Developing emotional intelligence leadership: designing educational program based on experiential and reflective learning

Purpose: This study, relying on the experiential learning theory, aims at analyzing the effectiveness of a leadership education program for graduate students, which aims to promote an individual change in its participants in terms of development of a set of emotionally intelligent leadership behaviors. Design/Methodology /Approach/Intervention: A quasi-experimental research design has been implemented to analyze the improvement in the adoption of leadership behaviors over time through self and external evaluation. In addition, this study explores the effectiveness of experiential and reflective learning techniques required to the students as assignments during the course in terms of their overall impact on the development of leadership behaviors. Results: Participants undertaking the program showed a significantly higher frequency of adoption of various leadership styles in relation to the pre-test and in comparison to the control group. Findings also show that both the definition of a learning plan focused on specific individual change goals and the personal reflections on the practice of leadership behaviors improve leadership development. Limitations: Although the study tried to match the experimental and control group in terms of placebo, expectancy, and training process effects by identifying a non-leadership training condition some other criteria might have compromised the comparability of the two groups. Another limitation is due to a possible bias in the self-perception of the efforts carried out in performing the assignments. Research/Practical Implications: This study provides insights for educators and for higher educational institutions on how to improve the effectiveness of leadership programs favoring a process of perceivable individual change. Originality/Value: This study adds to the leadership education literature which has recently criticized the traditional leadership programs primarily focused on cognitive training and technical skills. This research provides methodological insights on how to transfer the emotional leadership behaviors learned during in-class lessons into participants’ real-life context.