Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management at the Workplace


Research Paper (postgraduate), 2020

87 Pages


Excerpt


Table of Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Conundrum

Theories
High Performance for emotional intelligence People
Your mental health
Your social intelligence
Intrapersonal intelligence
Interpersonal intelligence
Self-awareness
Self -Regulate
Reflective learning

Self-Management
Relationship Management
The Vegetative Level
The Neocortical Level

Sources of emotions
Surround yourself with positive people
Health escapism and distractions
Crisis Management
Corona Virus a threat for the Universe for Mass destruction
Stress curve
Eustress, Neustress and Destress
Pathogenic and Salutogenic
Proactivity for stressful events

Symptoms of Stress
Behavioural symptoms
Generation of People
Millennials at Work
Behaviour Types A and B Personality
Stressors
Personality Traits
Short and Long-terms Consequences
The basics
Burnout

Job satisfaction
Herzberg Job dissatisfaction factors
Herzberg Job dissatisfaction factors which lead to a turnover
Company policy
Supervision
Interpersonal relationships
Employee-employer relationships
Employee-supervisor relationship
Employee-peer’s relationship
Working conditions
Effects of unfavourable working conditions
Coping Strategies

Theories of Stress
Life-Events Theory
Cognitive-relational theory
Meta-theoretical system approach

General Adaption Syndrome
The alarm reaction stage
The resistance stages

Stress response Theory
The model of human Performance and Stress
A transactional model of stress

Methodology
Qualitative & Quantitative Research
Research Sample & Sample Size
Probability sampling
Simple random sampling
Sample size
Gender Differences in Depression
Nature of stress
The extent of stress and burnout according to gender
Working hours per week
Why stress and burnout occurs at the workplace

Causes of stress and burnout in the workplace
Workload
Rewards
Values
Age, experience and Education

The effects of job stress and burnout
Stress and burnout can lead to poor performance
Job Satisfaction
Emotional intelligence
Anxiety
Turnover
The Significant Factors that contribute to labour turnover

Policy recommendations

Bibliography

Abstract

The desideratum of the discourse is aimed to determine stress management and emotional intelligence at the workplace. Epidemic diseases such as Corona has poised a lot of global discombobulation political, socially, economically and legally. Variables such as burnout, emotional intelligence and job dissatisfaction on the secretaries of the International University of Management (IUM) were also explored. The specific predicament is that secretaries at the International University of Management (IUM) faced stress and job burnout because they are overloaded with work and no skills development taking place within the working environment. It can be concluded that there were different symptoms regarding psychosomatic factors in male—moreover, female, especially those infected and affected with epidemics. Headache was found in more percentages which lead to stress to secretaries. Some more problems also observed were ulcers, tachycardia, high blood pressure and sleep problem. These all factors lead to stress symptoms which affect all the participants. High blood pressure, headache and sleep problems were mainly observed during examination days. Students were scared about the studies during exam days which results in severe stresses among them. The researchers observed that there were variables in the results of stress among male and females. Headaches were found to be often in male, but its percentage was found to be higher in females.

Similarly, blood pressures also occur in much higher in females than males by 10%.In the case of males, very often, the researcher observed that it was due to poor sleep pattern, depression, heart diseases, constipation, low self-confidence and indigestions. We discovered that 68% are extremely and highly worried of the devasting effects of the pandemic of mass destruction. 0% of the people surveyed have extremely low anxiety on the pandemic. A stress prevention strategy coupled with coping strategies such as the employment of Wellness programmes, breathing, peer support, counselling, religion, exercising, encouraging holiday to the beach and meditation to be employed by Secretaries. Cognitive coping and active coping strategies can be encouraged to Secretaries.

Keywords Stress Management, Emotional Intelligence

Introduction

The Global pandemic Coronavirus has arguably ushered in stress and global crisis in the economy and health sector. The crisis results from the collision of vulnerabilities and specific trigger events. The crisis triggers are unpredictable and predicting the timing of a crisis is a fool ‘s errand. Anyone can become splenetic that is easy. However, to be ferocious with the right staff, to the right extent, at the correct time, for the correct purpose, and correctly, this is not burdensome (Goleman, 2014). Emotional intelligence has been demonstrated to be one of the essential determinants for effective leadership. First-line supervisors who appreciate and employ their emotional intelligence in the workplace are more procumbent, and recumbent to retain their staff, enjoy greater collaboration, commitment, and to experience increases in co-worker performance (Goleman, 2014). Academic intelligence has infinitesimal to do with emotional life. The sagacity among us can founder on the shallow of unbridled passions and boisterous impulses; people with high IQs can be remarkedly poor pilots of their private lives (Stein, 2016). To know that employees are valedictorian is to know they are vastly good at achievement as evaluated by grades. It does not unravel about how they boomerang to the vicissitudes of life (Cherniss, 2015). Emotionally intelligent women employee, by juxtaposition, be inclined to be assertive and express their sentiments directly, and to feel unequivocal about themselves; life holds nuts and bolts for them. Like the men, they are cordial, gregarious, and express their ethos appropriately; they roll with punches well to stress (Low, 2013).

Surveys show that gut reaction competence accounts for as much as 75% of success in the workplace and social life (Burnestein, 2014). Many of the determinants evaluated in the assessment centre past and present encapsulate social and emotional competencies embracing communication, sensitivity, initiative, and interpersonal skills. There is now a commodious array of research recommending that the vital to unlocking success lie in a person’s ability to perceive, identify, and manage emotion (Samira, El Sayed, Mansour, 2017). These capabilities form the groundwork for the emotional and social competencies that are crucial for success in almost any job. Stress makes us uptight, cranky, and energies us to drink. Stress keeps us awake at night and makes us want to sleep all the time. Getting volatile people to calm down encapsulates a hierarchical sequence of goals. Passion killing and domestic violence has been rife in Namibia. Meetings which start well and staff members end up exchanging blows as also been prevalent in the workplace. You must achieve one before the next is even feasible. There are, however, no straight lines in flora and fauna. Explosive people at the workplace may begin to slow down, then speed up again for no apparent reason. This is inevitable; it does not mean the sedative technique is not working. All it means is that you must go back up in the categorization and bring them down again. Remember that you are standing in for the parasympathetic nervous system until it can take over for itself.

Due to prolonged stress and frustration secretaries feel that their physical and emotional strength is exhausted. This exhaustion will thus lead to low productivity, high employee turnover cost, and reduced employee morale in an organization. This burnout and stress should not be treated lightly because it will harm the employees and as well as on the entire organization. Different measures should be taken and conducted to reduce stress and burnout in secretaries. There are several reasons which lead to stress and burnout, and these are issues such as heavy workload, lack of control, unfairness, conflicts of interest, insufficient reward appraisal and lack of motivation from employer or supervisor. There have been plethoric studies on the relationship between job burnout and stress, and these studies indicated that the two are closely related. It is observed in other studies, that job satisfaction involves a psychological, physiological and environmental circumstance that leads to a person’s satisfaction in the workplace. Secretarial workers who are stressed are likely to be less productive, poorly motivated and no interest in work. Their organisations are likely to be less successful in a competitive market. In order to create a pleasant, useful, satisfying and productive environment, managers should maintain a high level of job satisfaction for themselves and the workers.

Conundrum

Managing your sentiments is no longer just a personal challenge– it is a managerial one. Moreover, managers who fail to pass that test can get passed over for further advancement or even relieved of their supervisory duties. The pandemic has been ubiquitous and in the meantime too big for superpowers in terms of managing it. Acquaintances become ill or pass away, relationships end, and other severe events crowd out work duties. Staff who have challenges to show sensitivity and empathy to colleagues during times like these can leave others angry, resentful, and burnt out. This is especially crucial for the distressing emotions of fear, pain, anger, etc. Depressed employees are either sad or have a diminished capacity to be happy. Sad employees are experiencing too much negative emotion are actively miserable and others commit suicide. There is some evidence that sad employees have too much activity in the thalamus and hypothalamus, parts of the limbic system responsible for raw emotion. Unhappy employees may have too little activity in the hippocampus, the nucleus accumbens, and other areas linked with debauchery and reward, some of which are also parts of the limbic system (Ackermann, 2014). The oldest psychoactive substance is entirely the worst possible medication for depression, yet it is the most widely used. The primary rationale for its admiration is that it immediately treats all the symptom complexes that makeup depression, though poorly. Some depressed workers have negative thoughts that will not stop. It is as if their brains have faulty brakes. Depressed staff have all kinds of problems with sleep—too much, too petite, or not the right kind. They have challenges getting to sleep, staying asleep, and nightmares haunt their nights, or worse, dreams that are exactly like their day-to-day existence, making them feel as if they never sleep at all.

According to Permanent Secretary (2013) indicated that burnout occurs when the reality of work fails to meet expectations, and it is the main reason why Secretarial job satisfaction can drop in the workplace. Secretaries are not involved in the decision-making process. Job rotation and job scheduling are not practised in the workplace. The specific problem is that secretaries at the International University of Management (IUM) faced stress and job burnout because they are overloaded with work and no skills development taking place within the working environment. The secretaries are not motivated and praised for a job well done. Workshops were not conducted for them, and they were not allowed to attend work-related seminars.

Theories

Why emotional intelligence is important

Emotional intelligence is very crucial to assist you in time management, anger management, mental health, effective communication, stress tolerance, mental health, social intelligence and assertiveness .

Figure 2. Importance of Emotional Intelligence

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

The Bell Curve (1994) is the most available asset for the forecasted conciseness of IQ tests for occupational and social success. Among the pragmatism that Herrnstein and Murray (1994: 72- 85) was the performance of 472,539 military staff; the two most large meta-analyses ever done of civilian job performance (one of a mammoth compilation of job performance discourse, mostly from 1900-1950; the other of 425 more current rubrics of job proficiency as forecasted by the General Aptitude Test Battery of the U.S. Department of Labor), and an incredibly intensive ongoing discourse of over 12,000 people. It must be stressed that The Bell Curve’s chief desideratum was to unpack the massive pragmatism for the forecasted accuracy of IQ tests. The issue of genetic determinism of intelligence was secondary; and the few fundi who questioned Herrnstein and Murray’s contention for genetic determinism still acknowledged the manifest incontrovertibility of their demonstration of IQs forecasted accuracy (Goleman, 2014). The Black social scientist Thomas Sowell interrogated genetic determinism of intelligence.

Cognitive intelligence, as evaluated by IQ, is, as Goleman observed in the statement, the intellectual potential to learn these subjects. Nearly all juveniles can learn them to a basic level; some can learn them to an advanced level. The brilliant and smart people that are the most progressive of the most contented in life. We know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unproductive at work or in their relationships. The intellectual ability or your intelligence quotient (IQ) is not enough on its own to be successful in life. Yes, your IQ can assist you to get into university, but it is your EQ that will assist you to manage the stress and emotions when facing difficult situations. IQ and EQ subsist in tandem and are most efficacious when they build off one another.

High Performance for emotional intelligence People

Emotional intelligence impacts performance at University or work. High emotional intelligence can assist you to navigate the social convolutions of the workplace, lead and motivate others, and excel in your career (Burnestein, 2014). EQ is so crucial to success that it accounts for 58 per cent of performance in all types of work. When it comes to evaluating crucial job candidates, many corporates now employ emotional intelligence as being as crucial as technical ability and use EQ testing before employing (Ackermann, 2014). Your physical health is essential if you cannot manage your emotions; you are probably managing the stress either (Basu, 2012). This can attract severe health predicament.

Your mental health.

Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also affect mental health, creating weakness to anxiety and depression. If you are not able to appreciate, be comfortable with, or manage your emotions, you will also struggle to form robust relationships (Cherniss, 2015). This, in turn, can leave the feeling solitary and isolated and further aggravate any mental health predicament. Your relationships by appreciating your sentiments and how to regulate them, you are better able to articulate how your sentiments and appreciate how others are feeling (Ackermann, 2014). Allowing you to communicate more efficaciously and forge robust relationships, both at work and in your personal life.

Your social intelligence.

Being in tandem with your emotions serves a social purpose, linking you to other people and the universe around you. Social intelligence facilitates you to identify friend from adversaries, measure another person’s interest in you, reduce stress and equipoise your nervous system through social communication, and feel loved and happy. You should be able to know those who are close to you, for the sake of gathering information from you but are not your friends.

This paper will be guided by the Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner model and his team.

Figure 2.1 Emotional intelligence Model

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source Oddison (2010)

The prototype of emotional intelligence is borrowed from two of the nine ways in which we can be intelligent known as our multiple intelligences and recognised by the Harvard educational psychologist Howard Gardner and his team. These two bits of intelligence are our intrapersonal intelligence (how self-aware we are and how well we run the show ourselves) and our interpersonal intelligence (how aware of others we are and how well we run the show with our relationships) (Oddison, 2010).

Intrapersonal intelligence

Research by Viens and Kalenbanch (2014) asserts that being intelligent in picking up what is prevailing within us and doing what we need to do about it. The researcher asserts that it assists us to make sense of the things we do, the rumination we have, the sentiments we feel and the relationships between them all. With it, you can burn the midnight oil on how to stay in charge of yourself and your emotions. The self-awareness that hinges our intrapersonal intelligence assist us to become self-managing: managing our moods, inspiring ourselves, dealing with setbacks, using our intuition, managing our energy, dealing with stress and precluding depressions and hooking behaviour (Shelly, 2015). The spontaneous gestures that guide us in these occasions emanate in the physiognomy of limbic-driven surges from the viscera that Damasio calls "somatic markers denotatively, gut feelings. The somatic marker is a type of automatic alarm, typically calling attention to a potential hazard from a given course of action (Viens,Kallenbanch, 2014).

Interpersonal intelligence

Being intelligent in picking up what is going on in other people and between people and doing what we need to do about it. Assist us to tune with other staff members, Empathise with them, communicate tacitly with them, inspire and motivate them and appreciate our relationships with them and the relationships between them. With it, you can inspire other employees at NHE, develop their trust in you very quickly, create a team that executes rather than storms and is useful and creative (Walker, 2010)

Self-awareness

Psychologists use the somewhat cumbersome term metacognition to refer to the keenness of thought process, and meta-mood to mean awareness of one's own emotions (Goleman, 2014). The researcher prefers the lexis self-awareness in the sense of recurrent attention to one's internal states. Equivalently, the researcher underscores that the scores in the scales which evaluates Self-Awareness and keenness of others are likely to cause high and low scores in other scales, you need this alertness to be able to execute the characteristics of self-management and association management measured by the other scales. Only 36 per cent of the employees tested can precisely recognise their emotions as they take to occur. Self-awareness is about being in touch with our natural and emotional state now, and awareness of others is about being able to pick up on another’s a constant and emotional state (Diamond, 2010) It is essential to question your feelings: Ask yourself plethoric questions such as the following. Why am I feeling the way I do? Try your best to find one or two words that best delineate your feeling. What are the possible secondary causes of this feeling? What are some other factors that may be contributing to this emotion? Are there multiple “little things” that may have built up throughout the day? How should I respond to this feeling? What is that is discombobulating me? How should I respond to this feeling? .Should I just wait for this feeling to pass?

Self -Regulate

Once you are more knowledgeable of your emotions, the next stalwart of emotional intelligence is imbibing how to respond to them better. Incumbent upon on the situation, there are many diverse strategies we can deploy to regulate our emotions better. Handel (2019) unpacks some of these strategies among others which encapsulate: Directing an emotion in a new and constructive way, such as through exercising, writing, or painting. Circumventing triggers – such as individual people, circumstances, or ecology – that is more likely to usher out negative emotion. Look for positive pragmatism to reverse negative potholes (such as watching a comedy movie when we are feeling down or listening to motivating music when we are indolent). These are all strategies accessible to us to assist us to regulate our emotions better on an everyday basis. There are plethoric diverse ways to respond to emotion, and not every strategy is going to work depending on what the situation is. The more emotionally intelligent you become, the better you will be at determining what is the best way to an emotion (Handel, 2019).

Reflective learning

The next scale, called reflective Learning, is not so much a component of emotional intelligence itself, as a vital prerequisite for it. One of the essential practices of an emotionally intelligent person is showing on experience and thus learning from it, about oneself and others. Reflective learning permits one to convert self-awareness and keenness of others now into self-knowledge and appreciating of others, which are longer-term attributes. This is reflected in the extended version of our overall model of EI (Burnestein, 2014).

Self-Management

The researcher concurs that, as emotional intelligence needs the adoption of these same attitudes, as well as the same self-management and relationship management dexterity that demonstrate effective leadership, we would go as far as to articulate that being a good leader requires emotional intelligence and being emotionally intelligent means that you will demonstrate good leadership (Goleman, 2014)

Relationship Management

The researcher argues that social intelligence is the capability to comprehend others and act prudently in human relations was itself a feature of the employee’s IQ. Other psychologists of the time took a more cynical perspective of social intelligence, seeing it regarding skills for controlling other people—getting them to do what you want, whether they want to or not. The many muscles in the face, particularly those everywhere the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead, assist you to mutely relay your own emotions as well as read other staff’ sentimental intent. The emotional part of your cognitive is continuously on—and even if you ignore its messages—others will not. Identifying the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a considerable part in improving your relationships. Use humour and usher a lot to mitigate stress. Humour, laughter and play are ordinary antidotes stress they are cathartic (Low, 2013).

Figure 2.3 1 Anatomy of the Brain

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Ordinarily, the thinking brain controls the emotional brain. Nevertheless, in particular (usually stressful) situations, the emotional brain takes over.

Figure 7.2.4 Anatomy of Brain in three-level

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source Seaward (2012)

The Vegetative Level

The lowest ebb of the brain comprises of both the reticular formation and the brain stem. The reticular formation, or more appropriately the fibres that constitute the reticular activating system (RAS), is the linkage to the brain to the spinal cord. Plethoric stress physiologists have efficacy that it is the bridge assembling the mind (brain) and the body as one; this organ functions as interlocution link between the mind and the body (Seaward, 2012 ).

Limbic system: The midlevel of the brain, encapsulating the hypothalamus and amygdala, which is accountable for emotional processing.

The Neocortical Level

The neocortex is the apex and most complicated level of the brain. It is at this level that sensory information is processed (decoded) as a risk or a nonthreat and where cognition occurs. Housed within the neocortex are the neural mechanisms permitting one to deploy analysis, imagination, creativity, intuition, logic, memory, and corporate. It is this advanced area of brain tissue that is thought to discrete humans from all other species (Goldberg, 2012).

Serotonin and melatonin are not stressed hormones, yet they do seem to affect mood. Lowers in both serotonin and melatonin are cogitated to be connected to bouts of depression. Plethoric things affect serotonin levels in the brain—from the natural and synthetic chemicals in the foods you eat, to the amount of sunlight you receive in a day, to perhaps things we still do not know. Research is not agreeable about how serotonin affects mood. Most likely, stress affects serotonin levels as well in a crisis (Seaward, 2012 ).

It is essential to understand our emotions based on high negative affect, high positive affect, low positive affect and low negative affect as shown in the figure below. Primary emotions –anger, fear, joy. Love, sadness and surprise.Self-conscious emotions –feelings that come from within, e.g. guilt, embarrassment and pride.Human emotions –feelings based on information, e.g. pity, envy, jealousy.

Figure 2.5 Sources of Emotions

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Sources of emotions

- Personality –emotions and moods have a trait component.
- Day of the week and time of the day during the menstrual cycle for women
- Weather
- Stress and gender
- Social activities
- Exercise
- Sleeping and dreaming

Surround yourself with positive people

The people often trigger our emotions; we are around more than anything else. It is simple to be around positive and optimistic people; you are going to adopt a more positive and optimistic mindset. Nevertheless, if you associate yourself with cynical and despondent people, you are going to adopt a more cynical and miserable mindset. Emotions are very contagious. This not only applies to people we surround ourselves with in the real world but also in our online worlds as well. For example, in one study, it was discovered that emotions could also spread throughout our online social networks, such as Facebook.

Health escapism and distractions

One vital aspect of emotional intelligence is knowing when to engage with an emotion juxtaposed when to disengage from an emotion. There is a point where the more you cosset in sadness, anger, grief, the more you are conditioning those wirings in the brain that attract those emotions, which makes you more vulnerable to those emotions in the future. There is a popular theory in psychology called catharsis, which is the idea that you just need to act out your emotions to release them, which is healing than bottling them up. Examples of healthy escapism and distractions encapsulate:

- Playing video games.
- Listening to music.
- Watching a movie.
- Socializing with friends.
- Reading a book.
- Going on vacation.
- Sleeping on it and dreaming.
- Sports , exercise and going for counselling.

Crisis Management

The crisis management tool is a crisis mitigation tool not to be deployed in a mechanistic way. The decision-making level in the corporate world need to be conversant with the plan must be part of the company mindset. A crisis contingent plan is an open mindset to think the unthinkable through the financial crisis, natural human-made financial disruptive disasters. Terrorist attacks, geopolitical failures, cyber failures and pandemics are good examples of crisis. A crisis management team is essential in handling a crisis, and this team should prepare and run simulation exercises. The team should have plethoric skills which are analytical, legal, supervisory, auditing, media experts and political people. Quantitative easing is a monetary stimulus measure adopted when conventional monetary stimulus tool is ineffective. This embrace injecting money into the system during a crisis to increase the use of money by those who need it. The macro-prudential policy also focuses on the identification and mitigation of systemic risk. Macro-prudential policies focus on the soundness and stability of the financial system to maintain the flow of financial services and disruptive financial crises. (Fink, 2019).

Corona Virus a threat for the Universe for Mass destruction

In 2006, one of China’s preeminent virologists, Professor Zhengli Shi, co-authored the rubric, Review of Bats and SARS concluding that “a SARS epidemic may recur in the future and that SARS-like coronaviruses (SLCoVs) that originate from diverse reservoir host populations may lead to epidemics at different times or in diverse regions. The recent discovery of a group of diverse SLCoVs in bats supports the possibility of these events. However, Prof. Zhengli and her co-authors published a discourse early last year on March 2, 2019, entitled Bat Coronaviruses in China which explicitly warned. Chinese scientists say reports the latest findings on the coronavirus by scientists at China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The scientists’ findings, published on Tuesday, recommended that the research community may have underestimated the danger posed by the pneumonia-like mass destruction virus.” However, Prof. Zhengli and her co-authors published a rubric early last year on March 2, 2019, entitled Bat Coronaviruses in China which explicitly warned, “During the past two decades, three zoonotic coronaviruses have been recognised as the cause of large-scale disease outbreaks Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Swine Acute Diarrhoea Syndrome (SADS). SARS and MERS emerged in 2003 and 2012, respectively, and caused a worldwide pandemic that claimed thousands of human lives, while SADS struck the swine industry in 2017.

Prevention of Corona Virus

Keep away from someone with a heavy cough

Use a tissue to cover the nose or mouth

Avoid direct hand contact with eyes and nose

Wash vegetables and fruits before cooking

Adhere to hygiene measures cover the mouth with face masks and use gloves to cover fingers.

Wash the hands with hot water and soap at least six or seven times a day

Avoid contact with camels

Exercise, meditation and intercession are useful.

Avoid crowds and maintain social distance

Drugs and Vaccines which helps fight the Virus

The Anti-malaria drugs like chloroquine and hydro chloroquine as well as antibiotics against staphylococcal bacteria like teicoplanin are believed to be effective.

The anti-HIV Drugs, Ritonavir are protease inhibitor are believed to stop the replication of the virus in the body.

A nucleoside building block of nucleic acid. DNA/RNA in the form of nucleotides analogue-like Remdemsivir abruptly terminates RNA replication and virus multiplication.

Drug against ACE 2 Anglotensein converting enzyme 2 of lung cells which acts like receptor of the virus spike glycoprotein Vaccines such as Sinovac from China, Cuba, Codagenix from the USA are helpful.

Stress curve

Figure 2.6 Stress Curve

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source: Stranks (2012)

The term “stress as it is deployed today, etymology from the engineering world where it refers to the external forces that situate tension on an object. Stress results when “pressure exceeds one's perceived capability to cope. Antonovsky (1979) described the human condition as stressful, with stressors being omnipresent it is remarkable that people never survive' This train of thought led him to the salutogenic paradigm which places an inherent emphasis on "wellness" factors, rather than on pathogenic factors where stressors need to be eradicated. According to Jenks (1990), any demand or situation in the environment that required a reaction from people is a source of stress that can also be called a stressor. Selye (1982) elucidated the process of stress-related illness. He shunned away from the earlier stimulus-response orientation to encapsulate an adaptational process and developed a general adaptation theory.

According to Selye, biological stress can be delineated as the unspecified response of the body to these demands (Selye, 1976). The stressor is, therefore, the external force that the person observes, while the body’s reaction to it is called stress (Stranks, 2012). Wieten and Lloyd (1994) notable are the four types of stressors which are frustration, conflict, life changes and pressure to change. People’s reaction to stress can, according to Wieten and Lloyd (1994), be studied on three diverse levels namely the physiological reaction which is according to Selye(1976), characterized by three phases namely the initial phase, resistance phase and the exhaustion phase (Rubensteid, 1999).

The second level of stress reaction is an emotional reaction. According to Wool folk and Richardson (1978), the following three types of emotional reactions were found namely annoyance, anger, fear, terror, sadness and grieve. The third level of stress reaction is called the behavioural reaction. Behavioural reaction refers to the individual’s actual attempt to deal with stress and the adaptation strategy. This adaptation strategy has as its aim the reduction of stress but can be destructive by harming the individual’s adaptation and causing further problems Stress arises from the need to adapt physically, emotionally and mentally to change. A small amount of stress is right – like a vaccine. When the demand is too high or prolonged, then stress management is necessitated (Farell, 2007).

Quantitative loading occurs when a person has more work than he or she can complete each time. Qualitative overloading-situation that occurs when an individual lacks the abilities or resources necessary to complete a task satisfactorily. Under loading stress-resulting in boredom and monotony produced when an individual has unfinished work to do (Burnestein, 2014). 50 to 70 per cent of all physical illness are related to stress. The link between stress and heart disease are well known. High level of stress is associated with diabetes, ulcers, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis. Stress can cause depression, irritation, anxiety, fatigue, lowered self-esteem, reduced job satisfaction, burnout (Cherniss, 2015). Burnout is a condition of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion that results from continued exposure to high stress. Stress, as described in the present discourse, encapsulates Internal and external demands (stressors). Appraisal of the seriousness of these demands. Person's resources and ability to cope with them; mediating factors. The manifestation of stress (or consequences) (Cunnignham, 1997)

[...]

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Details

Title
Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management at the Workplace
Course
Research Paper
Author
Year
2020
Pages
87
Catalog Number
V540557
ISBN (eBook)
9783346172983
ISBN (Book)
9783346172990
Language
English
Notes
The Global pandemic Coronavirus has arguably ushered in stress and global crisis in the economy and health sector. The crisis results from the collision of vulnerabilities and specific trigger events. The crisis triggers are unpredictable and predicting the timing of a crisis is a fool ‘s errand. Anyone can become splenetic that is easy. Emotional intelligence has been demonstrated to be one of the essential determinants for effective leadership.
Keywords
Emotional intelligence
Quote paper
Professor David Rewayi Mpunwa (Author), 2020, Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management at the Workplace, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/540557

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