Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership in Social Work

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Emotional Intelligence and Transformational
Leadership in Social Work

• Dr Natalie Kenely PhDUniversity of Malta

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Outline

• A brief description of the organisation in which
  the study was carried out
• The Research Question
• Emotional Intelligence Transformational
  Leadership
• The Research Design
• The Studys Timeline
• Main findings of the study on leadership in
  social work
• Recommendations for practice

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The Organisation

• Agency - the main social work services provider
  in Malta.
• Services aimed at addressing the current and
  emerging needs of the persons it encounters in
  the course of conducting its duties.
• Priority to and focus on children, their families
  and the community at large thus ensuring that
  social networks are strengthened and are more
  equipped in dealing with the real issues that
  members of our society, especially children and
  families, are facing. 

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The Research Question

• Do the structures and human resource functions
  in place at the Agency, create a climate that is
  conducive to an emotionally intelligent
  workplace?
• Thus, the issues of organisational climate,
  human resource functions and leadership are
  explored in the light of their effect on
  relationships within the Agency, and therefore
  their influence on the levels of emotional
  intelligence within the Agency.

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A MODEL OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND
ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS (Taken from
Cherniss, C. Goleman, D., 2001, pp 8)
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Emotional Intelligence

• The ability to
• accurately perceive emotions in oneself and
  others
• use emotions to facilitate thinking
• understand emotional meanings and
• manage emotions.
• (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, 2002)

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Emotional Intelligence Leadership

• The most effective managers are those who have
  the ability to sense how their employees feel
  about their work situation and to intervene when
  those employees begin to feel dissatisfied or
  discouraged. Effective managers are also able to
  manage their own emotions, with the result that
  employees trust them and feel good about working
  with them (Cherniss, 2000).

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Transformational Leaders

• Clearly see themselves as change agents. They
  set out to make a difference and to transform the
  organisation for which they are responsible
• Are courageous. They can deal with resistance,
  take a stand, take risks, and confront reality
• They believe in people. They have well-developed
  beliefs about motivation, trust and empowerment
• They are driven by a strong set of values
• They are life-long learners. They view mistakes
  their own as well as other peoples as learning
  opportunities
• They can cope with complexity, uncertainty and
  ambiguity and
• They are visionaries.
• Sadler (2003, pp 25)

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• Although providing leadership is only one
  aspect of what the manager does, it is the most
  visible particularly when it is lacking
  (Coulshed et al, 2006, pp 89).

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Research Design

• Action Research Approach
• - deliberately incorporates an action component
  into the research design
• Grounded Theory Approach in its analysis of data
  collected
• - these two approaches complement each other as
  an effective tool for amplifying the voices of
  the participants in the study.

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Timeline

• October 2004 - Cultural Analysis of the Agency
  (74 return) reveals areas of growth that need
  tackling
• 1. A vast majority of staff do not feel that
  their input is appreciated
• and encouraged by management.
• 2. A discrepancy is apparent in the way staff
  and management view
• - leadership within the Agency
• - the effectiveness of teamwork within the
  Agency
• - conflict resolution in the Agency and
• - the effectiveness of training offered to the
  staff (especially the newer ones).
• 3. A vast majority of staff maintain that the
  Agency makes very few
• formal or informal employee
  recognition efforts.

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Timeline

• August 2005 - In conjunction with Agency
  Management team
• 1. decided to focus on and target the leadership
  team of
• the agency.
• 2. launched the MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso
• Emotional Intelligence Test, 2002).
• October 2005 All the Managers took the MSCEIT.

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A MODEL OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND
ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS (Taken from
Cherniss, C. Goleman, D., 2001, pp 8)
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Timeline

• February 2006 - A Training Day with Agency
  Managers - a programme created and developed by
  the Researcher, based on the training and
  development needs identified through previous
  stages of research.
• May 2006 - Follow-up meeting on a one-to-one
  basis for a more personalised feedback briefing
  session on MSCEIT results using the MSCEIT
  Resource Reports (May 2006).
• August 2006 - Managers re-took the MSCEIT.

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1 Consider development69 or less 2 Consider
Improvement 70-89 3 Low Average Score 90-99 4
High Average Score 100-109 5Competent
110-119 6 Strength 120-129 7 Significant
Strength 130
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1 Consider development69 or less 2 Consider
Improvement 70-89 3 Low Average Score 90-99 4
High Average Score 100-109 5Competent
110-119 6 Strength 120-129 7 Significant
Strength 130
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Analysis of qualitative data

• A qualitative analysis of the data collected
  using the Grounded Theory Approach (Strauss and
  Corbin, 1990)
• the recorded observations kept during the
  Training Day
• the individual briefing sessions with the
  Managers
• the Resource Reports issued for each participant
  in the study.

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Five key variables

• Management Training / Preparedness
• Gender
• Organisational Culture
• Workload
• Nature of the Team

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Management Training Preparedness

• I was thinking how much this concept of
  emotional intelligence has been told to managers.
  Im thinking of managers, men, who are basically
  taught or have been cultured to take decisions,
  and if someone says something, they are told not
  to be emotional.

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Management Training Preparedness

• I am thinking about the type of training we
  received. Should we as social work managers be
  given the same training as managers in a factory?

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Gender

• Newell (2007) maintains that while research
  suggests that, in much of the European Union,
  women and men now comprise equal numbers in many
  professions such as law and medicine, and equally
  occupy junior to middle management positions, the
  top rungs of most professions and organisations
  remain heavily male dominated. She quotes the
  European Labour Force Survey (Eurostat) for 2006
  which shows that in Europe, 70 of managers are
  men and only 30 are women.
• In Malta the proportion of female managers are
  well below average at 13.

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Gender

• a significant gender gap still persists at
  senior levels in organisations, even within those
  sectors predominantly occupied by women
  notably, the education and health and social
  services sectors
• (Newell, 2007, pp 1).

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Gender

• We are expected to put aside our emotions and
  in order to show people that I am a good manager
  I cannot decide with my heart but only with my
  mind.

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Gender

• Even if I believe that emotions are important
  in my role, someone, an echo behind me tells me
  that if I want to be a good manager, I must not
  let my emotions interfere, I must decide with my
  mind only, just see the obstacles, the financial
  difficulties

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Leadership Characteristics

• Humility
• Humanity
• Trustworthiness
• In tune
• Simplicity
• Charisma
• Ability to create a comfortable environment
• Genuineness
• Strength of character

• Influential
• Integrity
• Availability
• Strength of values
• Encouraging
• Discipline
• Considerateness
• Ability to bring out the best in people
• Comfortable with self and achievements

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Gender

• I am thinking about our perception of managers
  and the perception we were given of what a
  manager should be and how this influences
  others.
• I feel I am going against my own nature. I am
  expected to be a manager, detached from emotions
  in myself and in others. But that is not me.

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Organisational Culture

• The participants shared deeply the noticeable
  and perceptible suffering they are enduring in
  having to de-nude themselves of and shed the
  emotional competencies they had internalised as
  front line workers. They feel that the passage
  from front line workers to managers and leaders
  places on them the expectation of discarding the
  very essence and spirit of what they had become.

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Organisational Culture

• The Agencys core identity or corporate culture
  seems to be based on the belief that moving into
  a leadership position intrinsically requires of
  the new incumbent the need to put aside the
  emotional competencies previously used when the
  individual was still practising as a front-line
  social worker and behaving differently.

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Workload

• The demands are always on the increase.
  Expectations are increasing from all sides, not
  just from managementmaybe this is a time of
  change to a different strategy or system. This
  is what I am focusing on as we discuss these
  results.

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Nature of the Team

• Through our interventions with clients, we must
  manage to create a space that is different our
  process doesnt have to make a difference simply
  because a task is achieved, but also because we
  would have created a space through the helping
  relationship that makes a difference to the other
  person.
•  

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Nature of the Team

• It is true that we cannot be humane only,
  however if above all the constraints that we
  have, we manage to be humane as well, I think
  that that is the only thing that will keep people
  working. If we remove this human aspect of
  management we are going to lose more people. I
  believe this strongly.

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Effects on Team Climate

• I think that one of the major consequences is
  that emotions are contagious, and if we are not
  managing our emotions well, our teams are not
  managing them and probably not even the way they
  are transferring them to the client.

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Effects on Team Climate

• If a person, who is a front liner, is angry and
  is not able to manage this frustration, and then
  during supervision finds a manager who is not
  able to contain this, what service are we giving
  to clients at the end of the dayif we are not
  even able to go through this process?

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Effects on Team Climate

• We become alienated and lose our sense of
  awareness we start linking our emotions to our
  vulnerabilities and this can be dangerous because
  it can create a block which results in extensive
  consequences.

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Effects on Team Climate

• One of the major consequences of all this is
  staff turnover, which we already suffer from
  maybe in particular services more than in others.
  Of course this does not reflect only on leaders,
  there are other factors, however I feel that
  leadership is an important factor.

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Some Recommendations

• A complete culture change in the organisation,
  with the focus on valuing, developing and caring
  for the workforce, as well as on organising work
  more sensibly
• Thorough preparation towards becoming emotionally
  intelligent transformational leaders would result
  in the combination of leadership expertise of a
  superior manager with the people-centred focus
  that these managers bring with them into their
  new role
• Increase awareness that just as outcomes in
  social work are important, the very processes
  employed to bring about change in people are also
  pivotal

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Some Recommendations

• Create a climate which allows social workers the
  freedom and space to be what they really want to
  be emotionally competent and positive about the
  effect of their service to clients.
• Focus on management training with a
  concentration on transformational leadership
• Focus on career development for women managers
  this group has proved to be frequently isolated
  yet highly visible within a male-dominated
  management culture that is preventing them from
  placing their particular strengths at the service
  of the organisation.

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Concluding thought

• Those human service organisations that serve
  people best, understand effective management and
  ensure that its practice is grounded in the
  humanitarian ethics and principles that should
  guide management and practice alike (Coulshed et
  al, 2006, pp 221).

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Concluding quotation

• What made me reflect more was the statement
  when you decide, dont decide as a social
  worker, decide as a manager. It is as if a
  manager cannot have feelings or refer to her
  peoples emotional state. I was made to throw all
  the emotions that had been expressed to the back
  of my mind or even forget them and not use them.
  Now as I am reflecting, I understand that once
  emotions are out, those emotions are there, they
  reflect what I and my staff are feeling that is
  what we brought with us. What I need to do, is
  that in a less-emotionally charged moment, I must
  decide and I need to use those emotions and not
  put them aside or ignore them any longer.

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• References
• Cherniss, C. (2000). Emotional Intelligence What
  it is and why it matters, Paper presented at the
  Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and
  Organisational Psychology, New Orleans, LA
  available at www.eiconsortium.org
• Cherniss, C., and Goleman, D., (editors) (2001).
  The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace. San
  Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Coulshed, V., Mullender, A., David, J., and
  Thompson, N., (2006). Management in social work.
  UK Palgrave Macmillan.
• Mayer, J., Salovey, P., Caruso, D., (2002).
  Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test
  (MSCEIT) Users manual. Toronto Multi Health
  Systems.
• Newell, H., (2007). The Glass Ceiling Effect.
  Gender and Career Development. Available on the
  web at http//www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/studies
  /tn0612019s/tn0612019s_2.html
• Sadler, P. (2003). Leadership. London Kogan
  Page.
• Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of
  qualitative research Grounded theory procedures
  and techniques. UK Sage Publications.

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• Thank you
• natalie.kenely_at_um.edu.mt