MBA502 Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Workshop

This assignment showcases a student-designed Emotional Intelligence (EI) workshop, created for an MBA course. The workshop, based on the 4 Cs framework (Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration), focuses on developing emotional leadership skills. The student details various activities, including an EQ test and video analysis of an emotionally intelligent leader, to enhance self-awareness, understanding of emotions, and team-building capabilities. The assignment also reflects on the barriers faced, such as student demotivation, and the strategies employed to overcome them. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of cultural competence, leading culture building, and creating open communication channels within organizations. The workshop aims to help participants understand the significance of EI in leadership and provides practical strategies for becoming effective leaders who can manage their emotions, understand their teams, and foster a positive work environment.

Running head: EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Emotional Intelligence
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

2EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Part 1
Workshops are of utmost importance as they help in developing a feeling of
self sufficiency in the students. I am very thankful to my teachers that I have been
able to attend all the lectures. The topics that were taught in the different lectures
over different weeks have really been very helpful. Among all these weeks, the one
that I have found most interesting is of week 5 that is the role of an ideal emotional
leader. As far as my understanding is concerned I feel that taking care of the
emotions of the followers is one of the prime duties of the leaders (Muller and
Turner 2017). Thus in the workshop that I have dealt with is mainly concerned
about this aspect.
I have used the 4 Cs: 21st Century Skills framework in order to conduct this lesson
so that all the learners might be able to develop a very good and detailed
understanding about this particular aspect. The four different Cs ares-Creativity,
critical thinking, communication and collaboration.
The inclusion of activities
The most interesting activity for the workshop was EQ test. I felt that thus
test would be very interesting and also very student friendly. However there were
initially some problems the students did not know how to carry on with their job
for the self appraisal or the self rating tests. I instructed the students to understand

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the concept of emotional leadership and also to reflect on the past incidences that
occurred with them and to derive out important lessons from the same. I asked the
students and the learners to come up in front of the class and narrate some of their
personal experiences (Chapman and Evans 2016). This was done both in the form
of group discussions and also the personal sessions as well. The EQ rating form
was distributed to them and they were asked to give a suitable rating for
themselves. This activity was very interesting as students were able to realize the
areas of their strengths and the areas of their weakness. As a result of taking this
self rating test they would now be able to take up the relevant strategies in order to
overcome the areas of their improvement.The time allotted for this activity was 20
minutes. I explained the rules of the entire activity and then asked the students to
carry on with this.
I explained the relevance of conducting the workshop on this particular
topic. I explained them that an ideal leader wills be able to keep a control over his
or her emotions. He will be able to strike a proper balance between his positive and
also his negative mood. Kraus (2017) has agreed that due to the over burden of
work and the leaders might tend to get depressed and develop a negative mood.
However Li et al. (2016) has argued that the true brilliance of an effective
emotionally intelligent leader lies in the ability of controlling their emotions. They
might get angry or depressed but at the same time they have to make sure that they

4EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
are not making the outburst of their emotions over their co workers or any of their
colleagues. It is their duty to make sure that they are trying to understand the
mindset and the behavior of the people (Miao, Humphrey and Qian 2018).
As per my opinion this activity would also help in understanding about the
varied kinds of personality about of the employees. Some of the people might be
very shy and might suffer from the communication problem. Thus this will be
helping them to come forward and peak in front of the class. They will be able to
develop a proper conversational and team working spirit. This is because they will
be able to rate themselves as per their own understanding and also about the
importance of proper team working spirit (Webster, Brough and Daly 2016).
There were some barriers when the students got demotivated (Shek and
Leung 2015). They were suffering from a lack of interests and thought that as they
are getting poor rating they will not be able to develop themselves as ideal leaders
in the future. Thus in order to solve this problem and overcome this barrier, I had
to provide the idea of conducting some other different activities that would be
interesting.
The other important activity that I suggested was watching over the video
clip of an emotionally intelligent leader and the different principles that he has
undertaken during his lifetime (Webster, Brough and Daly 2016). This was a very

5EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
interesting part of the workshop as I realized that the learners were always eager to
learn something new and something very unique apart from the age old texts or the
lessons of the universities. Thus this video watching was really a very important
activity and it helped the students to understand about the great leader Obama and
then they realized how to use the similar principles in their day to day activities.
The audio visual appeal has been very useful as it gave a new and dynamic
way to the students for learning about the qualities of the emotionally intelligent
leader. I explained that the key to success is to communicate with all the followers
and to understand about their doubts and their complaints. A true emotionally
intelligent leader is one who always tries to reach out to their followers and
understand about their problems. He will strike a balance between his personal and
professional lives so that they do not make any outburst over their followers.
activities instructions potential
barriers
appropriate
timing
diversity of
activities
Video
watching
All the
employees
were asked to
seat together
and enjoy the
video so that
The students
were unable to
understand the
methods of
using the
emotional
20minutes Different
employees
from different
backgrounds
enjoying

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they can
understand
about the
importance of
emotional
leadership
intelligence
tools in the
beginning
together
Filing up the
EQ forms
The
instructions
were to reflect
on their past
incidences and
think about the
positive and
the negative
experiences
Demotivation
and lack of
interest
20 minutes All the
learners
together
developed the
group
development
activity and
performed it
together

7EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Part 2
These workshops have been very useful as they have helped me to
understand the importance of emotional intelligence and how to become an
emotionally intelligent leader. I have learned that in order to establish myself as an
able leader I will have to understand the emotions of the employees. Through this
workshop I desired to not only conduct the workshop in a proper way but also to
learn some very useful lessons in order to become a guide for my team mates. In
order to become a guide, friend and philosopher I will have to provide all kinds of
support to my team workers or my followers. This support will not only be
restricted in terms of the professional filed but also in terms of the moral support. I
have learned that there are some very important aspects of leadership
– Strategic leadership
– Leading capability building
– Leading political / stakeholder interface
– Leading change
– Intellectual leadership
– Leading culture building
– Building relationships and reputation

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– Building personal learning
As per my perception this workshop has helped to get acquainted to a large
number of employees coming from many different kinds of background. This has
helped me to understand about the mindset and the though process of different
employees coming from different cultural background. Thus it really helped me to
develop a cross cultural competence. I realized that an emotionally intelligent
leader is one who will be able to give equal amounts of rights and opportunities to
all the different employees coming from different backgrounds, I hope to take part
in many different workshops like these in future. This will help me to learn many
important leadership competencies.
I will always try to use the Leading culture building strategy so that I can
support the employees belonging from different cultures and can also help in
solving the cultural conflicts that might arise due to the cultural differences. I also
realized that negative emotions might often arise at the workplace and it is the
responsibility of the leaders to make sure that are being able to solve the same This
can be done by develop a freely moving horizontal communication system so that
all the employees can talk with each other and also convey their doubts and their
queries.

9EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
These workshops have been very useful as they have helped me to
understand the importance of emotional intelligence and how to become an
emotionally intelligent leader. I have learned that in order to establish myself as an
able leader I will have to understand the emotions of the employees. Through this
workshop I desired to not only conduct the workshop in a proper way but also to
learn some very useful lessons in order to become a guide for my team mates. Thus
I have been able to learn many useful things from the workshop and hope to b a
part of many such workshops in the future.

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References
Carragher, J. and Gormley, K., 2017. Leadership and emotional intelligence in
nursing and midwifery education and practice: a discussion paper. Journal of
advanced nursing, 73(1), pp.85-96.
Caruso, D.R., Salovey, P., Brackett, M. and Mayer, J.D., 2015. The ability model
of emotional intelligence. Positive psychology in practice: Promoting human
flourishing in work, health, education, and everyday life, pp.545-558.
Chapman, E. and Evans, M., 2016. Leading through emotional labour: Child
protection assessment officers in high quality call-centre. In 30th Australian and
New Zealand Academy of Management Conference: ANZAM 2016 (pp. 1-13).
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Dabke, D., 2016. Impact of leader’s emotional intelligence and transformational
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Dust, S.B., Resick, C.J., Margolis, J.A., Mawritz, M.B. and Greenbaum, R.L.,
2018. Ethical leadership and employee success: Examining the roles of
psychological empowerment and emotional exhaustion. The Leadership Quarterly,
29(5), pp.570-583.

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Kraus, M., 2017. Comparing Generation X and Generation Y on their preferred
emotional leadership style. Journal of Applied Leadership and Management, 5,
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Miao, C., Humphrey, R.H. and Qian, S., 2018. Emotional intelligence and
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Muller, R. and Turner, J.R., 2017. Project-oriented leadership. Routledge.
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Shek, D.T. and Leung, H., 2015. Service leadership qualities in university students
through the lens of student well-being. In Promoting service leadership qualities in
university students (pp. 1-16). Springer, Singapore.

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Webster, V., Brough, P. and Daly, K., 2016. Fight, flight or freeze: Common
responses for follower coping with toxic leadership. Stress and Health, 32(4),
pp.346-354.