The term "emotional intelligence" was coined by clinical psychologist Claude Steiner in 1975. But the concept became mainstream nine years ago with the publication of a book by Daniel Goleman.(1)
His most eye-catching claim centred on a case of two people applying for a job with the same formal qualifications. He found that the person who scored high on emotional intelligence indicators would be eight times as successful in the job as the other person, whose score was low. He went on to develop a set of emotional competences which research has shown can be learned at all stages of life. These four competences are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
In the UK, the concept has been enthusiastically adopted by those working in education and is usually referred to as "emotional literacy". Antidote, the trust for promotion of emotional literacy, initially emphasised children and young people. How could they be helped to develop their intra- and interpersonal skills?
It was soon appreciated that a parallel movement was needed to support teachers in developing their own emotional literacy. It was argued that where teachers have limited emotional literacy, the climate in which young people spend many of their formative years may be dysfunctional and unhealthy.
More recently, the emphasis has widened to the "whole school" - its systems, practices and culture - with a view to developing an "emotionally literate school".
This acknowledgement of - and need to understand - the emotional life of an organisation, with its impact on staff-service user relationships and organisational and inter-agency "productivity", has encouraged us to explore implications for staff working in social care and the health professions.
The concept has a particular relevance in today's climate. "Change" is a given, but few people feel they can embrace it because it is often mismanaged. "People don't leave organisations; they leave managers," Martyn Sloman, adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development recently claimed.(2) He described the relationship between managers and their workforce as "crucial to the productivity, morale, attitude and effectiveness of a department".
Similarly, Neil Thompson argued that "stress" is the responsibility of management, and whether workers feel valued and consulted has major implications for staff sickness levels and for the retention of staff.(3)
In today's performance management culture, helping staff to give of their best is vitally important. This process can be helped or hindered by the emotional life of an organisation, and therefore this aspect is ignored at its peril.
This is not just about going around being nice to each other, and not at all about being able to emote all over the place. Both are common misconceptions. As Susie Orbach has written: "Emotional literacy is the attempt to take responsibility for understanding our personal emotionsÉ Emotional literacy means being able to recognise what you are feeling so that it doesn't interfere with your thinking."(4)
We have worked for extensive periods in social work and in youth and community work. From these combined backgrounds, we have taken the concept of emotional literacy and used it to underpin our work in several ways:
Within this work we have focused on the competences that Goleman describes and the need to be aware of the emotional dimension at four levels:
We seek to address these questions head-on as part of the
planned programme, as well as
making them an ongoing thread of the day. Outcomes for participants
include an awareness of, for example, the powerful influence of
emotions on the dynamics of a dysfunctional decision-making group
or supervisory relationship, and ways of moving these relationships
forward to develop more effective performance.
A recent change workshop used self-awareness as a key component to help health staff working in an acute trust to identify the emotional responses they were experiencing, and their origins. A restructuring had previously been badly managed. The outcomes led senior management to provide an opportunity for all staff at all levels to spend a day exploring, in small groups, the changes and to understand their own emotional reactions. They drew on theoretical perspectives such as the Kubler Ross loss curve.(5)
When the common assessment framework was introduced, Horwath argued that, using the Prochaska and DiClimente model of change,6 too often management move staff directly from unawareness of change to telling them it's happening to action, without giving them time to contemplate it.(7) Horwath said this stage is crucial to gain the motivation of staff to implement the change, and it includes an opportunity for feelings to be aired meaningfully.
In our experience, the support needs of middle managers tend to be unaddressed. Good managers recognise the need to support their own front-line staff as well as hold them to account, but little attention seems to be given to those managers' own needs.
We were engaged to work with middle managers of a social services department through action learning sets, so they could implement supervision skills they had been trained in. The sets also provided them with the chance to share with and to learn from each other about the "emotional side" of the management task.
This process provided a supportive atmosphere, which facilitated risk-taking in sharing feelings and freed up staff to develop effective responses to some of the dilemmas they faced in their supervisory tasks.
A serious case review had wreaked emotional trauma and the "aftermath" needed to be addressed. Recognising this, we facilitated a workshop for senior members of an area child protection committee. We explored theoretical concepts and the emotional needs of staff as individuals and as part of the multi-agency network.(8)
As we explored the development of an emotionally literate organisation, we have encountered interest from individuals and groups. After one workshop, a senior member of an education authority redesigned a restructuring process to try to reflect an emotionally literate approach. We feel that, to have an impact, a strategy needs ownership at senior level.
But perhaps enough people at all levels trying to work in an emotionally literate way could make a difference.
Abstract
This article looks at the growing interest in the concept of emotional literacy and at ways in which the authors have used it in training and consultancy with social care professionals.
References
Further Information
Contact the Author
Sue King can be contacted on: 0116 2705007, or e-mail: suemking@btinternet.com
Sue King is co-director of Delos Consultancy with Rob Hunter. She trained as a probation officer in the late 1960s and has always been interested in how emotions affect behaviour. Since leaving the probation service she has worked independently with public sector organisations.
Rob Hunter is an adviser and consultant in youth and community work and adult education with local authorities and voluntary organisations.
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