Emotional Intelligence and Personal Resilience

CLO1: Justify Emotional Intelligence (EI) with awareness of the concepts of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) in the context of professional interactions within the UAE.

Case Study A:  A New Leadership Culture

It’s been 6 months since Khadija was hired to lead a large, nonprofit organization called, International Education Center (IEC), which provides international education and information to the citizens of one of the Emirates.  The organization provides opportunities for individuals to learn about different cultures and to gain an understanding about their role as citizens of the world. It does this by connecting the people of the state with visitors from all over the world in order to meet and learn from one another.

Prior to the job at the IEC, Khadija directed national programming and services for the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in Washington, D.C. Before her job at the ORR, she worked for an international relief agency and traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia and Africa, working in the organization’s field offices, managing its daily operations.

Khadija, born in Lebanon, fled with her parents to the United States as refugees just before the end of the Civil War in 1990.  Her experiences growing up as a refugee fuel her motivation and passion for international work. It also shaped her expectations and working style. She is known to her colleagues as a “go-getter” and a “high performer.”

The board of trustees at IEC thought Khadija’s international experiences and goal-oriented, achievement-focused attitude was just what they needed to expand the organization across the UAE.  The previous president, Salem, did not have the strategic thinking and vision to expand IEC, even though he was very effective at building relationships throughout the Emirate.  After 10 years with IEC, Salem decided to step down from his leadership role. This gave the board of directors an opportunity to hire someone like Khadija who can challenge employees and push the organization to reach its financial and fundraising goals.

Since Khadija took on the leadership role, employee productivity and motivation has decreased. Staff used to enjoy coming to work, talking with one another, and planning programs and services for the community. Now they come to work because they need a paycheck, and they accomplish their tasks because Khadija tells them to do so.  There is no enthusiasm for the mission of the organization and the vision for the new work that Khadija and the directors created in a strategic planning meeting.  A couple of times, when Khadija passed employee cubicles, she heard comments like, “She works us all like we don’t have a personal life”; “She’s so impersonable”; “I miss just chatting with people”; and “Salem was never like this. He always made time to talk to us.”

Just last week, Khadija had a staff meeting, and the majority of staff came in late. Throughout the meeting, they gave her blank stares, and, as soon as the meeting was over, they quickly left. Khadija is tired of the employees’ attitude and behaviour.   “The culture of this organization can’t operate the way it used to. I am determined to change it,” she thinks to herself.

CLO4: Critique the application of EI in the context of interactions with internal and external stakeholders.

Case Study B:  The Effects of Restructuring

Company B is a small independently owned logistics company that offers order processing and services such as warehousing, picking, packing and shipping and storing inventory for its clients.  Salary and other costs increased over recent years and the company was only just making a profit.   To cut costs, the senior management team decided to restructure the business to make it more efficient and profitable.  Only two people left as a result of the changes, but the jobs of many of those remaining have changed significantly.

One of the changes made is in the responsibilities of the Financial Manager.  Previously, Mr Abdullah Khaled Alshamsi was responsible for all the accounting activities in the company.  Now he has been promoted to the position of Director of Administration and is responsible for finance, sales and marketing, administration, HR matters and transport.   Abdullah has only ever worked in finance until now.

To fill Abdullah’s role, Mrs Shamma Alkaabi has been promoted from being the Accounts Clerk to the position of Finance Manager.  She is now responsible for many activities that she has not been involved with before, and she is finding it very challenging.  For example, she now has to deal with the bank as well as customers over delays in payment.  She also has to deal with salary problems and has to be able to influence managers not to spend money beyond their budgets.

As a clerk, Shamma had always been efficient, effective and hardworking.  She did what she was asked to do and did it well.  She was popular with the managers and the other staff within the company.  However, she had never needed to take the initiative or responsibility in her work activities and up until now had always been dependent on Abdullah.   Abdullah always told her what to do and when to do it.  Shamma finds it quite difficult dealing with managers over budget issues, particularly when they have overspent, or when they want to spend large amounts of money without providing adequate financial justification.  Equally, she finds it difficult negotiating with the bank and customers over late payments.  Abdullah is always telling her to be more aggressive and to push harder to get the best deal available or to force managers to follow procedures and to cut costs.

Abdullah is getting frustrated and annoyed with Shamma.  He feels that she is not working at the level required in her new position.  As a result, he is frequently having to help her and is effectively doing his old job.  This is taking time away from what Abdullah thinks is his main task which is to get on with his new responsibilities as Director of Administration.  Abdullah frequently finds himself losing his temper and shouting at Shamma when she goes to him for advice.  He thinks this is the best way to get her to do what he thinks she should be doing in exercising her new responsibilities.

Shamma, in turn, thinks that Abdullah has become a bully, simply shouting at her rather than training her and explaining what needs to be done and when.  Shamma had been promised some training in accounting but this has not taken place.  She now also frequently loses her temper and shouts back at Abdullah, accusing him of not explaining what he wants her to do clearly enough.

Shamma believes she is being treated unfairly by both Abdullah and the company.  Her new job and responsibilities have not been defined clearly enough and she has not received any training nor has she been prepared for the job.  She also thinks that Abdullah is struggling to cope with his new job and that as a result he is taking out his frustration and lack of ability on her.  However, she does not express her thoughts.

One day, Abdullah is called to a financial review meeting with the Managing Director, Mr Omar Mubarak AlHammadi, and he takes Shamma along with him.  During the meeting Omar asks a question about how much late payment from customers had been reduced in the last week.  Shamma replies that she has not had time to chase any of the money that is still outstanding because she has been busy doing the salaries and preparing information for the present meeting.  Abdullah immediately loses his temper, saying that she should have found the time and that if she did not concentrate on minor issues all the time, she could have done it.  Shamma defends herself by shouting back that if Abdullah was a better manager and explained himself to her properly everything would get done.  The meeting collapses in chaos.