Role of Emotional Intelligence on Organizational Effectiveness: A Study among Scientific Personnel in the National Agricultural Research and Education System (NARES) in India

Emotional intelligence (EI) is known to contribute for the success of individual or group, and plays an important role in organizational effectiveness through positive behavior. The purpose of the study was to find out the relationship between EI and different components of organization effectiveness viz., teamwork effectiveness, conflict-handling modes and leadership competencies of the scientific personnel in National Agricultural Research and Education System (NARES) in India. The data was collected from 234 respondents by administering EI Test (EIT), Teamwork Skill Questionnaire, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI Test) and Leadership Effectiveness Profile. The results indicated that 93.2% of the participants recorded an average level of EI; whereas, only 6.8% have a high level of EI. Majority of participants (78.6%) recorded lower levels of teamwork effectiveness as against 19.2 and 2.2% having average and high levels of team work effectiveness, respectively. Among the conflict-handling modes, avoiding (37.2%), compromising (20.5%) and accommodating (20.1%) are the dominant modes employed by the participants. Among the leadership competencies, people enablement, directional clarity, driving persistence and change orchestration are the dominant reported competencies. EI is significantly and positively correlated with teamwork effectiveness and all the attributes of leadership effectiveness. Among the domains of EI, self-awareness, motivating oneself and handling relationships are significantly related to the teamwork effectiveness and leadership competencies. The findings of the study revealed the importance of EI in contributing the overall success of the organization through building up the teamwork effectiveness and contributing to the leadership competencies. The implication of the study includes the role of EI as important criteria in selection and recruitment and a competency to be trained in employee’s in-service capacity building programs in order to improve the overall organizational effectiveness.