Introduction Organisational behaviour is an important concept that entails understanding the character and behaviour patterns of people in an organization. Organisational behaviour entails the understanding of behaviour patterns of employees. Employees are the most important assets in organisations. Understanding people is critical to the management of organisations and shapes the behaviour of people. Organisational behaviour and the behaviour of individuals can be understood through the adoption and practice of emotional intelligence in organisations (Krishnakumar, 2008). Emotional intelligence has become an essential concept in managing the behaviour of employees in organisations. Emotional intelligence is a way of understanding and controlling employee behaviour to enhance performance. This paper critically discusses the concept of emotional intelligence in organisations. The paper explores the concept and its relevance to management. The paper also discusses the benefits or essence of withholding this managerial practice within organisations. In addition, the paper looks at the arguments that are against this concept and their justifications. Overview of the concept of emotional intelligence in management Krishnakumar (2008) noted that emotional intelligence is a new concept to be directly applied in business management. This concept has been applied in behavioural sciences such as psychology during the study of human emotions. Emotional intelligence began gaining prominence among organisations since the early years of the 20th century, where organisational development was critical in transforming economies. Organisations have discovered that emotional inclinations of their employees, which are generated at the workplace and out of the workplace, have a significant influence on the input of employees. In return, this affects the output of organisations. Therefore, organisational behaviour has coded this concept and included it in management. This is because there are many generative factors of emotions that prevail in external and internal environment of organisations. Emotional intelligence aims at understanding employees from two critical perspectives. These include the organisational perspective, which is also the internal perspective, and the external perspective that includes the home environment and the general society in which the employees reside (Ghuman, 2011). This is supported by the argument that behaviours are highly influenced by the environment of an individual. This understanding gives organisational leaders a chance to predict behaviours and actions of employees. Thus, organisations have an easy time to control the behaviour of employees by launching programs that help in attending to the emotional needs of employees. Emotional intelligence has to resonate from the management of organisation and entail the training of the organisational managers on how to manage emotions within the organisation. Organisational leaders then set and provide emotional intelligence programs to help employees in the organisation (Krishnakumar, 2008). The relevance of emotional intelligence in organisational management Goleman (1998) observed that em