Emotional Intelligence In project Management

BUS550 Project Management

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Kumaran Ravi
American College of commerce and technology

Prof Salman Qureshi

BUS550 Project management
August 19, 2015

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Emotional Intelligence in Project Management:

Running Head: The Role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in Project Management over the
Next Five Years
Abstract:
While the project management industry emphasizes control of cost, schedule and scope as
the barometer of project success or failure, contemporaries argue this is only a partial valuation.
The operating paradigm throughout this study is based on market conditions over the next five
years. This study utilizes a qualitative case study methodology seeking to answer what skills will
be required within the realm of project management. While credentials and learned capabilities
are still at the forefront within a project managers arsenal, a view through the lenses of EI skills
suggests, (a) multiple variables require further study, and (b) the realization that a project is
better served moving forward through a mixture of technical and humanistic experiences and
valuation models.
Introduction:
The Project Management Institute (PMI) is cited as the worlds largest nonprofit
professional organization (Campbell, 2009) boasting a worldwide membership of over 150,000
in 140 countries. PMI has unified and equipped project managers (PMs) around the globe with
best practice standards and methodologies. PMs of the 21st century command and control project
constraints through an arsenal of defined tasks, hard deliverables, and standard tools and
techniques. With over 40 years of research, community exchange and precision tuning, the hard
skills required for effective project management are demonstratively established. Why is it then
that so many projects fail? If tools and techniques are ubiquitously available and consistently
applied, why is it that a majority projects fail to deliver promises within time, budget, and scope?
Ask any project manager what roadblocks typically impede project progress and nearly every
response will state People! Pressing the issue, they will likely add, Because they always resist
the changes that my project requires (Campbell, 2009). Take a quick inventory; are you battling
the same people challenges? Are your project roadblocks political, environmental, economical,
or social and cultural? What PM skills must be adopted and sharpened in the next 5 years, or risk
receding into the sunset?
Current Study
The operating paradigm of this study is based on market conditions over the next 5 years. A
focus will illustrate that EI skills will be required within the realm of project management. While
credentials and learned capabilities are still at the forefront within a project managers arsenal, a
view through the lenses of EI skills suggests a project is better served moving forward through a
mixture of adaptive leadership and practical experience.

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Literature Review:
Project Management
While the project management industry emphasizes control of Cost, Schedule and Scope as
the barometer of project success or failure, renowned psychologist Daniel Goleman and other
contemporaries argue that this is only a partial valuation (Goleman, 1998). Cabanis-Brewin
(1999) assert that the bedrock of project success is a PMs human competencies or soft skills
such as communicating, listening, sensitivity, influencing, and motivating. Conventional practice
in managing resources, empowering, developing, and analysis can deliver a project within
budget, time, and scope, but still categorically fail. The additional dimensions such as team
performance, knowledge transfer, mobilizing the business case, and influencing stakeholder
management are what really determine success. These dimensions are the fruit of EI and are no
less important than the hard skills of project management. During an interview with PM Network
(1999), Goleman reported that Emotional Intelligence matters twice as much for success over
technical skills. IQ is still the biggest predictor to land a project award, he admits, but once
youre in, its the ability to handle self and others that promotes you and makes the difference
(Cabanis-Brewin, 1999). Which emotional intelligence tool should you concentrate on?
A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence:
-1930s Edward Thorndike describes the concept of social intelligence as the ability to
get along with other people.
-1940s David Wechsler suggests that affective components of intelligence may be
essential to success in life.
-1950s Humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow describe how people can
build emotional strength.
-1975 - Howard Gardner publishes The Shattered Mind, which introduces the concept of
multiple intelligences.
-1985 - Wayne Payne introduces the term emotional intelligence in his doctoral dissertation
entitled A study of emotion: developing emotional intelligence; self-integration; relating to fear,
pain and desire (theory, structure of reality, problem-solving, contraction/expansion, and tuning
in/coming out/letting go).
-1987 In an article published in Mensa Magazine, Keith Beasley uses the term emotional
quotient. It has been suggested that this is the first published use of the term, although Reuven
Bar-On claims to have used the term in an unpublished version of his graduate thesis.
-1990 Psychologists Peter Salvoes and John Mayer publish their landmark article,
Emotional Intelligence, in the journal Imagination, Cognition, and Personality.
-1995 - The concept of emotional intelligence is popularized after publication of Daniel
Golemans book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.
-1998 Goleman publishes Working with Emotional Intelligence, in which he explore EI
in the workplace

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Figure1. Evolution of Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence What is it and why do you need it?
Emotional Intelligence is the area of cognitive ability involving traits and social skills that
facilitate interpersonal behavior. While intelligence can be broadly defined as the capacity for
goal-oriented adaptive behavior, EI focuses on the aspects of intelligence that govern selfknowledge and social adaptation. The term first appeared in 1985, in Wayne Payne's doctoral
thesis, A study of emotion: Developing emotional intelligence. Payne's thesis centered on the
idea that society's historical repression of emotion is the source of wide-scale problems such as
addiction, depression, illness, religious conflict, violence and war. Goleman later popularized the
term and developed related concepts in his influential book, Emotional Intelligence (1995). In
Working with Emotional Intelligence (1998), Goleman explored the function of EI on the job
describing emotional intelligence as the largest single predictor of success in the workplace.
Goleman (1999) describes EI as "managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and
effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals." According
to Goleman, the four major skills that make up emotional intelligence are:
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Relationship Management

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

EI has become a vital part of how today's leaders meet the significant challenges they face. EI
can further help leaders in a difficult leadership role, one that fewer and fewer people seem
capable of fulfilling, and can provide developing leaders with the competitive edge they need to
succeed. As EI evolved into a finite attribute among leaders and managers, it has become clear
that without EI, projects would continue to fail at an alarmingly high percentage.
Methodology
This qualitative study utilizes the case study methodology (Yin, 2003) as a method of
understanding (RQ1). The sole research question (RQ1) of this study was asked to 7 seasoned
projects managers via face-to-face interviews. The sample interviewees were selected based on
their commonality of having taken and completed a graduate project management program in the
southwest part of Texas. Each member of the sample set was provided with alternative names to
protect their identity. Various industries were represented amongst the sample set to include
military, government, automobile manufacturing, grocery production, aviation, and mechanical
engineering. Notes were taken within the interviews and synthesized for correlation analysis,
hermeneutic meaning, and understanding. The researcher served as an extension of the
instrument by asking follow up questions based on responses from the interviewees.
Empirical Results
The case study revealed the following findings as the top 5 skills necessary for project managers
over the next 5 years, (a) Communicating with Impact, (b) Persuasive Leadership, (c) Conflict
Management, (d) Change Management, and (e) Adaptive Personality will serve as the most vital
EI skills over the next five years for successful project/program management implementation.
While there were other factors that could equally be argued as vital to project success, a reminder
of this studys foci regarding emotional intelligence is due. The findings are further discussed as

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

follows.
Communicating with Impact
Everyone wants to be significant, important and to make an impact with other people when they
speak. Communicating with impact is conveying your messages to other people clearly and
unmistakably. Communication is also about receiving information that others are sending to you,
with as little distortion as possible. Communication is at the heart of everything we do. It is
impossible not to communicate, and further possible that we communicate even when we are not
actually speaking. Non-verbal communication, such as body posture, gestures and facial
expressions can be more powerful and more genuine than the spoken word.
Communicating with people in the workplace can be challenge. Maximizing your
communications skills is vital to developing relationships, improving customer service,
increasing productivity, building teams, managing change and increasing the bottom line.
Communicating with impact is what sets you apart from other individuals both in your personal
life as well as your professional career. Communicating with impact is a must for everyone who
hopes to climb the ladder of success.
Persuasive Leadership
Persuasive leadership is a leaders ability to move people from their current position to a position
that they dont currently hold. Persuasive leadership requires a leader to not only make rational
arguments, but also frame ideas, approaches and solutions in ways that appeal to diverse groups
of people with basic human emotions. This is further based on what is considered to be the top 5
EI skills that a project manager must be able to articulate his/her position while effectively
managing the conflict(s) that it may stir up, while employing practical change management
solutions throughout the various projects life cycles.

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Conflict Management
Conflict is defined as the process which begins when one party perceives that another has
frustrated or is about to frustrate (Thomas, 1992). Conflict Management can be divided into two
positions based on positive and negative emotions (Desivilya, 2005). First, positive conflict
management often exhibits behaviors that are integrating, compromising, and obliging. Secondly,
negative conflict management yields dominating and avoiding behaviors.
Change Management
A project is a unique, temporary endeavor with a definite beginning and end. Translation Change
is coming! Every project overtly or covertly introduces organizational changes in order to
achieve a desired future state. The myriad resulting impacts to the project team, end users, direct
stakeholders and other project affiliates are espoused, marginalized, or rejected largely
dependent on the project managers leadership style and comportment throughout the project
lifecycle. A project manager is a change agent and must intricately guide both team and the
organization through change. Succinctly put, a PM must incorporate EI elements into change
management strategy to effect change and produce 360 results.
Adaptive Personality
Due to the infinite similarities to other management skills in todays world, each case study has
provided several concepts of adaptive personality from each of their ontological experiences, as
it relates to other emotional intelligence skills presented in this research study. Case study #4
suggests a PM can diffuse each of these barriers to change, but doing so requires tactful,
deliberate EI application. The PM must first gauge his teams motivation and acceptance of the
change impact, and subsequently adapt his leadership style to effectively implement the change.
In most cases, the team will not immediately adopt or be inspired. As a result, the PM must

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

selectively employ adaptive leadership techniques to effectively lead change. Adaptive

leadership is a discerning and calculated transformation by a PM in order to facilitate cultural
dynamics and simultaneously galvanize team performance. Such traits are required by the PM in
order to survive future requirements and diffuse cultural change barriers in a highly
competitive/evolving project environment (James, 2006).
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
Naturally, this study contains limitations. Primarily, the use of pure qualitative means as opposed
to quantitative means provides a gap in the study. Furthermore, a temporal limitation was selfdeveloped based on the notion of skills necessary by a PM over the next five years. However, the
future direction of research on the EI skills of a PM is bright. It is recommended that research
continues on the need to identify educational curriculum that teaches a mixed-method of
technical versus the humanistic approach to project management. More analysis and data are
necessary to correlate leadership styles and the impact on success, or failure, of a project. Future
research should also focus on the practitioner side of the art and science of managing a project
whereby organizational and individual performance evaluations combine technical and
humanistic project progression. Lastly, the 5 hidden variables that were an outcome of each of
the 5 skillset should be researched collectively using a similar qualitative or quantitative
methodology to identify deeper understanding.
Conclusion
Projects are essentially risky and PMs require a multitude of tools to succeed. Some of these
tools are tangible, measureable, and certifiable. While others are intangible, non-certifiable and
noticeably missing when absent. Inarguably, all PMs understand that a project has 5 Process
Groups (PMBOK 4th Edition, 2008):

Emotional Intelligence In project Management

Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
Closing
In fact PMs can test and certify that they have expert level knowledge of the above written
processes. Even Project Management Professionals (PMP) following proven processes find their
projects not meeting the desired outcomes. As this study has discussed, the key to successful
project management resides in the intangible, vague, elusive realm of Emotional Intelligence
(EI). As stated, EI is not a tangible, certifiable process. It is however, a teachable, learned skill
that involves leading people. During this study of EI and how it relates to project management,
this researcher has defined the 5 most needed EI skills for project management over the next 5
years:
Communication
Persuasive Leadership
Conflict Management
Change Management
Adaptive Personality
Until such a time when people are not needed to manage project management processes, PMs
will need a high level of EI to attain successful project outcomes. By understanding EI, PMs can
use their emotions to build their interpersonal skills and influence. The better PMs are at
developing and sustaining relationships, the more successful we can expect the end result of

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projects. EI provides the edge for excelling at interpersonal skills and building the relationships
necessary to succeed within project and program management.
References:
-Daniels, C. B. (2009). Improving leadership in a technical environment: A case example of the
Con ITS Leadership Institute (Vol. 21 (1). Engineering Management Journal.
-Desilva, H. (2004-2005). The Role of Emotions in Conflict Management: The Case of Work
Teams. International Journal of Conflict Management, 55-69.
-Dolowitz V., & Geoghegan, L. (2008). Do Project Managers Leadership Competencies
Contribute to Project Success? Project Management Journal, Vol 39, No. 4, 58-67.
Gale, S. (2006). The Secret of Stellar Managers. PM Network Journal, February 2006,24-26.
Gardner, H. (1975). The Shattered Mind. New York: Knopf.
-Glass, G. (1976). Primary, Secondary, and Meta-Analysis Research. Laboratory of Educational
Research. Colorado University.