Emotional Intelligence and Conflict Management Style among Staff in a Bank

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict management style among staff at a Bank Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur. A total of 75 staff were involved in this research. The questionnaires distributed in this research were adapted from Wong and Law EI Scale (WLEIS) (2002) based on Mayer, Salovey and Caruso’s EI Model (2004) and Rahim’s Organizational Conflict Inventory-II (ROCI-II) (1983) based on Rahim’s Organisational Conflict Model (2011). The relationship between EI and CMS was identified based on the Pearson’s Correlation analysis. It was found that there are significant influences between EI and integrating, obliging, dominating and compromising style while EI does not show any significant influence on avoiding style. The findings also showed that the staffs have high EI based on the mean score. Implications of these research suggested that organisation should be more aware of the employees’ potential and abilities as well as their style of handling conflict in order to create a positive work environment. In addition, these research findings could add up to the literature of emotional competence and conflict management field.