| Cognitive ability has largely been recognized as the single best predictor of job performance across all organizations and positions. This research demonstrates that by adopting a multidimensional perspective to job performance, as opposed to the unitary perspective commonly adopted for purposes of convenience, alternative strategies for achieving organizational success can be demonstrated. In an inbound sales center, salespeople with relatively lower levels of General Mental Ability (GMA) who demonstrated relatively higher levels of Emotional Intelligence (EI), combined with specific personality dimensions, proved to be as successful as their more cognitively gifted colleagues. EI was also shown to predict performance sub-dimensions, such as teaming ability and customer service, which did not correspond to GMA. The addition of EI and specific personality dimensions also lent considerable incremental validity to GMA in predicting Net Sales. This study shows that when jobs are more realistically considered as complex amalgams of sub-tasks, non-cognitive predictors such as EI and aspects of personality may serve equally well, and even outperform, cognitive ability assessment instruments, in predicting vital dimensions of performance. |
