COACHING
Emotional Intelligence For
Marketers
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
T
he marketing team in an
organization were planning for
the launch of a new product.
It was late and the team had been in
discussions all day. The team leader felt
that it was important to complete the plan
and so called for a follow up meeting the
following day. Only that, the next day was
a Saturday and most people had personal
commitments.
There was a general murmur in the air,
that this would not be possible. The team
leader insisted that if they did not come in
on Saturday, then they would all just have
to come in on Sunday. After all the work
must get done at any cost.
The room was suddenly tense and one could
feel the resentment in the air. Especially
since the team leader was responsible for
wasting a lot of time that day. The team
leader was getting agitated and frustrated
– the work was not complete.
Did the team leader read the mood of the
marketers? What was happening to the
team leader? What could the team leader
have done differently to manage the team?
Emotional intelligence is a term
popularized by Daniel Goleman in the
late 1990s. For the longest time, people
assumed that in order to succeed in life one
must have a high level of intelligence but
the work of John Mayer and Peter Salovey
first led to the concept of emotional
intelligence.
Goleman who was a reporter for The New
If you are now asking yourself how you can bet-
ter your emotional intelligence quotient, then
you are at the beginning of this exciting journey
that can turn you into a better marketer, living
out the best version of yourself. Working with a
career coach can help you progress in your ca-
reer. Emotional intelligence is seen as a critical
skill that one must have in today’s work place
and the marketer of the future needs to focus on
self development.
46 MAL27/18 ISSUE
York Times in 1990, came across their
work and started researching on the area
of emotional intelligence and later wrote
a book by the same title. It is now believed
that emotional intelligence is more
valuable than intellectual intelligence.
On his website www.danielgoleman.info,
Daniel Goleman explains that emotional
intelligence is about how you manage
yourself and your relationships. Marketers
usually focus on the theory of relationship
marketing. Any discussion on this topic
usually compares and contrasts aspects of
transactional marketing and relationship
marketing, the latter being recognized as
crucial for success in business.
In his book, Relationship Marketing,
Exploring Relational Strategies in
Marketing, author John Egan uses the
work of Gronroos (1994) to describe
the definition of relationship marketing
which is ‘identify, establish, maintain and
enhance … relationships.’ In addition,
Egan brings in the aspect of ensuring that
these relationships are not only responsible
for driving a profit for the organization
but also that any and all objectives shared
by the parties are also met.
As marketers we usually assume that
these relationships are external to the
organization, and sometimes overlook the
fact that the internal stakeholders may
also be just as important. Relationships
are important both in marketing and for
individuals.