Conquering Workplace Stress through Emotional Intelligence: Strategies and Possibilities

Stress is an unavoidable part of life. It is a state, which reflects certain biochemical reactions in the human body. The stressed mind produces a mental and emotional pressure. Stress is not always bad. At a reasonable level, it can help infuse one with the energy to accomplish his/her goals. But its prolongation causes worry, loss of confidence and determination in life and decline in interest to do work. Workplace stress is the growing problem of most of the organization. Work stress factors such as work overloads, downsizing, overtime, shift work and an unhealthy work environment cause great impact on employees as well as organisational well-being, which decrease productivity and increase the health care cost of the organisation. While on the one hand Emotional intelligence is the ability of a person to understand one 's own feelings and the feelings of others. On the other hand, timely and appropriately responding those feelings through empathic actions. However, effective management through EI is emerging as valuable competence for personal as well as professional life. This paper made an attempt to find out the causes of stress and its consequences and how emotional intelligence can help a better strategy to manage stress at workplace.