Trait EI in Leadership and Education

Introduction

As chapter one demonstrated, the focus of this book is to discuss the ways that leaders and educators can promote emotional intelligence. By now, you may wonder, out of all of the industries, why did the author choose leadership and education, when maybe IT, management, healthcare, or other industries may be more lucrative. The answer to this question is because, no matter in what industry, there are leaders, for leadership is universal, and one can apply it in any industry. In one of the author’s favorite examples regarding the universality of leadership, the author asks others to imagine that they work in a veterinarian’s office, and take care of animals. At first glance, leadership seems to be irrelevant, since one works with animals, however, one must remember that the animals cannot speak for themselves, and instead, must rely upon their human owners in order to relay their behavioral information. It is because the individual working in the veterinarian’s office must communicate and work with other human beings that leadership is important, even in this seemingly unlikely situation, since leadership is, after all, the ability to create and sustain high quality relationships with others (Kouzes & Posner, 2003).

Regarding the author’s inclusion of education, although, oftentimes, they do not see it until an outside researcher points it out to them, educators also are in positions of leadership in their classrooms (Mortiboys, 2012; Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2010), for they influence the experience that their students have in the class, and oftentimes their success and failure. Consequently, it is because of the educator’s dual role as both educator and leader in the classroom (Sussan, Ojie-Ahamiojie, & Kassira, 2008) that the author selected the promotion of trait EI by educators as the second focus of this book. After all, educators are simply another type of leader.

As a result, the purpose of this second chapter is to discuss the role of trait EI in leadership, give credence to opposition regarding this paradigm, and to discuss the ways in which leaders use adaptability and self-motivation, which are the two auxiliary facets of trait EI (Petrides, 2009a). For these reasons, this second chapter, with support from the scholarly literature, will meet the following objectives:

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  Elucidate the role of trait EI in leadership, through a discussion of leadership emotions, effective leadership, and discuss the general duties of leaders.

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  Identify the positions of scholars who oppose the inclusion of trait EI in leadership by discussing opposing arguments to leadership and emotions, the results leaders achieve through their use of trait EI and opposition to effective leadership.

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  Discuss the role of trait EI in education, via a discussion of how educators are leaders in the classroom, the results they achieve, and the duties of an educator.

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  Give credence to the arguments of scholars who oppose the inclusion of trait EI in education.