HR Business Synergy

Aug 17, 2021 14 min read

Creating Compassionate Climates through Resonant Leader


Creating Compassionate Climates Through Resonant Leaders- An Emotional Intelligence Intervention in IOCL , Marketing Division

Covid -19 has been a disruptive force to businesses in India and has enhanced stress in people. Today 39% of the people in organizations in India suffer from stress as reported in surveys and reports of LinkedIn. (October 2020). Several other reports on employee stress have come up with similar results. The impact of positive climate for an employee in these distressing times is the most crucial element for performance and employee engagement. One has to show kindness and understanding for keeping sustaining engagement. The stress is further accentuated due to rising uncertainty due to the unpredictability of the impact and longevity of the pandemic. With the pandemic creating rapid and unpredictable change, and the challenges ranging from health to financial, multiple distractions abound. Mindfulness can mitigate these challenges significantly.

Research on Leadership during the pandemic gives us some significant insights. During this pandemic Leadership must share peoples pain companies need to ensure their workers physical safety in uncertain situations human instinct can cause leaders — out of anxiety of and needlessly making people anxious Many other research talk about during the covid times the need for leaders to be more empathetic, communicative, frequently share information, be pro-social and provide meaning in the work employees do. They also must consistently compassion. The need for deliberate calm and bounded optimism has been highlighted by McKinsey research

The research brings out the focus and skillsets needed of leaders in the pandemic must be if not different, several notches up on empathy, compassion, inspirational capability and information sharing.

IndianOil through its recruitment policies and reputation attracts candidates from top Technical institutes and Management institutes. The technical proficiency and subject knowledge of the executives would be the envy of most institutions in the country. While IQ is a threshold skill, it is now established that the soft skills like empathy, self-awareness, control, inspirational leadership etc are emotional intelligence skills and are causally related to superior performance

Immediately after onset of Covid-19 ,top management at IOCL had a simple mandate. We had to help our people to manage their stress levels in this pandemic to enable them to work productively and ensure their well-being. This is where under LD group of Marketing Division conceived the commencing of the EI Intervention for our Location In-charges. This intervention was unique in many ways. The intervention was designed after extensive research and jointly crafted by LD group of Indian Oil, Marketing Head office and ASCC.

We outline the Business Case hereunder.

The Business Case of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders.

Climate and Leadership Style -The Relationship:-Interestingly, the workplace climate is causally related to the leadership styles adopted and practised by the Manager. The Manager could impact the work climate to 70% and the business results to 30%. The research that started at Harvard Business School has been carried on by HayGroup confirms the impact of leadership style to climate and climate to team performance. The diagram is reproduced below:

Figure 1 (Source Hay Group / Korn Ferry)

Research for over 5 decades conclusively establish that emotionally intelligent leaders are the primary cause of good work climates.

What is Climate?

The Organizational Climate reflects the experience people have while working for their managers. This experience arises from how leaders' behaviours motivate and develop them. Managers behaviours should be contextual. Yet, resonant and positive styles of leaders are the primary pivots on which positive and productive climates revolve. Managers should therefore focus on learning the resonant styles and practice them most of the time. Google recorded similar findings through its project oxygen. Managers then must learn to develop and practice twin focus -people and business results. (11)Christine Porath found incivility from supervisors can lead to poor performance, attrition, conflict amongst a host of other negative business results. (14)

Gallup a pioneer in climate assessment lists listening to subordinates, appreciation, developing them, assigning clear goals and empowering people result in improved work climates and business results. (15)

Research data finds Indian Business Managerial/Leadership styles are predominantly coerceive.(8)This can result in toxic climates and resulting in withholding of discretionary effort by subordinates, leading to sub-optimal business results. In the last couple of decades people have commenced open voicing of dissent against toxic bosses which has led to increased attrition or open disgruntlement of employees eroding employer brand value and overall negative impact on performance and employee commitment. While this is a strong business case for empathetic leadership building, the need in 2020 when this intervention was launched had another particularly strong justification Covid -19.

The Smell of the Place:

Professor Sumantra Ghoshal who was one of the world's foremost academicians in the field of HR. He was an officer at IndianOil and then joined to become one of the world's foremost thought leader in Management. His metaphor for climate was Smell of the Place”. He said that while the traditional organizations have compliance, control, contract and constraint. He hypothesied to be successful in the modern world the organizations need to be flexible, responsive, innovative and continually learning. (10)

To create an environment needed for a successful organization Leaders and Managers must practice Emotional Intelligence Skills and Competencies. This is an established Theory.

The Intervention:

The intervention was carried out by one of the co-authors to this article, Dr Ashis Sen. He had worked long years at Hindustan Petroleum, had worked in locations, had exposure in Projects and had also worked as Head of Capability Building at HPCL and LT. He was arguably the most well-known expert on Emotional Intelligence in India and had worked in Fortune 500 companies pioneering initiatives in HPCL and on Emotional Intelligence at Indian Railways, Oil India, Tata Motors, Infosys and many other leading companies. He also had opportunity to work with legends like Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis in the area of Emotional Intelligence.He had discussions with Richard Boyatzis on the modes and methodologies of Leadership Development at HPCL and had implemented his suggestions. The results had been stellar.

The Pedagogy and Instruction design was created to ensure that the following steps were followed (70:20:10 Princples):

 

  1. Learn the concepts of Emotional Intelligence (People must gather knowledge before implementation)
  2. Practice the learned action theories in the real world (Important to convert knowledge to skills)
  3. Conduct Sessions on Emotional Intelligence for Subordinates, Business Partners and Family (Social Learning)
  4. Receive Feedback and Coaching Inputs (Coaching)
  5. Figure 2

    Amend/Continue Action Plans for Continued Action (Reflection and Theory Correction forPractice)

 

The pedagogy map gathers its strength from the model for Leadership Learning (behavioural change) created by Centre for Creative Leadership as shown in Figure 2 which emphasizes formal education and classroom training (10%) for knowledge input, 70% of real world experiences while practicing the skills associated with the knowledge and 20% through coaching and social learning.

The Intervention -Step 1 -Knowledge Acquistion

The EI intervention adopted the three-factor model of learning in a robust way.(5) We had concept learning in 4 sessions on Emotional Intelligence- a) Emotional Self-Awareness b) Emotional Self-Regulation c) Social-Awareness and Empathy and d) Relationship Management. This was based on the Model Postulated by Daniel Goleman who is largely credited to have introduced emotional intelligence in the corporate world. The model is shown below:

Emotional intelligence is a broad term, even nebulous to many. We wanted to focus on the few competencies that would result in superior engagement of self and subordinates and improve team performance. This process helped us to zero in on the following competencies:

  1. Emotional Self-Awareness
  2. Emotion Regulation
  3. Empathy
  4. Relationship-Management

Emotional Self Awareness: Research has repeatedly validated the leaders who are aware of their emotions are more effective in emotion regulation, in creating positive and nurturing work climates, are more engaged in their work, improve engagement and productivity of team members and enhance levels of innovation.

Mindfulness: Some of the batches from IOCL were also given inputs on mindfulness as part of self-awareness. The concept of mindfulness developed at MIT Medical Centre, Boston has been found to immensely useful for Emotion Self-Awareness, Emotion Regulation, Empathy and Decision making. The process relies heavily on Buddhist Meditation and Indian Meditation principles.

Emotion Regulation: Decades of work on the variables emotional intelligence and effective leadership conclusively establish the casual relationship between the two. Leaders must manage their emotions effectively.

Empathy: Leaders must understand the emotions of others. Influencing, guiding, supporting, helping, instructing, directing, enabling and empowering people are some of the leadership functions. Without understanding people these functions would be more course than empowering once we understand other people their emotions, we can help them to give the best by fashioning a response and the proposition that would meet their needs, but we do not understand their emotions and the context from which they speak we cannot have we do not have referent power to demand discretionary effort out of them.

Relationship Management Skills: The General Manager or Location in-charge functions as a coordinator for all events. He does not do marketing or production activities by gets them done through others. The person manages those who manage others or those who do tasks. Therefore, location in-charges, must interact to inspire, motivate, allocate work, deliver feedback and resolve conflict. Therefore, interpersonal and effective communication are non-negotiable skills.

The workshop helped them improve skills related to the above four competence clusters and then transfer and practice these skills and knowledge to his subordinates and others.

Step 2- Coaching Sessions- Sharing with stories of experiential learning and feedback (Stories from the Pot Pourri)

 

After the EI Sessions, the batches received coaching sessions every month. Some of the photographs are exhibited above. During the coaching sessions, the Location In-Charges shared stories of implementing the learned concepts in their personal and professional lives. The sharing led to a ripple effect, where others were inspired to practice and share their stories of success.

Each story was a powerful narrative of change and spurring tales of transformation from colleagues. Each story had its contours, shades and contexts, yet the Emotional Intelligence competencies like self awareness, self regulation, willingness to understand the other personand helpwere repetitivelymanifest.

Business Results Tangible and Intangible (Qualitative Results)

The stories that emanated in the sessions represented practice of the cognitively learned knowledge and skills on day to day professional and personal life. Examples and incidents viz. labelling of emotions, regulation of emotion, mindfulness for stress management, empathy to create robust relationships gripped peers and colleagues in the sessions and also ennobled peers. The stories are narrations which bring forth both tangible and intangible benefits.

Some of the stories are brought out as under:

Topic: Empathy and Developing Others

Story 1

I wish to share an incident from my professional life. Few days back I received a complaint against a officer. He was refusing calls from dealers and transporters. I called him and inquired on the complaint. He responded rather curtly I am extremely sorry sir, I cannot attend those calls as the dealers and transporters talk in different manner. I realized he had some assumptions and beliefs which were playing on his mind resulting in his refusal to converse with our business partners.

In earlier times, I would have been angry with that approach. But this time, I said it's okay”. I requested him to share the reasons with me and in case a dealer is rude, he could also share that with me. He left my room in a pensive mood. However, in the evening before leaving office suddenly he came to my room and he said, Sir I am extremely sorry I spoke to you rudely'.

I enquired the reason. He replied I have a problem, I can't control my emotions. I speak to others when I feel I can control my emotions. But when these transporters and dealers talk, I feel pressurized, and something bothers me internally.'

I explained him that our objective is to satisfy our customers and converse with them and informing them is a major part of the process. The young officer replied that It's not required to talk over phone as everything is digitalized these days and they receive SMS messages. Yet the dealers and transporters repeatedly ask for information that is already available and this irritates me. Sometimes I block their numbers.” I told him, You need to control your emotions. That is what I have learnt in emotional intelligence classes”. I had some half an hour session with him and helped him with the techniques of emotion regulation. I also educated him on the importance of listening and that everything cannot be automated. . He understood and promised to work on it.

On frequent occasions, I also mention about pranayama and meditation to staffs whenever I interact with them, and I try to practice meditation and pranayama for 15 minutes daily. Meanwhile, there has been a positive change in the officer's behaviour and interactions. I find the change in myself too,particularly the intent of listening with an intent to help than criticize . The Emotional Intelligence training inputs are practical. I am proud to share this real story which brought transformation in a young officer and made me feel great too!

Topic: Emotional Self-Awareness, Emotional Self-Regulation and Mindfulness.

Story 2

I would like to record that after the EI training, three things hit me very hard ; labelling emotions, mindfulness and cognitive and emotional empathy. I would like to quote few incidents in the past one and half months. I am working in a LPG Bottling plant. We were three officers to manage the high demand of LPG cylinders in this pandemic. We were working on all days including Sundays. Daily we were working 2 to 3 hours after office hours.

One of my young team member got transferred. His transfer orders were to Kerala. He is a married officer and his wife was working in Kerala PWD. He was delighted with the transfer orders and looked forward to joining at the new location soon. However,due to pandemic his transfer was put on abeyance . He had been keenly looking forward to the transfer. The cancellation of the transfer frustrated him completely and he went on leave.

I tried to convince him, but he was extremely upset and disappointed . His leave was for 21 days. During those 21 days, I spent exceptionally long hours at the LPG Plant. My wife bluntly said, Why are you coming to house , you better stay back at office itself!”. I was very eagerly waiting for the 21 days to be over and my officer joining back. I could then take some rest.

He did not come back on the 22nd day. Neither did he call or communicate the reasons. Having attended EI program ,I realized that I need to resolve this issue calmly. Anger would not help. I sent him a message on WhatsApp. He responded, Sir, I came home and then lived 14 days in quarantine. I could not meet my wife and after that my wife came. Now she is in quarantine”. He went on explaining and speaking. I patiently listened and said, Okay fine, it is all due to pandemic”.

I realized if I shout on him, nothing is going to change except display of my frustration. I had resolved during the training need to increase my cognitive empathy. I tried to do that by trying to understand his perspective and viewpoint. So, in an orderly way I told him that you should at least give me a date when you will return . He gave me a reply and he joined the location. My understanding his perspective seemed to help him understand my plight and my struggles. He came back after a week. We have together met the high demands of domestic cylinders in the pandemic, ensuring people can cook their food without inconvenience and have healthy and good food. I am proud of that.

This is one incident I thought I myself handled in a much better way because of theEI training. Every moment when I get some feelings, I wanted to refer that bar chart, what is intensity of my disruptive emotion. Before I express, I label my emotions to know what state I am in, so that I can choose how to respond. Many a times it's better not to react. This course has helped me to respond in lieu of reacting . I can proudly claim that I have stopped reacting !

Story-3

At Daman AFS where I am placed, there was once a time when my aviation bowser broke down. My normal reaction to such a situation is anger and frustration. The facts that not many maintenance service providers were available around and service had to be continuous were what I used as my excuse for anger.

But that was before I was a participant in the EI session. This time, when the breakdown occurred, my prime approach was to troubleshoot with calmness. The regular and dependable maintenance vendor was not available and the OEM charged a heavy expense for the repair. I managed my anxiety till the return of the regular vendor. I took all stakeholders in loop and managed the situation without a dint of frustration. The bowser was repaired once the vendor returned . This ensured a substantial cost saving without any loss of productivity.

I shared my experiences from the training with some of the blue collar workers we have, and they learnt some of the lessons. Sharing also helped me understand the concepts better.

 

Topic: Empathy

Story-4

The sessions on Emotional Intelligence helped me a lot. Let me talk on the lessons of empathy and listening actively. I earlier used to look at the TV and listen to my wife. After the sessions, I look at her and listen to her. A couple of days back I had my son's birthday. We had a video call with him. My son said instead of celebrating it would be nice if we can help some poor people. Here at Ambala, there is a nearby leprosy community centre with 36 families. We went there with gifts of sweets, ration and clothing. They blessed us from the heart. Me and my wife were very touched. The day turned out so beautiful for us. When we help the needy, we have a special feeling.

On the professional font, . One officer form my team wanted to get a transfer to Panipat. He was unhappy with the transfer to Delhi. I listened to him with complete patience and understood his anxiety in terms of his posting during the covid 19 pandemic. However, I explained that IndianOil takes a holistic view and would use his skill sets in the best way possible. Parallelly, sometimes in his presence and at other times in his absence I talked to higher ups to help him. He was doing a good work at Ambala and if he was kept happy, he would excel at the new location. My act of concern made him warm up to me and his trust levels rocketed.

Story 5: I have a officer at my location who is senior to me in age. He reports to me. Truthfully, I have been rude to him in the past. I do not usually listen to him and use harsh language while delegating his duty. In a meeting before everybody in one such incident, he said that when I talk to him in a harsh manner, he forgets what he wants to say. He said that with humility and without blaming me. I reflected and could understand how I have wronged him. I thanked him and self-reflected on improving my behaviour towards him and all my subordinates in general.

Story 6: Emotional Intelligence was a new concept. We used to practice some of this. Bu tht e sessions made us understand the science in our approach. I have shared the lessons with many people. We have implemented the lessons at so many places. I have shared the EI lessons with my team and and have shared the recordings with LD Team at Northern Region.

We have challenges. At times, we have work for 24 hours. I noticed that we used all the parameters generally that we had learnt in the sessions. What was missing was empathy. Many a times, we have officers who go back at 10 O'clock have to come back at morning shift. The EI sessions inputs encouraged me to have conversations with my team members to resolve conflicts on shifts and leave planning so that we could optimize our leave usage and have high levels of consensus on how to manage shifts without discords.Empathy and team effort did the magic

One of the participants conducting the Emotional Intelligence Sessions with his location officers.

 

Reflecting on Our Biases (Metacognition Self Awareness)

Story-7

This story is from on my routine work in office. There is an officer who works with me on day to day basis, morning to evening. In life, we like some officers more than others. So I had this feeling about the officer that he suffers from knowledge, effort and commitment deficits. I used to counsel him on that. So recently I saw him inspecting the TT Locking system. The Tank Truck (TT) locking system is important and he was not doing his job properly.

I called him in to my office, with considerable irritation. The officer had been working for 2 years and his lack of knowledge and skills, bothered me. It appeared to me he was not taking his job seriously. Though I was seething with anger, I controlled my emotion. Though I was angry I remembered the emotional regulation techniques. Then I took him to the top of the tank lorry and showed him how to do the job.

From then on, he did the work on TT Lock System checking correctly. He said he was looking forward to someone guiding him and with my help, he learned the process properly.In return, I learned the need to regulate my emotions and check my biases, since those can lead us to erroneous decisions and actions. I have found emotion regulation and cross checking my assumptions as transformation catalysts and stimuli to change effectively.

Reframing our Mindsets (Reappraisal):

Story-8

I want to share one story which is personal. Basically, we all know that schools are closed nowadays. I found my son used to spend around 7 hours 8 hours on the mobile daily. Before this program, I basically used to advise him that this will spoil your career. I would advise him not to spend so much time on mobile, He would not pay heed.

After attending this program, I realized that the way I was letting my assumptions and beliefs take over in the form of advice. So, I went to him and asked how he spends so much time on the mobile. I found that he was spending time on creative activities. I told him he had good potential and advised him to take free Python classes on mobile. He attended the python programs and nowadays he is learning Python Programming by watching YouTube videos and I am feeling lucky that he is attaining good skills. He has made some good programs in Python, which is the advantage. His age is only 13 years, and he is good at pramming now .

Topic: Managing Daily Stress :

Story-9

I work in Tikrikalan for the last one year. I had a smooth passage, but the last three weeks or so has been quite disconcerting. On TT locking systems we have been facing issues. Strict action including blacklisting often leads to agitations with transporters and my team has to face stressful situations. These actions often lead to meetings with higher officials. My team members also get agitated due to these stressful interactions, and we discuss how to manage our stress.

We had learnt in the session how labelling of emotions and mindfulness helps manage emotional intensity and stress effectively. I want to validate this point. In the past few years I do meditation and it helps. I now advise others to do it. Also, for stressful events the quick mindfulness exercise I learnt in the session is very helpful and helps manage stress very quickly and effectively.

The incredible support and the remarkable coordination extended by the LD Executives were crucial for ensuring effective transfer of knowledge and promote the real-world implementation of the learned concepts.

 

The empirical evidence through story sharing was overwhelmingly positive. Coaching inputs during the monthly sessions were directed on the principles of positive psychology and social learning. People were appreciated for their good work and encouraged to plan further and the group agreed to practice some of the skills and practices of their peers. This is in consonance with the 70:20:10 learning principles.

Quantitative Results

The search for excellence is often two pronged. In this case while we had strong positive qualitative results, we were also prudent to gather quantitative results for ascertaining the benefits of the Emotional Intelligence Intervention. The Survey was conducted with a leading software earmarked for surveying purposes to ensure authenticity and to mine insights. The ethical principles of survey were followed. The survey questions were adopted from the principles postulated and theorized in the Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation of Training Results.

Survey Details and Analysis: (Responses of Direct Subordinates)

After more than 4-5 months the Direct Reports have filled a survey on the perceived improvement of behaviours and skills associated with creating better climates and better relationships. This was the aim of the study. They have scored on behaviours related to emotional self-awaereness, emotion management, conflict resolution, listening, developing and coaching etc for their supervisors. The period ensured that the answers were stable and were not based on instances noticed over a few days or short period of time. The number of people who have responded are 104 which is an exceptionally large sample of the people impacted. Therefore, the results recorded here are representative of the results.The gender distribution of the responses against the survey is 80% Male and 20% Female. This would broadly safeguard the report from gender bias.

The questions were scored on a Likert scale which is best suited for the purpose of the research. The five point likert scale reads as under:

Completely Disagree 2- Disagree 3- Neutral 4- Agree 5-Completely Agree

The following table shows the survey items and the responses to them:

Sr No.

Survey Item

Agree%

(4)

Completely Agree % (5)

Total%

(4)+(5)

1

Post Training Program on Emotional Intelligence my Boss maintains calm in stressful situations better than before

37

43

80%

2

Post the Emotional Intelligence Training my supervisor handles difficult situations in a thoughtful rather than impulsive manner

55

25

80 %

3

The Emotional Intelligence (EI) Training has helped him to better manage his irritation and anger and helped improve the climate

42

37

81%

4

Post the training my supervisor has shared the learning on Emotional Intelligence with us

21

50

71%

5

Post Training on Emotional Intelligence (EI) my Supervisor Inquires about my feelings on issues important to me

36

26

62%

6

Post-training we have experienced higher levels of collaboration from teams led by his peers.

40

29

69%

7

Post EI training my supervisor has displayed improved ability to openly discuss issues of conflict and encouraged tabling of multiple viewpoints

38

36

74%

8

Post Training on EI discussions on performance is more often on issues than personality. He/She shows concerns for my feelings and viewpoints during discussions

30

37

67%

9

Post EI Training my supervisor shows serious concern aimed at my growth and development

31

36

67%

10

After the Emotional Intelligence Training, my boss displays higher levels of concern for us as a person and co-worker

34

39

73%

 

11

Post EI training my supervisor has more number of coaching sessions with me

29

22

51%

12

Post Emotional Intelligence training my boss delivers deserved appreciation more frequently

35

36

71%

13

The last few months have brought me closer to my supervisor

35

30

65%

14

My ideas are listened to by my supervisor more frequently and openly in the last few months than ever before

38

35

73%

15

In the last few months, his behaviors of empathy and understanding helped us to tide these tough covid-19 times

38

45

83%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Interesting findings from Subordinates Feedback

Significant Improvement in Emotion Regulation/Management :Data shows that 80 to 81 percent of the subordinates agree or completely agree that there has been improvement in the Managers' ability to handle disruptive emotions like anger etc.

 

 

 

 

 

The above graphs show improved empathy, developmental focus by supervisor and interest in the well being of subordinates by almost two thirds to three fourth of the supervisors. These elements are co-related with the climate people experience

 

 

 

The Benefits of Self Assessment- A Pathway to Motivational and Self Directed Growth

It is well documented and repeatedly established that the process of learning and self regulation is enhanced through the process of self-assessment. Students take responsilbility and promote academic self-regulation. They manage their learning better with self assessment. (Pintrich, 2000; Zimmerman Schunk, 2004). Self assessment is a key motivator for change as it involves awareness of the goals and monitoring one's progress. The coaching sessions primary aim was to foster goal setting, action to achieve the goals and reflection on the effectiveness of adopted strategies and changing them as required. Reflectivity is the capacity to manage own learning by evaluating ones progress, select approaches that make personal sense and this process seeds responsibility to commit to and sustain the learning agenda rather than agree or adhere to an external agenda and process.16

Self-Assessment Post EI Intervention by the Participants- Analysis (57 Responses)

The Survey was conducted post the EI Intervention and the self-assessments collated. 57 participants responded with a distribution of 4 women and 53 men executives. It would to that extent moderate any gender biases.

 

Sr No.

Survey Item

Agree%

(4)

Completely Agree % (5)

Total%

(4)+(5)

1

The Emotional Intelligence Sessions enabled me to learn in a scientific manner the Method of Naming Emotions and its impact on Amygdala

46

47

93

2

I find it easier to name my emotions after the EI Sessions

47

46

93

3

The EI Sessions helped me to learn to regulate emotions by Reappraising the situation and thinking of the situation in a different way

44

49

93

4

After the EI Sessions I have used Reappraisal or Thinking of the situation in a different way to create positive emotions in me

40

44

84

5

The EI Sessions helped me learn and practice calming others in a tense situation more effectively

46

42

88

6

The EI sessions have helped me understand the Importance of Mindfulness Breathing to manage stress and become more productive at the workplace

42

52

94

7

For emotional awareness and regulation, I practice mindfulness

56

35

91

8

The EI Sessions helped me learn the importance of understanding other peoples emotions and perspectives (Empathy) for Improving Business Results

51

42

93

9

I have in the last three months made conscious efforts to improve my network both within Indian Oil and outside

54

39

93

10

The EI sessions helped me understand feedback to be on issues rather than on personal deficits

46

42

88

11

I am benefitting from my conscious efforts of expanding my network

52

42

94

12

In the last three months I have improved my focus on coaching and developing subordinates

56

40

96

 

Discussion

As can be seen in the Self Assessments on all issues 80 to 100 % of the Supervisors (Location In Charges) record practice and improvement in the EI Skills. This shows high levels of acceptance of the concepts, commitment to practice to hone the EI Skills and use it regularly.

It is also seen both from the stories recorded and the survey data that the EI skills of the leaders have helped them repeatedly to manage their people during the stressful pandemic much better.

The corresponding survey from the majority of the subordinates show very high levels of improvement in various EI Skills related to creating motivating climates. Thus there is congruence in self and subordinate ratings in improved EI Skills.

Recommendation:

The theoretical template of EI Skills learning and Climate Improvement is robust and we believe it can be applied across PSUs, which have many similar elements in terms of culture and functioning.

Authors

Dr Ashis Sen Dr M R Das

Ashis Sen Consulting and Coaching Chief General Manager (HR)

IOC, Marketing Divison

About the Authors:

Dr Ashis Sen has over 3 decades of organizational experience. He headed Capability Building at Hindustan Petroleum Corpn Ltd and Learning and Development at Corporate Level at LT. He has taught/teaches at premium institutes at Adjunct/Visiting Professor viz. TAPMI, NMIMS, IIM Kashipur amongst others. His firm works on consulting and training interventions at Indian Railways, Indian Oil, LT, Infosys BPM, Balmer Lawrie amongst many others. He has several publications to his credit. He can be reached at senashis@gmail.com or 9920434669

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