Nurturing Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence

Through Brainstorming and Emotional Mastery Training Programmes:

Implications for Human Resource Management

Ogunyemi, A.O. (Ph.D)

jibolaogunyemi@yahoo.com

(+234)8055301472

Department of Educational Foundations and Counselling

Faculty of Education, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Nigeria

Being a paper presented at the Conference of Counselling Association of Nigeria (CASSON) held at Covenant University Otta from 14^th – 17^th August, 2007.

Abstract

In a world of ongoing organizational transformation, the ability to effectively manage emotions in leadership, sales and customer-interface positions may be critical to success in those positions. It is in the light of this that the present study investigated through empirical method, the effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery programmes at fostering emotional intelligence of executive management personnel. The study also aimed at establishing whether gender will moderate the effects of the two treatments on emotional intelligence. A randomized pre-test-post-test 3 x 2 factorial design was adopted. The simple random sampling procedure was utilized in selecting participants and assigning them to two treatment groups and the control group. Data were collected with a Standardized instrument. Analysis of covariance \ (ANCOVA) was employed for data analysis with significant level of 0.05. Findings revealed among other things that the treatments differentially and significantly affected participants’ emotional intelligence. The study advocated for enhancement of employee’s emotional intelligence through the use of training programmes like the one used in this study.

Nurturing Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence

Through Brainstorming and Emotional Mastery Training Programmes:

Implications for Human Resource Management

As the pace of business increases and the dynamics of competition continue to change, organisations are increasingly dependent on the talents and expertise of their employees. In many organisations, old hierarchical models of managing are giving way to autonomous work groups; making traits such as empathy, emotional intelligence, self-control, tolerance and trustworthiness become more important in the repertoire of skills necessary for effective organisational functioning.

We have come to understand that technical skills are necessary, but so are the relationships that are forged when the work is directed through influence and conversation with one’s peers, rather than through command and control. In today’s increasingly competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed on their technical skills alone. To succeed, they must be able to forge working relationships with many people and be mediators and mentors, negotiators and net-workers. Managers must be self-confident, be able to modulate emotions, be unusually persuasive, cultivate positive relationships, and continually develop their emotional intelligence (EI).

Recognition of the importance of developing managers’ EI is closely tied to the need for organisations to get and keep high performing employees. Regardless of labour market conditions, outstanding employees are always in short supply. Organisations with reputations as a good place to work have a big advantage. Previous research findings (Belfield & Harris, 2002; Robbins, 2005) have indicated that wages and fringe benefits are not the reasons people like their jobs or stay with an employer. Far more important are the quality of the employees’ jobs and the supportiveness of their work environment. It is unlikely that organisational goals will be realised without a large degree of support from organisation’s and organisational leaders. To provide this support, it is imperative that senior managers, as change agents, understand human’s emotions, and how they influence employee behaviour and attitudes towards their job and their organisation.

Although scholars have long recognised the relevance of cognition to problem solving and leadership, the relevance of emotion has historically been discounted (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000; Salovey, Bedell, Detweiler & Mayer, 2000). Recently, however, researchers have established that emotions precede or at least accompany cognition and thus, emotions and affective information provides a unique source of information that can improve cognition (Damasio, 1994; Dickman & Standard-Blair, 2002; Salovey, Bedell, Detweiler & Mayer, 2000). However, individuals are not alike in their ability to perceive, understand and utilise affective information. The explanation for the differences has been labeled emotional intelligence (EI) (Goleman, 1995; 2001; Salovey, et al, 2000).

Early research efforts on emergent leaders indicated that they were socially perceptive and uniquely able to identify and understand unstated team needs (Chowdhry & Newcomb, 1952). They used their perceptiveness to address team needs in ways they knew would be acceptable to the team (Steiner, 1972). Thus, what underlies an emergent leader’s ability to perceive and understand the team’s task and member’s needs has placed new demands on leadership training programmes to develop these skills in evolving leaders and on organisations involved in leadership selection to identify them in potential candidates.

EI is described as one’s ability to accurately identify, appraise, and discriminate among emotions in oneself and others, understand emotions, assimilate emotions in thought, and to regulate both positive and negative emotions in self and others (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). EI has much to do with knowing when and how to express emotions as it does with controlling it. Much of the researches so far conducted on the importance of EI and human performance indicated that EI has a group analogy; and it is critical to group effectiveness (Druskat & Wolff, 2001; McDowelle & Bell, 1997; Palmer, Walls, Burgess & Stough, 2000). Researchers have also uncovered the relationship of EI to leadership (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995; Palmer, 2001), group performance (Williams & Sternberg, 1988), individual performance, interpersonal/social exchange, managing change, and conducting performance evaluations (Goleman, 1995) with results indicating that EI will become increasingly valued as a work-place asset in the years to come. However, most of the previous research (e.g. Cobb & Mayer, 2000; Damasio, 1994; Goleman, 1995; Hunter & Hunter, 1984; Maulding, 2002; McDowelle & Bell, 1997; Tapia & Marsh, 2001) on EI are survey studies.

Considering the unprecedented claims of some of these studies that EI accounts for more than 85 percent of exceptional performance in top leaders (e.g. Haygroup, 2000; cited in Palmer, et al 2000) and the fact that fundamental issues bothering on human behaviour should not be based on sensationalistic claims (Cobb & Mayer, 2000, the present study seeks to determine if EI skills of executive management personnel could be fostered through brainstorming and emotional mastery techniques.

The ongoing organisational transformation occasioned by technological advancement, the nation’s economic down turn, and the various economic reform programmes of Nigerian governments, which have resulted in downsizing of the organisational workforce with its attendants problems of insecurity, workers’ insensitivity to organisational goal and objectives, stress and depression, low morale of workers, and other job related problems require that managers are equipped with people skills that can positively affect the organisational climate; more so that EI research (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2001) has demonstrated that leaders’ moods play a key role in organisational climate and effectiveness.

Generally, creativity is tied to strong emotions, which both give it power and make it challenging (Akinboye, 2003). Empirically, research has discovered the strong relationship between creativity and emotions. For instance, Schuttle and Malouff (2005) in a college transition course designed to enhance students retention rate and emotional skills, found that students who are exposed to emotional skills content and critical thinking skills performed better than their counterpart who completed a transition course that lacks critical thinking and emotional components. Again, the findings of research in the field of neurophysiology of emotions suggest that people perform better when they combine the strengths of their “thinking or rational brain” with those of their “emotional brain” (Maulding, 2002). In the present study, the emphasis is to ascertain the exact effect brainstorming could have on leaders’ emotional intelligence.

Description of the Study

Brainstorming, which is one of the independent variables considered by the present stud,y is a creativity technique developed by Alex Osborn (Gary, 1992). It is a method of generating ideas on a group situation based on the principle of suspending judgement. According to Alex Osborn, brainstorming creativity technique is a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members. In a brainstorming session, the role of an individual is to say whatever idea that comes to his or her mind concerning the topic of discourse. Whether such idea is relevant or not will determine if the individual will not be criticised. It is the free association of different ideas to form a new whole – ideas or concepts. Although, brainstorming creativity toosl can be used by an individual to generate new ideas, it is a process that works best with a group of people (Garry, 1992).

Emotional mastery which is the second training programme used in the present study requires gaining an understanding of how our emotions affect us and how we can use them to improve the quality of our lives. The rapid change and growing complexity of life challenges have made understanding and mastery of the emotions increasingly important. Strong negative emotions such as fear, worry, distress and anger are injurious to health. In order to avoid the damaging effects of emotions and to harness the creative potential ineffective use of the emotions, emotional mastery is fundamental to a successful and meaningful life.

Emotional mastery is about regaining control of our lives by developing a strong and stable emotional core (Castella, 2001). It means bringing our emotion into balance. Emotional mastery happens when we become capable of allowing ourselves to feel our emotions and still do what we want to do. Sometimes, we avoid doing things that may bring up emotions such as fear, anger, and sadness because we do not want to handle them, in ourselves or in others. Emotional mastery is all about allowing ourselves to be afraid (when there is need to do so), feeling the emotion and still taking the steps that we need to take. Although, there is strong evidence of similarity and relationship between emotional mastery and EI (Bruno, England & Chambliss, 2002; Finley, Pettinger, Rutherford & Timmes, 2000; Gore, 2002) but the emphasis here is on the strength of emotional mastery at enhancing EI skills of executive personnel.

It is widely assumed that women are more “in touch” with their feelings than men--that they react more emotionally and are better able to read emotions in others. One explanation is the different ways men and women have been socialised. Men are taught to be active and dominant risk-takers (Block, 1983; Robbins, 2003), and showing emotion is inconsistent with this image. Women, on the other hand, are socialised to be nurturing. Gender may thus, facilitates the influence of training programmes on the leaders’ emotional intelligence. The present study therefore considers gender as second level independent variable to determine its influence on EI skills of executive management personnel.

Aim of the Study

            The aim of the study is to determine the effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery at fostering EI of executive management personnel.  To achieve this aim, three null hypotheses were raised and tested at 0.05 significant level.

1.                  There will be no significant different in the effect of brainstorming and emotional mastery on participants’ level of EI.

2.                  There will be no significant different effect of gender on participants’ level of EI.

3.                  There will be no significant gender difference on the effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery on participants’ level of EI.

Method

Research Design

The study adopted a randomised pre-test-post-test 3x2 factorial design. The various factors are treatments, which exists at three levels consisting of the two treatment strategies – brainstorming and emotional mastery, and the control (non-treatment group), and gender, which was observed at two levels (male and female).

Sample and Sampling Procedure

The overall sample consisted of 90 (male = 43; female = 47) personnel selected by stratified and random sampling technique drawn from ten organisations in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria (5 private and 5 public). Their ages ranged between 28 and 37 years with a mean age of 33.2333 and standard deviation of 1.57259.

The participants that satisfied the following conditions were involved in the study:

(i)                  the individual must be in the managerial cadre or hold administrative positions in the organisation.

(ii)                Must have worked for at least five years in the establishment.

Further breakdown of the participants revealed the following: 67 (60.3%) were first degree holders; 27 (24.3%) were holders of masters’ degrees; and 6 (5.4%) were holders of professional certificates--IPM, NIM, ICAN.

Instrumentation

 The emotional intelligence scale (EIS) developed by Schutte et al (1998) was used in this study to obtain pre-post treatment mean scores. The scale is a uni-dimensional scale that assesses emotional intelligence through 33-self referencing statements tapping the appraisal and expression of emotions in self and others, emotion perception and regulation in self and others, and emotion utilization. The scale is made up of two sections. Section A contains items to measure the demographic data, while Section B of the scale contains items that assess emotional intelligence level of the individual. Subjects are to rate the extent they agree or disagree with each statement on a five-point likert scaling format ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Since (EIS) contains 33 items, the total maximum of score that can be obtained on the scale is 33 X 5 = 165, and the lowest is 33 X 1 = 33.

Of the available measures of EI, the researcher opted for EIS developed by Schuttee et al (1998) for the following reasons.  First, the development of the items has a theoretical foundation. It was fashioned after Salovey and Mayer’s early work model of emotional intelligence. Second, Schutte and her colleague showed that the scale has sound psychometric properties. They reported that the scale has high internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha (α) ranging from 0.87 to 0.90 and two-week test-retest reliability co-efficient of 0.78. Third, there is evidence for convergent and divergent validity of the instrument. For instance, the scale has been found to correlate with theoretically related construct such as alexithymia, mood repair, optimism, and impulse control (Schutte, 1998). Fourth, the EIS has been used extensively in the southern part of the country with both adults (Ogunyemi, 2004; Adeyemo & Ogunyemi, 2003) and Secondary School Students (Mabekoje & Ogunyemi, 2003; Adeyemo, 2005) with cronbach alpha (α) ranging from 0.72 to 0.93. Fifth, the scale is one of the most readily available scales of emotional intelligence. And lastly, the content of the scale is culture-free and easy to understand; and found suitable for use with adolescents (Schutte et al, 1998). Some of the items of the scale are “I know when to speak about my personal problems to others”, “I find it hard to understand the non-verbal messages of other people”, “I like to share my emotions with others”, “By looking at their facial expressions, I recognize the emotions people are experiencing”, “I know why my emotions change”

Procedure

The researcher visited the organisations to articulate the importance of the training programme towards the actualisation of the organisation’s objective and thereafter sought the cooperation of the administration manager of each of the sampled organisations to allow employees in the executive cadre to partake in the one-month programme. The head of each department in each of these organisations were mandated to assist the researcher in accomplishing the objective of the study with a proviso that a copy of the result emanating from the programme will be sent to the management of the sampled organisations.

After following due process, the programme commenced with an initial introduction, rapport building, orientation as well as motivation to participate in the training programme. Then, the subjects were balloted for distribution into the two experimental groups and the control group with regard for gender. The emotional intelligence test was thereafter administered on them to collect pretest scores. This was followed by four weeks of four sessions of intensive training at each level of the experimental groups (i.e. provocation and emotional mastery treatments groups). The participants in the experimental group one were exposed to the brainstorming programme and those in experimental group two were exposed tothe  emotional mastery programme. The control group was given a placebo – Leadership in the democratic dispensation: The Role of Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).

The training programme was executed through series of lectures, focus group discussion, and case study analysis. At the end of the four weeks of intensive training sessions, the emotional intelligence test was again administered to the participants to collect post-test scores. The outlines of the intervention packages at each level of the experimental groups are as follows:

Brainstorming experimental group

(i)                  general introduction/administration of pre-test and teaching the meaning of basic concept.

(ii)                introduction of basic terms and concept in the programme.

(iii)               review of principles/rules guiding the use of brainstorming.

(iv)              techniques and tools that can be used in brainstorming.

(v)                problem with brainstorming and how to overcome it.

(vi)              actual application of brainstorming in generating ideas.

(vii)             repeated practice and concretisation of gains of brainstorming.

(viii)           wrap-up and application of post-test.

Emotional mastery experimental group

(i)                  meaning, nature and importance of emotional mastery

(ii)                types of emotion (i.e. fear, anger, sadness and joy) and their contributions to healthy and successful life.

(iii)               methods/strategies for regulating emotions (e.g. external regulatory and internal regulatory strategies)

(iv)              ways of dealing with negative emotions

(v)                using emotions to facilitate thinking

(vi)              skills of emotional literacy (e.g. capacity for self-awareness; ability to perceive, identify and express emotion; emotional understanding; emotional management)

(vii)             steps to mastering emotions

(viii)           simulation exercises using the four major types of emotions to facilitate thinking

(ix)              post-test treatment administration and formal closing of the programme

Method of Data Analysis

            The Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to analyse the data collected through pre-post test treatment administration.

Results

The results for the three hypthoses are reported below.

Hypothesis 1

Ho 1:    There will be no significant difference in the effect of brainstorming and emotional mastery on participants’ level of EI.  Table 1 below lists the results of the analysis.

Table 1:          Analysis of covariance of the main and interaction effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery and gender on participants’ emotional intelligence

a  R Squared = .180 (Adjusted R Squared = .120)

The results in Table 1 revealed a significant effects of treatments (brainstorming and emotional mastery) on participants’ level of emotional intelligence (F _(2,83) = 4.125, p <.05). However, there was no significant main effect of gender (F _(1,83) = .008, p >.05), and interaction effect of treatment and gender, on participants’ EI (F _(2,83) = .018, p >.05).

Table 2:          Univariate Analysis of covariance of the effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery on participants’ EI

The F tests the effect of group. This test is based on the linearly independent pairwise comparisons among the estimated marginal means.

The results in Table 2 revealed a significant effect of treatments (brainstorming and emotional mastery) on participants’ level of emotional intelligence. The null hypothesis of no significant effects of treatments on participants’ EI was therefore rejected. To determine the direction of difference, a pairwise comparison was done on the treatment techniques. Results are presented in the table below:

Table 3:       Pairwise comparison of the differences in the level of EI of participants in brainstorming, emotional mastery and control group                        

Based on estimated marginal means

*  The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

a  Adjustment for multiple comparisons: Least Significant Difference (equivalent to no adjustments).

The results in Table 3 indicated that significant difference existed in the EI skills between participants exposed to emotional mastery training programme and their counterpart in the control group. However, no significant difference existed in the EI skills between participants exposed to brainstorming and emotional mastery training programmes, and also between participants exposed to brainstorming training programme and those in the control group. The implication of the findings are that, whereas the two treatments could be effective in fostering EI skills of executive personnel as revealed in Tables 1 and 2 above, emotional mastery has significant gains in improving executive personnel EI skills over and above the brainstorming technique.

Hypothesis 2

Ho 2:    There will be no significant effect of gender on participants’ level of EI skills

Table 4:          Univariate analysis of covariance of the differences in male and female participants’ level of EI.

The F tests the effect of gender. This test is based on the linearly independent pairwise comparisons among the estimated marginal means.

Results in Table 4 revealed that there is no significant effect of gender on participants’ EI skills. The calculated F-ratio of .008 was found to be lower than the critical F-ratio of 3.94 at 1 and 83 degrees of freedom. The null hypothesis was therefore accepted by the finding of this study. This implies that participant EI skills are not gender specific.

Hypothesis 3

Ho 3:    There will be no significant gender difference on the effects of brainstorming and emotional mastery on participants’ level of EI.

Table 5:          Descriptive statistics of EI scores of male and female participants in brainstorming, emotional mastery and control groups

a  Covariates appearing in the model are evaluated at the following values: pre-test emotional intelligence = 119.0889.

Results in Table 5 indicated that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender in the participants’ EI skills. The findings above revealed that the means core of EI of male participants (121.859) under brainstorming treatment strategy was not significant from that of the female participants (121.566). Also, the mean score of EI of male participants (129.104) under the emotional mastery programme was not significantly different from those of the female participants (129.059). Further, the mean EI score of male participants (115.064) under the control group was also not different from that of the female participants (116.414). The null hypothesis, which stated that there is no significant interaction effect of treatment and gender on