Coaching World Issue 9: February 2014 | страница 26

individuals reported themselves
as “not engaged” or “actively
disengaged”—engagement levels
that are particularly problematic for
organizations. It’s difficult to help
individuals at these lower levels of
engagement shift into a state of
“engagement.” What’s worse is that
many have effectively retired on the
job, with zero chance of reengaging.

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“Leaders who demonstrate high levels of
emotional intelligence ... drive higher levels
of employee engagement...”
what most of us already intuitively
know. A sample of 99 direct reports
assessing the EI of 31 senior leaders
in one organization showed a
positive correlation between the
demonstrated EI of those leaders
and the employee engagement of
their direct reports as follows:
Praise the organization = +0.55
correlation
Perform above and beyond what
is expected = +0.50 correlation
Persist in the face of adversity =
+0.53 correlation
A positive correlation of 0.40 or
above represents a strong statistical
link between two independent
variables. Correlations of between
0.5 and 0.6 suggest that when high
levels of EI are present higher levels

26 Coaching World

of employee engagement are
also present.
The above graphic represents an
even more compelling translation
of this data. Each point on the
diagram represents a single direct
report, with his or her level of
engagement on the vertical axis
and perception of the manager’s EI
on the horizontal axis. The green
horizontal bar represents “engaged”
employees, and the yellow, pink
and red bars represent various
degrees of disengagement (”nearly
engaged,” ”not engaged” and
”actively disengaged”).
This preliminary data suggests direct
reports who assess their supervisors
at the 75th percentile or higher
are almost uniformly “engaged.”
More importantly, none of these

As leaders’ perceived EI drops,
levels of self-reported employee
engagement begin to drift lower. To
what degree does developing the
EI of leaders, as a single lever that
drives engagement, actually create
a better result? The difference
between top- and bottomperforming leaders in terms of EI
appears to be between 18 and 22
percentage points. In other words,
by developing the EI of its leaders
as a single engagement driver,
an organization could see a lift of
18 to 22 engagement points on a
100-point scale.

From Discretionary to
Mission Critical

This study’s results are preliminary.
More extensive global research will
be published in the coming months
about the correlations between
the EI of leaders and employee
engagement. But the data is clear
and compelling—and what was
once intuitive is now becoming
fact. By developing the EI of their
leaders, businesses can boost
employee engagement.
The next time a potential client
says to you that EI is soft, fluffy or
discretionary, pull out some hard
facts that will help him or her to
see EI development in a new and
different light.