Emotions and Follower Behaviors in a Time of Crisis 2010-01-0681

This paper describes research into the relationship of emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and follower behaviors. The research is part of an ongoing initiative to recognize and understand followers in the transportation and service industries. Behavioral complexities such as emotions are paramount in the intricacies of management and leadership and are widely studied. Emotional intelligence has become a standard concept in business settings while its predictive powers relative to personnel performance forecasting abilities are still being researched. An ability to interact with a diverse employee population, a complex environment, and multifaceted decision requirements would seemingly require leaders and followers to have a fully developed emotional presence. This presence is necessary for workers at all levels to be able to accommodate unpredictability, demonstrate adaptability, and perform flexibly within the workplace. Emotion recognition has been reliably validated within the construct of emotional intelligence as a complicated skill that carries both societal and workplace consequences. The interaction of emotion regulation, well-being, and social relationships has implications for managerial and leadership efficacy. Research indicates that emotional intelligence is a measure that can be developed, i.e., training can be used to improve an individual's emotional intelligence. Research has found that followers generally reflect their leaders' style and behavior. If style and behavior are related to emotion, this reflection is moderated by the relational aspect of the leader-follower dyad based on a two-way influence exchange. The exchange addresses specific needs within an (organizational) context. By examining the relationship of the emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and follower behaviors, this research examines the premise that understanding who you are emotionally as a follower is equally important as knowing who you are as an emoting person or leader.