Emotional intelligence and transformational leadership in social work

Abstract

The fundamental premise of this thesis is that emotion is not just important but absolutely necessary for one to make good decisions, take optimal action to solve problems, cope with change and succeed. Emotions provide data that assist one in making rational decisions and behaving in adaptive ways. They must be the source of inspiration and feedback on which leaders should rely in order to build effective teams, to plan and decide effectively, to motivate people, to communicate a vision, to promote change and to create effective interpersonal relations. This concept of emotional intelligence is applied to organisations, more specifically the social work agency - Agenzija APPOGG1 APPOGG was chosen as the organisation under study, since it is the main social work services provider in Malta. It delivers a number of services, aimed at addressing the current and emerging needs of the persons it encounters in the course of conducting its duties. The services within the Agency give 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. This thesis is an attempt to answer the research question "Do the structures and human resource functions in place at APPOGG, 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 APPOGG, and therefore their influence on the levels of emotional intelligence within the Agency. This study takes an Action Research Approach which deliberately incorporates an action component into the research design, and subsequently uses the 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. This thesis is divided into two parts. Part one is an exploratory study which consists of a cultural analysis of APPOGG. Various critical issues emerge from the results of this analysis, primary amongst which is that of leadership. Based on these findings, and supported by an extensive review of the literature and in full concordance with the leaders of the Agency themselves, the Researcher decides to focus on the leadership of the Agency. This leads into Part Two of the study. All the managers and service area leaders agree to and actually take an emotional intelligence test - the MSCEIT (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, 2002). Once again, based on the outcome of this test, the Researcher carries out a Training Day with the Managers and Service Area Leaders of APPOGG. The analysis of the discourses and interactions of this day produce a Conceptual Framework which identifies the main variables of leadership, which impinge on the management practice of the participants. These variables are extensively explored and discussed. This study concludes that a number of factors within the organisational culture, the leadership and the human resource functions within APPOGG are in fact not conducive to the development of an 1 For ease of reference the shorter and more colloquial version APPOGG will be used throughout. Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership in Social Work emotionally intelligent workplace. These factors, which include trammg provided, career development, learning opportunities, supervision and mentoring, workload management and the very nature of the teams are discussed and a number of recommendations for further action and research are made. The primary recommendation is that of 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 - along every echelon of the organisation. Once again, in full accordance with the participants themselves, the majority of the participants retake the MSCEIT, five months after the first take and the training itself; and a marked overall improvement in the emotional intelligence of the participants is noted. While this study does not lay claim to being a description of every social work organisation - each organisation is different in nature, has its very own culture and contextual situation, is a dynamic and living organism - it does lay claim to having identified the main variables of leadership within the management of social work organisations. It is also a study which has given a voice to the managers and leaders within this specific organisation, and a study which has allowed for each member of the leadership team to be heard.