1. Is it
Friday
yet?
Organizational Leadership Success:
Does greater emotional intelligence lead to higher work
engagement?
Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace Conference
Ashridge Business School
Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
May 29 – 31, 2013
Dr. Scott Thor
Bakersfield, CA USA
I love
Mondays!
Disengaged
Emotional
Intelligence?
Highly Engaged

2. Lack of Engagement is Costly
1. Rivera, A., & Flinck, J. (2011). Employee-led, employee engagement in the federal government: SAMHSA peoplefirst. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 13(4), 479-493.
2. Gallup Consulting (2008). Employee engagement: What’s your employee engagement ratio? Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com
3. Towers Perrin/Towers Watson (2003). Working today: Understanding what drive employee engagement. Retrieved from http://www.towerswatson.com
4. Wagner, R., & Harter, J. K. (2006). 12: The elements of great managing. New York, NY: Gallup Press.
18 – 30%
Disengaged2,3,4
11 – 30%
Highly Engaged2,3,4
$300+ Billion / Year1,2
Personal Impact
Societal Impact
Theft
Turnover
Profitability
Productivity
Absenteeism
Customer Satisfaction

3. Lit Review / Hypothesis
Vigor Dedication Absorption Work Engagement
Manager
Recognition
External Factors1,2,3
Learning Resources
Internal Factors
Emotional
Intelligence?
Emotional
Intelligence
Work
Engagement
+
Primary Hypothesis
+ + =
1. Gallup Consulting (2008). Employee engagement: What’s your employee engagement ratio? Retrieved from http://www.gallup.com
2. Towers Perrin/Towers Watson (2003). Working today: Understanding what drive employee engagement. Retrieved from http://www.towerswatson.com
3. Wagner, R., & Harter, J. K. (2006). 12: The elements of great managing. New York, NY: Gallup Press.

4. Methodology
5,187 Participants
US & Canada
61%
39%
61% Mgmt
33% Employee
Emotional Intelligence – Assessing Emotions Scale1
33 Item Survey
Identify, Understand, Utilize, & Manage Emotions
Self Assessment “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”
0 – 165 EI Score
Work Engagement – Utrecht Work Engagement Scale2
17 Item Survey
Vigor, Dedication, & Absorption
Self Assessment “never” to “always, every day”
0 – 6 WE Score
1. Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., & Bhullar, N. (2009). The assessing emotions scale. In C. Stough, D. Saklofske, & J. Parker (Eds.), The assessment of emotional intelligence (pp. 119-135). New York, NY: Springer Publishing.
2. Schaufeli, W., Bakker, A., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: A cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(4), 701-716.

5. Secondary Hypotheses
Primary Hypotheses
Research Results
Emotional
Intelligence
Work
Engagement
r = .416, p < .001
R2 = 17.3%, p < .001
Managing
Emotions
Work
Engagement
r = .475, p < .001
R2 = 22.6%, p < .001
EI Effect No Effect
Gender X
Age X
Education X
Org Level X
WE Effect No Effect
Gender X
Age X
Education X
Org Level X
Tenure X

6. Digging Deeper – Managing Emotions
“Toxic” Work Environment
Emotions are a powerful source of energy for action!
+ Energy - Energy
Tapping into positive emotions – able to stay open minded
and have greater self-control
Positively charged work environment – leads to greater
engagement

7. Implications for practice…so what?
Tactics to Help
Manage Emotions
Emotional Journal
or Blog
Exercise – Physical
Activity
Routine “Clarity”
Breaks
Emotional Mind Map
Who? What? When? Where?

8. Future Research
Replication
Instruments
Demographics
Grad Edu
Org Level

9. Conclusion
Work engagement
Managing emotions
“Retirement” is becoming obsolete
Small bite into a big problem!