The Two Sides of Jealousy: How Leaders Can Turn Negative Emotion into Positive Performance

Whether in daily life or in the workplace, people inevitably experience various emotions. Among them, jealousy is a very common feeling. People often perceive jealousy as a negative emotion. However, in the view of the article's author, jealousy has a dual nature. Certainly, negative jealousy can lead to malicious competition, where employees may engage in behaviors that harm others or even the collective interests due to jealousy of others' achievements. However, the positive aspect of jealousy can drive people to strive for improvement. In a work setting, employees may enhance themselves in order to gain equal recognition from leaders or even help others, which ultimately benefits the efficiency of the entire organization. Since jealousy is often difficult to avoid, wise leaders should not turn a blind eye to it but should use emotional intelligence and management skills, such as an ethical leadership style, to correctly perceive and guide employees' emotions, transforming negative jealousy into positive emotions, and achieving both employee happiness at work and improved company performance.