The relevance of emotional intelligence in project management for the aviation industry

Abstract

Over the past few years, increasing attention has been given to the importance of emotional intelligence (EQ)in the project environment. Project managers and project team members are faced with increasing amounts of stress and responsibilities with regard to project deliverables in a constantly changing environment. The key focus of the research study reported in this paper was to determine whether the success of project managers in the aviation industry is associated with how they master the use of EQ skills and also whether a specific EQ clusters plays a more important role in the effective management of aviation projects. The paper focused on project managers and project team members involved in aviation projects inside of South Africa. The first step of this research was to conduct a comprehensive literature study on EQ, project human resource management and the aviation industry. It was decided to use the EQ model, as proposed by Daniel Goleman, as a basis for the research study. The next step was to generate a questionnaire and to gather data. The results are based on the perceptions of 84 respondents. The questionnaire used in this study was adapted from a questionnaire developed during a previous study. The four clusters consist of the quadrants of: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. EQ was found to be an important attribute for project managers in the aviation industry and all the quadrants were found to be of equal importance.