Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Figure 1. 1

1.1 Conceptual Framework Page

Federal Government Leaders

Learning

Adult Learning

Experiential Learning

Experiential

Learning

Situated

Learning

Leadership

Leader

Development

leaders in developing their emotional effective Federal Government What are the experiences of IntelligenceEmotional

intelligence?

Understanding and providing a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973, p. 27 ) is
undertaken in the current study to explore a changing phenomenon – how to develop
leaders to be proficient not only in their cognitive and mission-oriented abilities, but also
with an aptitude and appetite for EI. This undertaking relates to the stabilization property
of what constitutes interesting research (Davis, 1971), in that what seems to be stable and
unchanging vis-à-vis EI and leader development is actually unstable and dynamic.
Another theoretical foundation explored is the paradigmatic orientation (Burrell &
Morgan, 1979; Kuhn, 1962) of leadership development and EI. Whereas, leadership
development may have predominantly objective and functionalist properties, EI
acknowledges “a different kind of intelligence” (Goleman, 1995, p. 36) that likewise calls
for a different leader development epistemology. At its core, EI centers on how