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This hasn’t been a good year for jerks in the workplace. Apart from the usual controversies about egomaniacal politicians, baseball managers and CEOs, a popular new book recommends zero tolerance for assholes and a research report by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Management School underscores the toxic organizational impact of emotions in the workplace.
Experts who study emotional intelligence, also called EQ for emotional quotient, gather data proving that highly empathetic rather than insensitive people excel in business or personal relationships. The emerging ’science’ of EQ is gaining traction among recruiters and HR executives, many of whom screen potential hires for these ’soft skills’.
What hasn’t been well understood until now is how intense emotions, especially in the workplace, impact productivity and spread from person to person.
“We engage in emotional contagion,” contends Sigal Barsade, a Wharton professor who studies the influence of emotions on the workplace. “Emotions travel from person to person like a virus.”
