2019 Annual Conference

Colleges and Universities

Concurrent Session (45 minutes)

College leaders are expected to meet the needs of students, faculty, and staff. Often, they must also meet the needs of the community, workforce, and state legislatures. With so many diverse demands, leaders need special skills to keep up. Emotional intelligence is the secret to effective leaders’ success.

College leaders of all levels and those interested in becoming great leaders.

* Attendees will better understand the benefits of emotional intelligence (EI).
* Attendees will receive suggestions for improving their own EI.
* Educators will learns ways in which their adult students can improve their EI.

Emotional intelligence, commonly referred to as EI, is the study of regulating one’s emotions in order to be a better leader, resolve conflict, and identify the emotions of others. EI has been identified as more important to leadership than both IQ and technical skill. Currently, limited studies have evaluated EI in higher education leadership across the United States.

In his landmark book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman (1998) relates emotional intelligence to leadership. He explains that leaders with higher emotional intelligence are more empathetic with employees, resulting in a better work environment and experience for both the manager and the employees.  Further, Goleman (2001) says the higher one goes in an organization, the more important EI becomes, even suprassing both IQ and technical skills. What’s more, EI can be learned.

Leaders in any discipline field benefit from improving their emotional intelligence.  In higher education and adult learning, incorporating EI in our leadership and in the classroom will help adult students learn skills from which they can immediately benefit.

Besides the basic presentation, I will lead participants in gauging their emotional intelligence (EI) skills and provide information and handouts for improving their EI. We  will use our cell phones to interact—and if the session is smaller, we will be collaborating verbally. I’ll also share useful research to help leaders lead with emotional intelligence.