The article is the first of three planned publications devoted to organizational psychology of public health services, particularly to a problem of power, management and the person of the doctor-head as its subject. In the first part are considered essence of competence of the approach to modern HR-management and emotional intelligence as an organizational-psychological category.
In medicine experienced doctors usually become heads, people with the formed professional identity, professional position. Practice shows that change of professional status implies not only appearance of additional professional functions and responsibilities for a subject. Demands of administrative activity to a professional person are being changed. We should admit that a complex of administrative competence, consideration of which should be taken when recruiting and appointing personnel in such a specific sphere is little known. Scientific approaches to diagnostics of psychological, personal qualities, conditioning success of management, are not developed. Demand of research of organization-psychological aspects of management in a system of medical service, from one hand becomes more clear and working out of methods of their developing in the process of continuous medical education of doctor-head, from the other hand.
In the publication we aim to consider main aspects of competent approach in contemporary HR-management and also analyze the concept of emotional intellect, being a component of professional competences of organization head in medical sphere.
In human resources management competences are interpreted as a unity of knowledge, professional experience, ability of function and skills of individual behavior, determined with an aim, set course of situation and job position [5, с.134]. If we take as the basis of concept “competence” a number of objects, fulfilled by an employee, a number of main responsibilities which have a right and is obliged to fulfill a labour subject at specific job position, then we see that competences in this case are a product of organization projecting. Upon that professional objects can be concrete-specific or invariant-typical for the profession and specialty as its variety. Competence in this context can be considered as a characteristic of labour subject, meaning its ability and readiness to cope with professional objects (competences).
Review of works, dedicated to the research of a problem of competence-based approach in valuation of subject’s readiness to complete professional tasks shows that various aspects of the problem are studied more intensively in the context of formation of contemporary concept of general and professional education in Russia [for example., 2 and etc.]. Study of labour efficiency of an experienced professional, his readiness to changing job positions and conditions of professional activity, particularly in medicine and medical care service generally from the position of competence-based approach is few, and the importance of the study of this organization-psychological resource of the improvement of efficiency of medical service is doubtless. In this regard, the employer’s and management subject’s understanding of the specific character of invariants of basic management competences has special meaning. As it is marked in a number of researches in the field of organization psychology [1, 4 and etc.], awakening of initiative in employees, ambition to success, ability to attract and keep professionals, work at the level of high standards- this is doubt components of efficient management, which are at once basic competence of managing staff [4, p. 27]. Basic or general competences are those competences, determining organization demands to professionals, working in the conditions of a specific position; in this case it is management, corresponding to a position of a head of line or top levels. Moreover, professional knowledge and experience make so called threshold competence, specific for concrete professional spheres, in this case such sphere is medicine.
It is established that in invariant kernel of basic competence have such qualities, presence of which is unconditional demand to a head, regardless to what level of management his position corresponds. Those are in particular communicative qualities, ability to leadership, independence, psychological flexibility, general, social and emotional intellect [6, p. 251-252].
In several researches it was mentioned recently high importance, from basic managing competences point of view, of emotional intellect (EI) [4, 8]. In accordance with one of the most popular EI concepts, belonging to J.D. Mayer and P. Salovey, he considers it as obtained in person genesis cognitive ability to realize, understand and express human feelings and control emotions [7, p. 33]. These abilities are divided into four groups, where each group has four main abilities, separated by their suppositions [8]. So group I includes getting and recognition of emotional information and contains the most elementary skills, connected with emotional sphere: perception, estimation and expression of emotions. These elementary processes of perception are necessary suppositions to further processing of emotional information. Group II describes ways of using emotions for intellectual process stimulation (“emotional facilitation of thinking”) and determines different emotional events, conducing intellectual processing of information. Group III includes abilities to understand and analyze emotions. It is presented with abilities that condition abstract understanding and thinking concerning emotions. They range from ability to name emotions and identify relations between words and emotions, to conscious ability to transfer from one emotions to another. We may suppose that this component of EI is the closest to management intellect, considering as “individual ability to the most rationally use the obtained as supposition to any idea or as guide to action” [3, p. 27].
Group IV combines individual abilities to manage his own and others emotions in order to stimulate emotional and intellectual growth. This integral quality supposes appearance of the most developed personal skills, starting with the ability to be open for feelings- as pleasant, so unpleasant- and concluding with ability to manage emotions in himself and the surrounding people, strengthening pleasant emotions and extinguishing unpleasant. This group of abilities of high level presents a network of a lot of factors, including conative, emotional and cognitive, which should be recognized and balanced in order to successfully manage feelings.
Graduated diagnostics of these characteristics from the point of competence-based approach, based on scientifically grounded criteria, particularly those determining structure of emotional intellect, its relation with the most efficient styles of management, may allow an employer more purposefully forming management teams of line and top-management in health care institutions of various profiles and status.