how my boss
would react.”

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When it comes to frequent unpleasant emotions at work, we discovered some significant
disparities between managers and individual contributors.

Individual Contributors vs. Managers

Managers are more irritated and frustrated than individual contributors, but they are less nervous.
Managers should expect increased stress as a result of their increased duties and demands, but
organizations should endeavor to develop solutions to help them cope.
Employees and managers may have different levels of anxiety, implying that managers need to
communicate more effectively or give better tools and resources for employees to do their tasks.

Employees are more likely to exhibit emotions around the people they work with (coworkers and
supervisors), but if companies can figure out how to foster the same interaction between
employees and leadership, they may be able to open up a new road to engagement.
It's also understandable that external stakeholders, such as customers, have low levels of
emotional transparency. This result is based on the concept of emotional labor, which is the act
of showing particular emotions outwardly in order to meet organizational expectations.

Employees who engage in "surface acting" (providing a reaction they believe they are supposed
to provide) experience more stress and burnout, according to research. Employees who have
mastered "deep acting," or training themselves to feel a certain way in response, have a
significantly better chance of succeeding.
Organizations may be able to reduce stress caused by sticky client situations if they can assist
staff develop and strengthen relationship emotions like sympathy and empathy.

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EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION
Our brains are designed in a way that that they process and assign an emotion to each
and every experience we have. The experience can be as small as having a meal or as
big as engaging in some adventure sports. For this process to work efficiently, it is
essential to feel the emotions, and express them in the right ways.
The first step is recognizing the emotions. We usually have no control over this step. Our
brain is quick to recognize the emotions and attribute them to some experience. The
second step is to feel those emotions. This is the step where we feel sad or happy, joy
or sorrow, and others. The valence and intensity of the feelings can depend on a lot of
factors, which will be further discussed. The emotions as this step can be referred to as
felt emotions. The next step is expressing the emotions. It is referred to as the behavior
which communicates the emotional state. The emotions, when expressed like this, can
be referred to as expressed emotions. The expression doesn’t necessarily has to be an
outwardly act. It can happen inside our minds too. The condition is that the felt emotion
should be acknowledged and not ignored.
There is often an asymmetry between the felt emotions and expressed emotions. This is
called emotional dissonance. With respect to an organization, this asymmetry can be due
to a variety of factors. This can result in consequences like self-estrangement among
employees, stimulating turnover intentions, job dissatisfaction, reduced organizational
commitment and counterproductive work behavior.
Through the research, we analyzed the factors affecting expressed emotions by
conducting short personal interviews. We also read the existing literature on this subject,
and verified whether the claims actually hold true now. Next, we used references from the
NBC The Office to further verify the claims.

FACTORS SHAPING EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION

There are a variety of factors which influence the expression of emotions in an
organization. Some of these factors are individual-centric while some are organization-
centric. Organization-centric factors are out of the control of the individuals, and defined
by the culture of an organization. The employees don’t have any autonomy over these
factors, and are expected to behave in a certain way. The individual-centric factors can
be controlled by the individuals, and it’s the characteristics of the individual which
determine the behavior.
1. ORGANIZATION CENTRIC FACTORS

A) Organizational Norms or Display Rules : Some organizations promote a certain

set of behavior, and have defined rules and regulations which govern the
behavior. In some organizations, there is a strict formal communication chain
which the employees have to follow. This often deters the employees from

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 reaching out to the right person to express their emotions. On the other hand,
there are companies which have a very open culture when it comes to
communications. The employees have the autonomy to contact anyone, even
the executives, to share their concerns and feelings.

One of the findings from the personal interviews was that new age companies
and startups are more likely to have a culture of being very open about
employee feelings and emotions. They tend to have an informal line of
communication and are free to interact with anyone from any departments.
While the big and established companies have a formal communication line,
which needs to be followed during interactions. While they can interact with
employees working at similar position and the ones working at one position
higher, they don’t have the autonomy to reach out to people at positions like
Vice-President and President.

These are some of the statements which were made by the subjects during
personal interviews.

S1: “I have worked with 2 organizations and also interned with some startups
during my graduation. There was a significant difference in the level of
autonomous communication and the culture. While in one of the startups, I
could hit up the CEO anytime as there was just one office and there wasn’t a
system of cubicles. It was actually cool, having conversation with such a senior
person, and expressing anything you feel. But when I got placed in a company
after my graduation, it was altogether different. While we were free to
communicate with anyone through email, but it would have been possible for
me to reach out to the AVP of my division.”

S2: “I remember that I used to share even the smallest of the achievements
with my manager at a tech startup. My manager was more like a friend and we
often used to hang out after office hours. Even if we had some differences, I
was very comfortable in sorting out the issues with her.”

In NBC The Office, we observed how there were no formal lines of

communication. The employees were free to reach out to anyone, even the
branch manager, and express their feelings. Many a times, we see employees
sharing their emotions with the branch manager, and even vice versa.

B) Discretion associated with Organizational Role : Employee behavior and

emotional expression is also shaped by the discretion and autonomy granted
by the organization at different level of hierarchy. Usually, senior roles have a
lot of inherent autonomy relative to the junior roles. It is very common to see

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 top level executives their life experiences, their journey and the emotions
through it with the staff.
This was verified from the findings of the survey. We interviewed people who
were working at the entry level, and also some people who have an experience
of over 2.5 years, and have been promoted to associate level. There was a
stark difference between the level of discretion associated with their roles.

S1: “When I was promoted to Senior Business Analyst, I realized that I had
more people whom I could open up to. As a Business Analyst, I worked in a
restricted environment and could only interact with my fellow Bas. But as an
SBA, I was also having conversations with Research Analysts and other teams.
It felt like a completely parallel shift.”

In NBC The Office, the character of Ryan, when promoted, unleashed a totally
different version of himself. Earlier, he used to stay quiet and not share his
feelings with other employees. But once promoted, he freely expressed himself,
and unintentionally conveyed his feelings for Pam.

2. INDIVIDUAL CENTRIC FACTORS

A) Individual Characteristics : This is probably the most important factor which

defines the emotional expression and manner in which they are expressed. It
is possible that the individual has the autonomy with respect to his
organizational role, and might be working in a company which has a very
inclusive culture, but because of internal factors like being introvert, they may
not be able to express their emotions freely, and keep them hidden. Even if
they share, there will be a limited set of people in their social circle.

S1: “Since I love talking to people and build a network, it is particularly easy for
me to express myself, no matter who the person. Even at work, I didn’t face
any such difficulty, and used to speak my mind out.”

S2: “You can call me a workaholic, or an introvert, but I used to just focus on
my work, rather than making connections. Even if I had to express something
badly, I used to take a break and call up a friend. On one instance, I didn’t feel
good about the project that we were working, or specifically the methods that
we adopted. But I went about it in the usual manner, and just vented in front of
my friend over a call.”

B) Relationship between the individuals : It is common for all of us to form a group

at an organization and feel more connected to the members of that group. Even

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 if there is no group, we identify some set of individual over time, who we think
we can share our feelings with. Another dimension can be that we always feel
more comfortable expressing ourselves with our peers, at the same level of
hierarchy. In essence, the relationship can be formal or informal, and within
that, we have the ability to differentiate between the people who we want to
connect with.

S1: “I had a cordial relationship with my manager from Day 1. One of the
reasons for that was that we shared similar interests, which we talked about
during my interview. So, I could freely express myself. But some of my
colleagues to express themselves, particularly because they felt they will
judged by the manager, and they didn’t want to hamper their growth
opportunities.”

S2: “I used to have informal interaction with my peers all the time, and that is
why work felt easy to me. I never felt overburdened and just used to share my
stress with them. There were times when I messed up some work and got
criticized by my team leader. That was so hard to absorb and I literally felt like
crying myself out. Thanks to my peers that I could vent it all out.”

Pam and Jim had a special relationship through the seasons. They both are
the go-to person for each other in every situation. Similarly, there were Dwight
and Angela. There was also a group of other employees – Kevin, Stanley,
Phyllis and Oscar. These were not work teams, but informal groups who used
to provide moral support and a means to express their emotions.

Other than these factors, there are attributes of felt emotions like valence and intensity.
Valence means whether the felt emotions are negative or positive. Intensity refers to how
strong are the felt emotions.
Intensity Valence Positive Negative
High Might be expressed Expressed
Low Not expressed Might be expressed

Through the personal interviews, we were able to summarize the findings in a matrix
above. Negative emotions are more likely to expressed than the positive emotions, and
high intensity emotions are more likely to expressed than low intensity emotions.

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MANAGEMENT OF EMOTIONS
Emotional experience is understood as a set of sequential rebalancing, restructuring, and
reactivation of emotional finances, shape, and reach a range of behavioral images of the
subject decision conduct, communication and networking competencies, work style,
efficaciousness and effectiveness of, and changes cognitive restructuring (guarantying
orchestration, harmony, and diversity while cognitive structures unlimited malleability of
problematic situations).
The organizational exercise solves problematic situations the jobholder faces working
both strategies and cognitive exchequer, drivers and emotional. All human action classes
(rationality, ethics, mileage, effectualness, concoction, etc.) Schemes are moved by
cognitive and amenability to work flexible data and emotional experience of the subject
and its competency to manage passions. At the organizational standing, an
understanding of the reasonable charges of positive forces and adverse personality on
administrative work is to optimize the frontage leaders sustain emotional interest, to
reduce conflict situations that make negative passions in interpersonal relations and work.
Concern for quality is the vibrant life of organizational development strategies total quality
regulation (with emphasis on natural bankroll), conflict accommodation fashions,
communication edge in work armies, valuing and feting professional merit, etc.
Newly realizing the account of the emotional experience of hands, organizational leaders
are investing in training and dynamic development optimization designed to streamline
relations between hands or between them and their performances. It's before known that
account confidence in a board depends not only on the quality of goods and services but
also the quality of earthborn alliances (how hands treat accounts), it's one of the reasons
why, in some societies, There's a set of rules explicitly emotional, that workers must
misconduct. In the organizational surroundings, the superintendency of sentiments is
made other critical at two statuses, the subjective (individual) and the corporate (social).
Emotional superintendency at the individual status refers to the savvy of emotional tone-
control person, resource superintendency, and shifting with negative emotional
sentiments (through observance, acceptance/ recognition, and assuming). People who
are in touch with their heartstrings, which have a good place of emotional intelligence,
have another capableness to manage high feelings and better-faring capacity of the
negative emotions. On the other hand, the person's tendency to have negative feelings
is associated with lower emotional control experience and passionate direction. Direction
at the organizational echelon there's a set of rules aimed at emotional desirable that
hands must bear, regulate emotional exchanges (between workers and punters, between
leaders and workers), and strategies of leaders and specialists in the mortal fund to
optimize and increase the dynamic quality of life of retainers.

In the organizational mise-en-scène, retainers invest a substantial part of their emotional

energy, both in their operations activities and social relations, formal and informal.

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Emotion presidency requires knowledge about the nature of passions, recovery factors
acting. Favorably on emotional life and meliorating retainers' competence to manage their
emotional bankroll to acclimate to business conditions and increase organizational
effectiveness.

We believe that the express condition to the hands to confirm with rules can be adverse
emotionally to the person just by the imperative of emotional responses to shape after
some fixed external rules. The only area where the person feels deeply in touch with the
creation itself is dynamic. Overrunning the patented space by challenging the hireling to
handle the training to optimize the chords or meaning language assimilate a client
relationship can boost its internal conflicts and may give the feeling that the chamber has
a global control wasn't only fiscal coffers, essentials, or professional conditioning, but also
tend to control how to feel and live. What I want to emphasize is, first, that participation in
training optimization or emotional moxie development should always be elective and not
needed for the jobholder and, on the other hand, that the interest of leaders for the weal
of the jobholder should be a real one, not determined by the musts of enlarging profit
consortium or organizational effectualness. Such a posture, respect for genuine
emotional experience, and establishments of consortium members to guarantee optimal
emotional climate (conflict guidance, fostering communication, the propagation of positive
feelings lead to jobholders) are more potent than the imperatives of organizational change
and dynamic rules explicitly formulated.
Although desirable, managing sentiments at the organizational standing is a challenge
for any leader and specialist in the natural pocket. Working emotions at the individual
situation (person's competency to manage their emotional commonwealths, significantly
negative chords) are presently considered an essential constituent of emotional
intelligence. If clay-acclimation and emotional charge aren't individual chops freely
acquired, the dodgier it's to manage passions in the mass-market group. Presidency of
forces in institutions is practicable given that it's predicated on two essential fundamentals
genuine respect for the emotional experience of jobholders at work and the expressive
conduct of the leader.
Before empirical testament, the leader's passions reach group members' passions
excitement spreads from top to bottom, from the person who has authority to underlings.
A leader anxious with sensibilities of inferiority, which feels overhung by the capabilities
of his associates, with a need for power or control, etc., group members will affect chords
differently than a balanced leader who's in contact with themselves and have a
reasonable degree of character-account. The first condition for a leader to effectively
manage emotion at the organizational degree is the capability to manage their passions.
Likewise, the capacity to meet people who work involves an optimal ranking of
complexion- estimation. The guidance crew is the decisive factor in creating and
maintaining a positive emotional climate, carrying positive organizational conditioning.

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
In modern literature, Emotional Intelligence has been defined as the ability to perceive,
to process to understand and manage emotions in self and others. [Mayer and
Salovey's (1997)]
The role of emotional intelligence in work teams has been a point of discussion since
only very recently. There have been many discussions and researches to connect
Emotional Intelligence with organizations and the behavior of employees and employers
through various metrics, be it transformational leadership, organization citizenship
behavior, or efficiency and productivity of employees.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE PROFILING

Workgroup emotional intelligence profile is one such method, where the role of
emotional intelligence is measured in work teams' behaviors. In one such experiment,
two sets of students were chosen who were inducted into semi-autonomous learning
teams based on student-centered learning principles (Engel 1993). In this9 week
exercise, team received coaching in goal setting and interpersonal skills. The
observations were :
i) The team with overall higher Emotional Intelligence were able to produce
better results when compared to the one with average lower Emotional
Intelligence during the initial phases.
ii) But towards the end of 9 weeks, both teams managed to perform at equally
good levels, inferring that coaching can substitute for the lack of innate ability
of emotional intelligence and decision making. [1]
Once we have established the effect of emotional intelligence in work teams and hence
organizations on extrapolation, we now try to gauge what precisely these impacts could
be and how many ways emotional intelligence can impact one's performance and
emotional regulation.
Another index used here to answer the questions posed above is LMX (Leader member
exchange quality [Dansereau, Graen and Haga 1975], which is measured using a 7-
item negotiation latitude scale. A study was conducted wherein participants viewed
videos of supervisors delivering positive and negative feedbacks with varying
expressions. The results showed that in line with expectations, best results were given
when the feedback was positive with positive affect, but the worst results were
surprisingly when the feedback was good with negative affect, implying that the
participants lay more importance to the expressions of their supervisors than
his/her/their words. [2][3][4]

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EFFECT OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The next question arises: if emotional intelligence really has such an important role in
organization and employee's behavior, how do we measure it so that firther studies can
be done on it? One of the ways this can be done is using organization citizenship
behavior metrics. Organization Citizenship behavior can be defined as an employee
undertakes the activities for the benefit of the organization in ways that is not under his
job role and hence do not give any direct benefit to him//her/them.
To measure the relationship between emotional intelligence and organization citizenship
behavior, a very interesting study was done back in 2015 in Iran, where over 2000
employees from 50 organizations were asked to respond to a survey with 5 pointers
being very accurate to not accurate at all. In the end, the results showed an
overwhelmingly strong relationship between Emotional intelligence and Organization
citizenship behavior. The methodology for establishing relation has been using data
analysis tools like correlation, regression, moderate regression analysis

ANALYSIS
To verify if such observations remain valid in an Indian context, more specifically around
our immediate surroundings, we interviewed 25 b-school students with previous work
experience from a variety of industries (finance, banking, FMCG, manufacturing, sales,
consulting etc.) and asked them to respond to a set of same questions; their response
was measured on a scale of 5 with one being ‘strongly disagree,’ and five being
‘strongly agree.’

Candidates Profile

2
2
8 FMCG

Finance

Manufacturing

Consulting

8 Sales

[1]

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 Gender

3 Male
Female
9 13
Prefer not to say

OCB Score
25

20

15

OCB Score
10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

[1]

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

From the interview and survey, we took, we were able to conclude that there was a very
strong direct correlation between the Emotional intelligence score and the
Organizational citizenship behavior score of all the 25 candidates irrespective of their
gender or work profiles.

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EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE OFFICE
Interestingly the most famous reference of an organization in pop culture is an American
sitcom, 'The Office,' which shows the daily mundane life of the staff of Dunder Mifflin
and serves as our enabler to look into the domain of Organization Behavior.
S3 E17
In this episode, Michael Scott, who plays the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin, a
paper selling company, is called to be a guest lecturer in his subordinate's b school; he
gets excited. Still, it soon fades away into disappointment when he realizes quite
unfortunately that the said subordinate Ryan claims his company will go obsolete in 5—
10 years. He gets emotional and loses his composure but later shows a reasonable
degree of emotional regulation by giving a new role to Ryan. This later proves to be a
great decision to make Ryan realize that they are in a business of people and people
never fail. He later dismisses Ryan's fear of being fired by saying, 'manager doesn't fire
people. He hires people and inspires people.' This portrays beautifully how regulating
your emotions in a time of emotional turbulence can help one make better decisions.
In a different part of the episode, he also shows superior emotional intelligence. Pam,
who happens to be the receptionist, is holding an art exhibition. Many of her colleagues
arrive and she overhears them comparing her art to motel art which leaves her
disheartened. Michal Scott goes to Pam's (the receptionist) art exhibition, despite of
being at the b-school all day long. He praises her art, even buying one of her paintings
which he displays at their office, reiterating that people make the organization, and no
technology could ever replace that.
Negotiation is a skill that is important for any department or step in an organization.
Various literature sources have stated different theories when it comes to the relation
between emotions and negotiations. Some ideas say that showing a solid emotional
demeanor like anger can positively impact the negotiation. This is because that makes
the negotiator look assertive and unyielding hence the other party believes no more
bargaining is possible and concedes. But most of the theorists agree that keeping an
emotionally detached or indifferent attitude fair the best in negotiating.[8]
S7 E22
This episode has Michael Scott celebrating his last day in the office before shifting to a
bigger branch. The entire office shows how he is gloomy to leave his team and
considers it equivalent to leaving a family, which indicates his emotional involvement in
his stint as a regional manager. He encourages his employees to do better at what they
do and tries to save them from the truth of him leaving the same day by lying he will be
leaving the next day. He gladly accepts the mittens knitted by Phyliss and tries to quietly
say goodbye to each one of them individually, waiting till the end for Pam (the
receptionist). This is in stark contrast to the new manager who is replacing him. He is
rude, self-centered, and delusional into thinking that he knows best He does not

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hesitate to push his employees down to get a sales deal, which he ultimately fails to do.
The significance of Michael Scott as a transformational leader is highlighted when he
gets genuinely excited to meet Pam, who barely manages to catch up to him for a final
goodbye.

ARE EMPLOYEES AWARE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and control one's emotions. Self-
awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills are all part of
emotional intelligence. Embracing the complexities of human emotion in the workplace
can result in practical benefits such as improved employee collaboration and a happier
workplace.
While some people are born with emotional skills, there are things that everyone can do
to increase their ability to comprehend and rationalize emotions. This is especially
useful in the workplace, where interpersonal understanding, teamwork, and
communication are frequently relied upon in relationships and commercial decisions.
Some examples of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace include –
1. People pay attention to other’s ideas in the meetings.
2. There’s scope for freedom and creativity in the organization.
3. People form social groups and meet outside work.
4. People communicate and express emotions openly.
Daniel Goleman’s model of emotional intelligence includes five realms that can be
broken into four quadrants –
❖ Self-Awareness: It entails being able to detect and understand your own
emotions. It also entails knowing your strengths and limitations, as well as a
sense of self-assurance.
❖ Self-Management: It includes having a sense of accomplishment, demonstrating
honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness, and being able to handle negative
emotions.
❖ Social Awareness: It includes taking an active interest in people’s emotions and
taking into consideration their unique viewpoints into process.
❖ Relationship Management: It involves having a sense of teamwork and
collaboration, being an inspirational leader, and learning how to overcome
disagreements in the workplace.
❖ something exciting in our lives.
In S2 E18, the Office conducts a Take your daughters to work day where every
employee brings their daughter to the workplace and Michael entertains everyone
because that forms an important part in relationship management and developing social
circles outside office.

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In S1 E2, the Office conducts Diversity Day acknowledging the fact that diversity is the
future of business and it can help in combined growth of people belonging to different
backgrounds. Kelly Kapoor is an Indian, Oscar is from Spain and therefore, this episode
plays a major role in this context. It forms an important part of social awareness and
relationship management as it makes people feel more included and at-home in the
process.
In S2 E1, the Office conducts its annual award function of the Dundies. Every employee
is awarded for their contribution towards making Dunder Mifflin a better workplace. This
highlights good relationship management as employees are rewarded for their efforts
and initiatives.
Throughout the episodes, we see Michael Scott taking a dig at Toby Flenderson, the
HR officer because of the stringent official rules and regulations in place. However,
Toby displays strong self-awareness and is confident and intelligent in dealing with
these situations. This highlights the importance of having a strong will to complement
your loyalty towards the organization.
Moreover, we have Jim Halpert who displays strong self-awareness and self-
management skills as he is the go-to person for everyone in the workplace. He extends
a helping hand to everyone and stays loyal to rise above the ranks during his term at
Dunder Mifflin.

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DETERMINANTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF EMPLOYEES AT
WORK PLACE
Leaders must have a solid awareness of how their emotions and actions affect those
around them in order to be effective. The more successful a leader is at relating to and
working with others, the better. Some of the major determinants as sourced from a
research study in emotional intelligence include -
❖ Responsibility: When employees develop a sense of responsibility towards their
organization and become more responsive towards its success and are ready to
contribute to the overall development of the workplace.
❖ Initiative: When employees take the initiative to do something greater that what is
expected of them. They are ready to walk the extra mile to make things possible
and are committed to the success of the organization.
❖ Optimism: When employees bring forward a positive attitude in the workplace
and create a charismatic presence among their co-workers. They actively help
each other and assist in the process of making the organization a better place to
work in.
❖ Loyalty: When am employee develops a sense of belongingness towards the
organization. This is highly credible to the work environment and number of
opportunities presented to them to grow and develop throughout their work life.
❖ Competence: When they take every task and assignment as a challenge and are
engaged in a healthy competition to break the barriers and making something
different out of the opportunity provided to them. This sets them apart from their
co-workers and fosters a sense of competency in the organization.
❖ Empathy: Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to the thoughts,
emotions, and experiences of others, and it is one of the most important factors
in office relationships. Empathy goes beyond pity to include the ability to
comprehend and help people with compassion and sensitivity. Employee
empathy is necessary for fostering a positive workplace connection.

The Office represents a mix of emotional intelligence as it highlights that every

personality has a set of attributes that they display when dealing in an office setting. As
organizations grow all across the world, it is important to understand the influence it has
on our daily lives. The Office teaches us concepts of team collaboration, empathy,
strong will and shows us that even workplace can foster a sense of belongingness and
can contribute to mutual development.

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APPENDIX
1)

Candidates
FMCG 2
Finance 2
Manufacturing 8
Consulting 5
Sales 8

OCB
EI Score Score
10 12
15 12
13 14
12 16
14 15
14 15
20 22
24 23
22 22
21 22
20 19
23 23
18 18
17 17
12 13
19 20
21 21
20 20
21 22
20 20
15 13
13 12
14 13
13 13
19 20

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REFERENCES
1) Vibhuti Gupta, Devalina (2012-2013) “Role of Positive Emotions in
Organizational Coping”
2) Ashkan Khalili (2017) “Transformational Leadership and organizational
citizenship behavior” The moderating role of Emotional Intelligence
3) Arend, R., Gove, F. L.., & Sroufe L. A. (1979). Continuity of individual adaptation
from infancy to kindergarten: A predictive study of ego-resiliency and curiosity in
preschoolers. Child Development, 50, 950–959.
4) Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership: Renewing yourself
and connecting with others through mindfulness, hope, and compassion.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
5) Carver, C. (2003). Pleasure as a sign you can attend to something else: Placing
positive feelings within a general model of affect. Cognition and Emotion, 17(2),
241-261. Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1993). Vigilant and avoidant coping in
two patient samples. In H. W. Krohne (Ed.), Attention and avoidance: Strategies
in coping with aversiveness (pp. 295-320). Seattle: Hogrefe& Huber.
6) Csikszentmihalyi, M. F. (1990). The psychology of optimal experience. New York:
Harper Perennial.
7) Cropanzano, R., & Wright, T.A. (2001). When a-happy worker is really a
productive worker: A review and further refinement of the happy-productive
worker thesis. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 53, 182-
199.
8) Ekman, P., Davidson, R. J., & Friesen, W. V. (1990). The Duchenne smile:
Emotional Expression and brain physiology. II. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 58(2), 342–353.

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