people who are highly motivated in their jobs, they're emotionally committed.
People who are engaged in their work "become physically, cognitively, and emo-
tionally immersed in the experience of activity, in the pursuit of a goal."80
Are all people emotionally engaged in their work? No! But many are. And if
we focus only on rational calculations of inducements and contributions, we fail
to be able to explain behaviors such as the individual who forgets to have dinner
and works late into the night, lost in the thrill of her work.81
Leadership The ability to lead others is a fundamental quality sought by
organizations. We'll discuss the topic of leadership in depth in Chapter 11. Here,
however, we briefly introduce how emotions can be an integral part of leader-
ship.
Effective leaders almost all rely on the expression of feelings to help convey
their messages. In fact, the expression of emotions in speeches is often the critical
element that results in individuals accepting or rejecting a leader's message.
"When leaders feel excited, enthusiastic, and active, they may be more likely to
energize their subordinates and convey a sense of efficacy, competence, opti-
misim, and enjoyment."82 Politicians, as a case in point, have learned to show
enthusiasm when talking about their chances for winning an election, even
when polls suggest otherwise.
Corporate executives know that emotional content is critical if employees
are to buy into their vision of their company's future and accept change. When
new visions are offered, especially when they contain distant or vague goals,
change is often difficult to accept. So when effective leaders want to implement
significant changes, they rely on "the evocation, framing, and mobilization of
emotions."83 By arousing emotions and linking them to an appealing vision, lead-
ers increase the likelihood that managers and employees alike will accept change.
Interpersonal Conflict Few issues are more intertwined with emotions than
the topic of interpersonal conflict. Whenever conflicts arise, you can be fairly cer-
tain that emotions are also surfacing. A manager's success in trying to resolve
conflicts, in fact, is often largely due to his or her ability to identify the emo-
tional elements in the conflict and to get the conflicting parties to work through
their emotions. And the manager who ignores the emotional elements in con-
flicts, focusing singularly on rational and task concerns, is unlikely to be very ef-
fective in resolving those conflicts.
Deviant Workplace Behaviors Negative emotions can lead to a number of
deviant workplace behaviors.
Anyone who has spent much time in an organization realizes that people
often engage in voluntary actions that violate established norms and that
threaten the organization, its members, or both. These actions are called em-
ployee deviance.84 They fall into categories such as production (e.g., leaving
early, intentionally working slowly); property (e.g., stealing, sabotage); political
(e.g., gossiping, blaming co-workers); and personal aggression (e.g., sexual harass-
ment, verbal abuse).85 Many of these deviant behaviors can be traced to negative
emotions.
For instance, envy is an emotion that occurs when you resent someone for
having something that you don't, which you strongly desire.86 It can lead to mali-
cious deviant behaviors. Envy, for example, has been found to be associated with
hostility, "backstabbing" and other forms of political behavior, negatively distort-
ing others' successes, and positively distorting one's own accomplishments.87
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employee deviance
Voluntary actions that violate
established norms and that
threaten the organization, its
members, or both.
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