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Developing socially intelligent leaders through field education: an evaluation study of behavioral competency education methods

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Content Running head: DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 1

Developing Socially Intelligent Leaders Through Field Education:
An evaluation study of behavioral competency education methods
by
Kelly Makino

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In partial fulfillment of the
Requirements for the degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

May 2020

Copyright 2020 Kelly Makino
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 2
DEDICATION
I would like to dedicate this dissertation to a few important people:
- To my soulmate Alvin Makino, who encouraged me to reach past the stars, enthusiastically
parented with an exhausted wife for three years, and never once complained about hearing
about this dissertation for the umpteenth time . . .
- To my wonderful children Connor and Lillie Makino: without whom this dissertation would
likely have been completed five years earlier, on a different topic . . .
- To my mother Debra Mahnken, who snuck her gifted eighth grade daughter into Kutztown
University library on weeknights to romp through the stacks for linguistic etymology research,
inspiring a lifelong love of the smell of the Reference Section . . .
- To my father Rob Lukens, who ensured his daughter watched so much Sci-Fi she never even
doubted being a space-faring psychologist consigliere was a viable career option . . .
- To my Nana, whose unconditional love was my first memory, and my Pop-Pop who has
always thought much higher of me than I deserve . . .
- To Dr. Deborah Hecht of CUNY, the best possible mentor for an overstretched MSW
attempting to field manage a research project in 2012: the journey through the high of
amazing results, lows of overcommitment, polish for Tier 1 philanthropist interviews, and the
feeling research that matters kept me going during 2am edits. She is why I knew I could do
this and have any sense of how to wrangle messy field data into something righteous.
- However, please note this dissertation is NOT dedicated to the authors of the 7
th
edition APA
guide who felt it necessary to make significant italicization and heading format rule changes on
the eve of my dissertation submission. To the rest . . .
Thank you all, so very much!
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Cathy Krop, whose level of support and
patience through this process can only be described as saintly.

I would like to acknowledge my dissertation committee members: Dr. Gregory Garza,
Dr. Alexandra Wilcox, and Dr. Douglas Lynch, who were generous with their time, data,
connections, and bolstered my sensemaking many times.

Thank you to Drs HT, CW, and CT, who were spectacular supports and legendary allies
during this journey.

GO RAIBH MILE MAITH AGAIBH
A thousand thank-you’s
(direct t/n: May a thousand blessings find each of you)
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ……………………………………………………………………………….…. 2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………….……… 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………….. 4
LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………….……… 7
LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………………………...… 8
ABSTRACT ..............…………………………………………………………………..……… 9
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………….........10
Organizational Context and Mission ................................................................................................11
Organizational Program and Performance ..............................................................…................12
Related Literature ....................................................................................................….............. 15
Importance of Innovation and Evaluation in This Area ……………………..….….………….16
Organizational Goal…………………………………………………………….….…………..17
Description of Stakeholder Groups and Performance Goals .…………………….….……..…. 18
Front line teams ….………….………………………………………………………..........18
Front line leaders ….………….………………………………………………………........18
Program administrators …..….……………………………………………………………. 18
Purpose of the Project and Questions .......................................................................…........…...20
Methodological Framework .......................................................................................…............21
Organization of the Project …….................................................................................…............22
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ..........................................................................................23
Anatomy of Behavioral Competencies............................................................................…......23
Exploration of Leadership Behavior Competencies........................................................….......26
Benefits of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership in the Workplace .…………………….….…..30
Teaching Leadership Competencies: How are we doing? ..................................................…...31
Finding strength: successful teaching methods for SI in the workplace ................................34
Learning approaches to lean on .............................................................................................35
Leadership development as a behavioral science ……………………………………..........36
Needs Analysis framework: Clark and Estes (2008) ...................................................….........37
Knowledge Influences..................................................................................................…........38
Motivation Influences ....................................................................................................…......43
Organizational Influences ..............................................................................................…......47
Conceptual Framework Interaction of Influencing Factors on Stakeholder Competencies…..52
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................…...54
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................56
Purpose of the Project......................................................................................................…......56
Research Questions ..........................................................................................................….....56
Conceptual Framework and Study Design...........................................................................…..57
Stakeholder Group and Sampling Criteria .......................................................................…......57
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 5
Data Collection Methods ......................................................................................................….59
Group interviews ..............................................................................................................…60
Survey instrument ............................................................................................................….60
Documents and artifacts ..................................................................................................… 61
Validity and Reliability .....................................................................................................…....63
Ethics ...................................................................................................................................….64
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................…...65
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...............................................................................67
Participating Stakeholders ........................................................................................................68
Research Question 1: Findings .........................................................................................….....71
Knowledge influences …..................................................................................................…72
Motivation influences .......................................................................................................…82
Organizational influences .....................................................................................................85
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................89
Research Question 2: Findings ............................................................................................…90
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 100
Research Question 3: Findings ..............................................................................................101
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 108
Chapter Four Conclusion ..................................................................................................….109

CHAPTER 5: RECOMMENDATIONS…….................................................................................112
Recommendations to Strengthen Knowledge Influences .........................................................113
Conceptual knowledge.…............................................................................……...............113
Procedural knowledge ………...…….................................................................................115
Metacognitive knowledge …...……...................................................................................117
Recommendations to Strengthen Stakeholder Motivation Influences ...................................118
Recommendations Related to Self-efficacy and Utility Value Support………………….119
Recommendations to Strengthen Organizational Influences ....................................................120
Deploy a leadership program that follows field education framework …………………..121
Create robust knowledge-sharing systems……………………………………………..…122
Provide regular, structured reinforcement and coaching opportunities …………….........123
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan ......................................................................124
Evaluating results on the program.......................................................................................125
Evaluating learners’ behavioral competency development .................................................126
Evaluating learners’ knowledge acquisition .......................................................................132
Evaluating learners’ engagement level with program .........................................................135
Evaluation instruments........................................................................................................135
Future Research.........................................................................................................................137
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................137
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................138
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................149
Appendix A: outline of behavior competencies
Appendix B: curriculum outline
Appendix C: study survey questions
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 6
Appendix D: group interview script
Appendix E: informed consent language
Appendix F: leadership program kickoff survey questions
Appendix G: quarterly training survey
Appendix H: staff culture survey instrument

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 7
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Organizational Mission, Global Goal And Stakeholder Performance Goals ……………...19
Table 2. Behavioral Competencies In Social And Emotional Intelligence Competency Clusters…..26
Table 3. Stakeholder Knowledge Influences Related To Goal Achievement……………….……...43
Table 4. Stakeholder Motivational Influence Related To Goal Achievement ……………………...46
Table 5. Organizational Influences Related To Stakeholder Goal Achievement ….……………….51
Table 6. Data Collection Methods Of Knowledge, Motivation, And Organizational Influences…...59
Table 7. Data collection activities and instruments….………….….………….….………………...68
Table 8. Summary of survey participant demographics………….….………….….………….........69
Table 9. Summary of group participant demographics………….….………….….…………..........70
Table 10. Summary of knowledge influences evaluation findings….….………….….……………73
Table 11. Summary of motivation influences evaluation findings….….………….….……….........82
Table 12. Summary of organizational influences evaluation findings.….………….….…………...86
Table 13. Comparison of program kickoff post-session survey with research survey…….….……..96
Table 14. Summary of Perceived Areas of LFE Program Influence on Team Effectiveness.……..100
Table 15. Summary of evidence supporting LFE participant perception on team effectiveness…..109
Table 16. Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations.…..…..…..…..…..……….114
Table 17. Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations.…..…..…..…..…..……….117
Table 18. Summary of Organizational Influences and Recommendations.…..…..…..…..……….121
Table 19. Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes.…..…..…….......126
Table 20. Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation.…..…..…..…………128
Table 21. Required Drivers to Support Key Social Intelligence Competencies.…..…..…..……. 130
Table 22. Evaluation of Reaction and Learning for the Program.…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…......135

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 8
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Competencies of Twenty-First Century Leadership…..28
Figure 2. Leadership Competency Development and Deployment Process.…..…..…..…..……….54
Figure 3. Percent of Sites Submitting Clinical Activity Reports Within Deadline.…..…..………..103
Figure 4. Ratio of Errors to Invoices by Month, 2019.…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…….105
Figure 5. Comparison of 2018 and 2019 Occ-Med Voluntary Turnover Trends.…..…..…..….......108

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 9
ABSTRACT
To date, less than 20 publications describe leadership development programs that
demonstrate quantitative influence on team effectiveness or objective improvement in learned
leadership competencies. More research is required to seek education strategies able to
demonstrate measurable outcomes. This mixed-methods study evaluated the outcomes of an
adaption of Social Work’s Field Education pedagogy to develop leadership competencies for front
line managers in a healthcare company (N=56). This mixed methods study evaluated a participant
survey, two group interviews, related company records and three culture surveys. Linear regression
analysis was conducted on voluntary turnover trendlines.
The results of the research survey confirmed front line leaders with adequate conceptual
knowledge and high motivation retain an ongoing need for procedural and metacognitive
knowledge to consistently deploy EI-SI in their roles. Study survey revealed that participants
perceived their personal effectiveness to have improved an average of 3.2 areas post LFE program
participation. The most commonly named areas of improvement included meeting daily
expectations, operational quality, and managing relationships. Interview trends also revealed
perceptions of enhanced organizational effectiveness in direct-report teams following leaders’
participation in the LFE program. Company records during the intervention period confirmed
improved report submission compliance and higher cooperation levels in these teams. Linear
regression analysis of turnover records revealed a statistically significant drop in voluntary
turnover (p = .001) following initiation of the LFE program. Study trends suggest the LFE
framework has promise as an effective pedagogy to develop SI behavioral competencies in leaders
and effectiveness in their teams. The dissertation concludes with recommendations on how to
implement and evaluate an LFE workforce program.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 10
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Introduction of the Problem of Practice
Research around the world has consistently demonstrated that organizations with executive
and front-line leaders who are adept practitioners of emotional and social intelligence are more
successful and sustainable than those without (Berger, 2014; Cerdena, 2016). Advanced cognition,
emotional intelligence and social intelligence are the interconnected clusters of behavioral
competencies that comprise an individual’s ability to regulate their own mental-emotional state,
manage relationships, and navigate the social environment: the higher a leader’s ability to “see,”
“read,” and “negotiate” the situational emotional and social interactions of themselves and others,
the better (Boyatzis, 2008; McClelland, 1973; Salovey et al., 2004). Similarly, healthcare units
comprised of team members that demonstrate high social intelligence (SI) and emotional
intelligence (EI) in their interactions with each other generate fewer medical errors, better
healthcare outcomes, higher patient satisfaction, and a greater level of engagement with their work
(Mundt et al., 2016; Naidu, 2009). These effects are magnified when health unit leaders, including
managers, physicians, and nurse practitioners use leadership styles that are rich in SI and EI
(Cerdena, 2016).
As valuable as these competencies are for outcomes, evidence demonstrates that most
healthcare front line leaders typically do not receive systematic, educational support for EI/SI
leadership skills; and when they do receive training there is not a demonstrable, consistent change
in their performance (Lacerenza, 2017). The primary reasons that these educational outcomes stall
can be traced to five elements:
● a lack of an effective learning environment,
● these evidence-based teaching methods are rarely followed and rarely taught by trained
psycho-educational educators,
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 11
● few evidence-based teachings methods identified for EI/SI development in the workplace,
● few curriculums that target SI development also target underpinning reasoning skills,
● leadership development’s effect on organizational performance has not been quantitatively
measured with enough depth to create a benchmark for success (Berger, 2016; Lacerenza,
Reyes, & Marlow 2017; Subramony, Segers, Chadwick, & Shyamsuder, 2018).
In an effort to address these gaps, this study evaluated the influence of EI/SI educational
interventions adapted from the “field education” pedagogy, commonly used in behavioral sciences
to successfully develop advanced cognition, emotional awareness, and social intelligence. The goal
of this intervention was to increase the effectiveness of performance and service quality of the
units in which they operate.
Organizational Context and Mission
Occ-Med, Inc. is one of the largest physician-led occupational health organizations in the
United States. Its mission is to keep people safe, healthy, and productive. Occ-Med has three
divisions: CareNow, TestNow, and LearnNow. CareNow provides healthcare to workers through
the mobile and onsite medical provision, telemedicine, and telephonic consultation, as well as case
management. TestNow provides drug and alcohol testing and records administration for large
organizations, as well as background check information. LearnNow provides safety training
services and training records tracking. These divisions serve multiple industries, with a large
portion of business in construction, manufacturing, refining, and resource extraction industries.
These industries are high volume due to their nature as the most dangerous industries in the United
States (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018; Makino, 2019). Occ-Med is a family business in
operation for over 40 years that has recently expanded from 200 to 450 employees. The Occ-Med
workforce providing these medical services includes approximately 480 employees.
Approximately 25% of employees are located in Torrance, California across three site locations,
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 12
5% are in Houston Texas, and 5% are in Northern California. The rest of the employees work
remotely and typically individually, either in their homes or onsite at the clients’ facility where
they provide care. This workforce is demographically diverse, representing well over the local
statistical parity for employees of color in most divisions - including the executive team - with
over fifteen languages spoken daily throughout the organization.
Organizational Program and Performance
Like many other medical and community service organizations, most leaders arrive in the
field with ample effective training in technical job skills and some effective training in
communication aimed at supporting patients and customers, but minimal training on how to
leverage their emotional and social intelligence in leadership skills. This skill gap is known to
impact organizations’ ability to meet their mission statement by diminishing their communication,
effectiveness, and agility (Appelbaum, Degbe, MacDonald, & Nguyen-Quang, 2015; Mundt, et al,
2016; Naidu, 2009). Due to the nature of its intense growth period and distributed workforce,
ambiguity and culture fray are ever-present threats for this organization. As a result, Occ-Med is
vulnerable to symptoms of organizational stress including rising turnover, dropping morale, and
diminishing financial effectiveness (Buckingham, 2006; Schein, 2016). To fulfill its mission to
provide high quality services for the clients and patients, Occ-Med’s leaders must perform
effectively.
In late 2018, Occ-Med began an EI-SI skills pilot program to its front-line leaders on some
social intelligence topics such as customer service, quality standards, and teamwork. Senior leaders
began receiving traditional workshop education on goal setting and strategy to support the
upcoming educational interventions. This was comprised of quarterly workshops, framed in
standard education addressing personality traits and social skills. In late February 2019,
experiential learning experiences began with strategic planning. This was paired with an
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 13
organizational learning assessment that included interviews, group interviews, and leader EI-SI
self-assessment. Front line leaders reported a high motivation to enhance their leadership social
competencies and technical knowledge of operations, data analysis, continuous improvement,
technology systems, and related skills. The education program launched in April 2019 with a
three-day intensive learning summit, including education on:
● Job skills: financial stewardship, operational excellence, innovation, performance
management, and quality standards
● Communication skills: Motivational interviewing, de-escalation, and team building
● Leadership: Goleman’s six styles of leadership, Greenleaf’s Servant leadership, and
Lencioni’s Five Behaviors of a team.
The education in the summit utilized experiential problem-solving to teach the skills, allowing new
managers to actively explore situations they encountered at work in a no-judgement, high
challenge, high support environment in accordance with best practices for effective leadership
development (Brandon, 2014; Lacerenza, et al, 2017). The summit education targeted the
advanced cognitive competencies of systems thinking and reasoning skills, emotional awareness
competency cluster (all), social intelligence cluster (all), and leadership competencies (all).
Cultural intelligence and some of the advanced cognition competencies were included as a tertiary
consideration but were primarily left to address at a later date. The full list of competencies is
available in Appendix A.
The follow-up education continued for the next two months with twice monthly webinars on skills
and leadership topics, as well as biweekly coaching sessions with senior leaders. Over the next
quarter, approximately half of the program participants received additional specialized education
of eight to ten additional training hours on a focus targeted to their job function. These “elective”
training sessions were piloted through June and July 2019 to be developed into full courses. They
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 14
included sales, transformational leadership, train-the-trainer, lean six sigma, and communicating
for change. In August 2019, another summit was deployed for senior leaders focusing on
operational excellence, with a primary focus on advanced cognitive competencies. The program
then segued into monthly seminars with a readable “toolkit” training and 1:1 mentoring with
supervisors with reflective elements. At this time, field training, mentoring program, and webinar
series of new hire training program with subject matter experts were added to the pilot. These
elements provided the full ingredients of a field education pedagogy, as described in chapter two.
Documentation of this pilot curriculum and strategy is available in Appendix B.
In partnership with education and mentorship, actions were taken to support the learning culture. A
staff feedback initiative was implemented including a survey, a town hall, and team stay interviews
to implement plans that support learning culture at the team level, such as enhancing
communication practices and manager support. Second-level managers received coaching on how
to develop their direct reports and design on-the-job learning experiences for the managers under
them. Many of these culture enhancement implementation projects were assigned as learning
activities or stretch projects for new employees. This practice supports the learning environment as
well as bringing into focus for managers their considerable influence on the culture of their teams
and building their capacity to develop team culture with strong cultural and social intelligence.
The purpose of this pilot program is to explore the potential for field education as an effective
pedagogy for developing social intelligence-based leadership competencies. This program was
evaluated through this research against its ability to demonstrate measurable positive influence on
the effectiveness of the participants’ teams. Following the evaluation, recommendations for a full
program deployment were made with a goal to improve Occ-Med’s organizational effectiveness by
supporting the leaders responsible for driving its performance.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 15
Related Literature
There is much justification for engaging in efforts to develop the front-line leadership of an
organization. Decades of research on the impact of leadership on healthcare and organizations
more generally has demonstrated that leaders wield considerable influence to either support or
block team effectiveness through their traits and behavior as a result of their control over
communication and culture, or shared attitudes, behaviors, and assumptions, of its members
(Kotter, 1996; Schein, 2016; Yukl, 2008). This trend holds true across industries, including
healthcare organizations (Brandon, 2016). Studies conducted in healthcare settings have
demonstrated that teams headed by leaders who skillfully utilize the combination of emotive-
cognitive agility, communication, and social-emotional skills commonly referred to as “Emotional
Intelligence,” demonstrate increased effectiveness and provide higher quality healthcare to their
patients (Naidu, 2009; Van Fleet & Peterson, 2016). The evidence shows these teams experience
improved awareness, communication flow, decision-making, and crisis agility - which leads to
more accurate diagnoses, improved outcomes, and fewer medical or safety errors (Mundt et al.,
2016; Stewart, 1995; Naidu, 2009). These trends hold true for teams in every industry in which
evaluations have been conducted (Berger, 2016).
For purposes of this discussion, a “leader” includes individuals in a health center team
whose role includes formally or informally directing the activities of others and who is tasked with
decision-making responsibility for others. This includes shift lead positions, trainers, licensed
healthcare providers, and administrative managers. This also includes directors and executive
leaders. To ensure that front line teams are able to fully reap the benefits of EI-SI leadership, all of
its leaders must be trained and able to demonstrate high emotional and social intelligence, even in
a crisis (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2015).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 16
In the leadership development literature, there exists a long-time dichotomy. On one side,
evidence widely acknowledges that leadership is a suite of teachable skills through social learning
(Deming, 1986). More recent research has suggested that a highly committed group in an
organization – roughly 25% of the whole - is enough to create a social “tipping point” that
normalizes a behavior such as SI-rich leadership and facilitates culture-wide social learning for its
practice (Centola, et al. 2018). On the other hand, leadership development trainers and college
professors have rarely been able to create measurable behavior changes with classroom-setting
instructional methods (Brandon, 2016; Lief & Albert, 2012; Weiss & Molinaro, 2006). A review
of national university and corporate training curriculums from 2000 to 2015 reveals that university
programs emphasize procedural and technical skills as opposed to the communication skills
needed to effectively lead in the modern healthcare environment (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, &
Bradley, 2015). In addition, the vast majority of corporate leadership development programs in
healthcare focus on individual awareness of personality traits, do not employ validated pedagogy
for social-emotional or communication skillsets, and are designed to assist employees to shift away
from front line duties to administrative roles (Brandon, 2016; Frich et al., 2015; Hupsey, 1990;
Smith, 2003). This education-expectation gap results in approximately 60% of leaders
underperforming for at least two years, particularly in problem-solving, communication, and
maintaining effective working relationships with peers – foundational components of medical team
success for both healthcare outcomes and organizational effectiveness (Corporate Executive
Board, 2015; Hosie & Nankervis, 2016; Hupcey, 1990).
Importance of Innovation and Evaluation in This Area
It is important to create and evaluate innovative interventions within this field for a variety
of reasons. Organizations often attempt to provide support for new managers and clinical leaders
that address their skill gaps and supports their ability to build a robust corporate culture; however,
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 17
very few have been able to create sustainable, successful leadership development programs that
demonstrate return on investment, and even fewer have provided leadership education to
healthcare providers to use as part of their normal clinical duties (Brandon, 2016; Frich et al.,
2015). To date, no signature pedagogy for leadership field training in the medical profession has
been established: therefore, it is necessary to identify the successful teaching strategies,
frameworks, and methods for front line leadership education programs (Hosie, & Nankervis, 2016;
National Center for Healthcare Leadership, 2014).
Research has highlighted a clear shortage of empirical studies on leadership development
methods and their effects on organizational performance; this has been designated by many
industry experts as a key area for further investigation (Subramony, Segers, Chadwick, &
Shyamsuder, 2018). To address this gap, this project will provide a formative evaluation of an
innovative teaching strategy to support the current body of research.
Organizational Goal
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by December 2020 by
strengthening the communication, socio-emotional, and thinking skills of the individuals with
direct influence over the organization’s effectiveness and productivity, as measured by
improvement on the four indicators below. This goal was established as a shared decision of Occ-
Med’s executive team in 2018 to strengthen the organization’s ability to sustain its growth,
operating effectiveness, and ability to deliver high-quality services to a diverse range of clients.
Achievement of this goal will be evidenced by participants’ demonstration of effective leadership
skills through 2020, as evaluated by the following four performance indicators:
● Operational performance
● Effectiveness of internal processes
● Human capital strength
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 18
● Ability to innovate and adapt
Description of Stakeholder Groups and Performance Goals
The stakeholders affected by leadership skill levels of a management team encompass the
entire organization, its clients, and the employees of the Occ-Med’s clients who utilize and interact
with Occ-Med’s services. A variety of stakeholder groups are essential to reaching the
organization’s performance goal including Occ-Med’s front-line teams, front line leaders, and
administrators.
Front line Teams
Occ-Med’s front-line teams provide healthcare, testing, administration, and education
services. These teams are comprised of approximately 400 staff members in total. Work settings of
these teams include remote offices, onsite at permanent client health clinics, working in Occ-Med
offices, and working in temporary “pop up” clinics at construction sites and disaster recovery sites;
each team is made up of from five to 20 employees. In addition to these work settings, employees
also advise, consult and teach clients by phone and in person when their expertise is required by
clients for decision-making.
Front line leaders
Front line leaders of Occ-Med are individuals with influence over the people, processes,
and productivity of Occ-Med services. This includes individuals with formal supervisory duties,
including assistant managers, managers, and directors. In addition, there are informal supervisors,
including healthcare providers, position leads, and trainers. There are approximately fifty-five of
these employees, all of whom are enrolled in Occ-Med’s leadership education program.
Program Administrators
This stakeholder group is responsible for designing and implementing the learning program
and is comprised of the executive team and training leaders responsible for designing and
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 19
implementing the program. There are approximately five individuals in this stakeholder group.
These goals are outlined in Table one below.
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Global Goal and Stakeholder Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
Occ-Med, Inc. keeps people healthy, safe, and productive.
Organizational Performance Goal
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by December of 2020 by
strengthening the emotional and social intelligence skills of the individuals with direct
influence over its effectiveness, as measured by designated operational performance indicators,
and employee feedback survey responses.
Stakeholder Performance Goals
Program Administrators’ Goal Front line Leaders’ Goal Front line Teams’ Goal
By August 2019, the training
director will develop and deliver
24 hours of behavioral-based
leadership training to 80% of
employees in supervisory and
leadership roles.
By February 2020, front line
leaders demonstrate competency
in emotional and social
intelligence by utilizing them in
leadership functions as measured
by the target metrics of the
organizational goal.
By May 2020, front
line teams will
consistently meet
internal productivity
goals as defined by
their individual KPIs.

Stakeholder Group of Focus: Although a complete analysis would involve all stakeholder
groups, for practical purposes, this study will include evaluation of goals of all stakeholder groups
with an increased focus on front line leaders who have completed eighty percent of the leadership
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 20
education program. This group was chosen based on their importance to achieving the
organization’s goal, their recent engagement in leadership education, and the lack of research
surrounding their successful learning process (Berger, 2014).
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project is to evaluate the influence of field education style leadership
education for front line healthcare leaders on its organizational goal to improve performance by
2020 through strengthening the cognitive, emotional, and social leadership competencies of the
individuals with direct influence over its effectiveness and productivity. The assessment will
explore the influence of the intervention through an examination of corporate data reports, staff
survey results, and self-reports of program participants.
The questions that will guide the evaluation of the intervention’s influence on the company
and Occ-Med’s organizational goal achievement as it pertains to the program participants
stakeholder group include the following research questions:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences affecting front line leaders’
ability to demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles?
2. What are front line leaders’ perception of the influence of Emotional and Social Intelligence
leadership education on the effectiveness of their teams’ performance?
3. What evidence exists that Emotional and Social Intelligence-based leadership education
influences team effectiveness?
4. What are the recommendations to further support leaders’ social and emotional intelligence
development to improve team performance?

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 21
Methodological Framework
The methodology for this research study was mixed methods to seek a multi-view
assessment, following recommended practices for optimal data gathering (McEwan & McEwan,
2003). The influence of leadership education on organizational effectiveness included a
quantitative analysis of error reports and employee survey responses before and after the
educational interventions paired with qualitative analysis of stakeholder perception of outcomes.
The influences of these efforts and their interaction with the leadership education programming are
included as part of the discussion and findings when relevant.
Influences of leadership development on the human capital and innovation factors of
organizational effectiveness included a review of existing organizational assessments, comprised
of climate and training feedback surveys. Influencing factors on front line leaderships’ usage of the
education were identified through a study-related survey assessing knowledge, motivational, and
organizational influences using Clark and Estes’ (2008) conceptual framework sent to key
stakeholders after six months of education. These quantitative assessments of influence were
balanced with a qualitative exploration.
This project also included two group interviews with four front line leaders to discuss the
program participants’ experiences with the organizational influences as well as their experience
and perception of the relationship between leadership development education and organizational
effectiveness. Finally, the deployed education program was assessed for adherence to the proposed
framework through an audit of the curriculum and program documents. Later chapters of this
dissertation discuss the findings and recommendations based on the assessments outlined in this
section.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 22
Organization of the Project
This study is arranged in five chapters. Chapter One provided a general introduction to this
research study, a discussion on social and emotional intelligence and its importance for leadership
generally and leadership in health care organizations specifically, a brief overview of the research
questions and their context, as well as information on the stakeholders and frameworks. Chapter
Two provides a review of the current literature on emotional intelligence-based leadership
development, and how it relates to front line leaders. Topics of leadership competencies of front-
line healthcare leaders, the building blocks of emotionally intelligent healthcare management, and
a review of front line healthcare leadership development efforts were explored. Chapter Three
details the methods used for sample selection, data collection, and analysis. Chapter Four will
present the data collected, analysis of that data, and the results of the study. Chapter Five will
describe potential improvement strategies, based on empirical evidence found in literature and
study data, with an implementation and evaluation plan.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 23
Chapter Two: Literature Review
This chapter begins with an exploration of the current literature on the leadership
competencies, and the building blocks of cognitive, emotional, and social leadership competencies
that comprise leadership, followed by a review of front line healthcare leadership development
efforts, and will end with a discussion of practices that have been established to be effective in
developing leadership competencies. Using the Clark and Estes (2008) knowledge, motivation and
organizational influence model, this chapter then discusses the ability of influences on clinicians
and managers to deploy advanced cognition, emotional, and social intelligence as leaders. This
chapter concludes with a presentation of the conceptual framework guiding this study.
Healthcare units led by managers, physicians and nurse practitioners who practice social-
and emotional intelligence-based leadership demonstrate more effective healthcare outcomes,
higher patient satisfaction, and more positive work culture (Cerdena, 2016; Mundt et al., 2016;
Naidu, 2009). However, social intelligence skills are currently taught to healthcare providers with
a focus on patient care and customer service rather than leadership. This leaves it up to the
providers and managers to discern a way to transfer those skills to a leadership format, with
varying degrees of success. Emotional Intelligence skills are taught less often. As advanced
practice clinicians (APCs) and managers gain more autonomy of practice, it is critical to seek
effective ways to support emotional intelligence-based leadership skills in leaders to improve the
productivity, patient care, and effectiveness of the healthcare unit team (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin,
& Bradley, 2015).
Anatomy of Behavioral Competencies
The practice of examining leadership through the lens of a collection of competencies
began in 1973 by psychologists and has increased in popularity and sophistication ever since.
Current literature has aligned competencies as the most accurate way to map and assess a leader’s
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 24
behavior-based activities (Boyatzis, 2018; Brandon, 2016). The concept of a “competency” was
identified and defined as a proficiency area that is an aggregated combination of mindset,
knowledge, skills, and personality orientation (McClelland, 1998). Competencies are most often
used to describe proficiencies that are difficult to measure quantitatively, such as innovation,
communication, critical thinking, or creativity. Unfortunately, there is little transparency into the
architecture of competencies outside the behavioral sciences, leading to a widespread
misunderstanding of their nature and teachability. To fully understand how they could be taught as
fully as any other skill, a discussion of the architecture of competencies is paramount.
The work of Boyatzis, one of the original scholars to map behavioral competencies,
identifies that competencies, as observed by the outside world, are the result of several unseen
layers. Competencies begin at the cognitive level with thinking patterns, reasoning skills, and
neurofunctions related to the competency actions (Boyatzis, 2008). The next unseen layer of a
competency includes the personal drivers, motivation, and paradigm of the person (Boyatzis,
2008). The final unseen layer is made up of the mindset and cultural assumptions of the
competency (Boyatzis, 2008). Resting on that is the behavioral layer of the competency which is
visible to the external environment (Boyatzis, 2008). Behavior, being “the internally coordinated
responses … to internal and/or external stimuli, can manifest as cognitive competencies such as
critical thinking, or emotional competencies such as resilience, or social competencies, such as
affective empathy” (Levitis, Lidicker, & Freund, 2009, p. 14).
Behavioral competencies align and overlap into inter-related “clusters” with lower (neural,
cognitive, & emotional) layers that intertwine. These behavioral competency clusters are what are
typically identified as “traits” or “competencies” in corporate literature (Brandon, 2016). When
focusing on leadership context, competency clusters can be addressed in two categories: Threshold
and Differentiating. The “Threshold” cluster of competencies are foundational to professional
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 25
excellence, including Expertise & Experience (professional excellence and wisdom), Knowledge
(conceptual, procedural, metacognitive), and Cognitive Intelligence (thinking and reasoning skills,
memory, and deduction) (Boyatzis, 2008). Threshold competencies are often readily measured
through quantitative means and are often what has allowed an individual to earn a leadership role
(Berger, 2014; Boyatzis, 2008; Brandon, 2016; Allen, Grigsby, & Peters, 2015). These
competencies define a technical leader, and manifest as technical prowess, accuracy, and subject
matter expertise.
The second group of competencies are “Differentiating competencies.” These are named so
because their mastery differentiates a leader from the technical excellence of a direct contributor
on the field (Boyatzis, 2009). Combined, the clusters of differentiating competencies make up an
omnibus competency that is known as “Leadership.” For example, these competencies would
differentiate the behavior and thinking style of an education leader from an educator and a sales
leader from a salesperson. The Leadership omnibus includes three competency clusters: social
intelligence, emotional awareness, and advanced cognition (Boyatzis, 2009). Emotional awareness
and advanced cognition are commonly grouped into “Emotional Intelligence” that underpins
“Social Intelligence” (Goleman, 1995). Psychologists and behavioral scientists identify
“Intelligence” as a combination of one’s acumen, ability, and talent - and is vastly malleable
through effort in a social-emotional context (Boyatzis, 2008; Dweck 2006; Goleman, 1995; Osher,
et al., 2016). In this context, intelligence refers to human mental ability that is a highly variable
cluster of competencies equally capable of development as any other skill, such as playing piano or
basketball (Dweck, 2006; McCelland, 1973).
It is worth noting that the commonly understood notion of “intelligence quotient” in this
framework is the threshold competency cluster known as “Basic Cognition” encompassing
memory, deductive reasoning, and visual-spatial recognition; this carries only minimal impact to
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 26
leadership ability (Boyatzis, 2008: Brandon, 2016; Goleman, 1995; McClelland, 1973). In
comparison, the differentiating cognitive competency cluster “Advanced cognition” includes skills
such as cognitive agility, systems thinking, pattern recognition, and strategic orientation (Boyatzis,
2008). The emotional awareness competency cluster includes behavioral competencies grounded
in emotional literacy, self-awareness, cognitive & emotional agility, and empathy (Boyatzis,
2008). Social Intelligence includes competencies that relate to social awareness, relationship
management, and teamwork; this also includes competencies such as communication skills and
inclusion (Boyatzis, 2008). A complete list of competency definitions is available in Appendix A.
Table two below illustrates the competency clusters discussed above and the competencies they
contain.
Table 2
Behavioral competencies in Social and Emotional Intelligence competency clusters
Cluster Name Competencies included in the cluster
Social Intelligence
(includes those listed below)
relationship management, teamwork,
empathic expression, i.e. “negotiating the situation”
Emotional
Intelligence
Emotional
Awareness
Emotional literacy, self-awareness, emotional agility, empathy,
self-management, self-control, i.e. “reading the situation”
Advanced
Cognition
Advanced inductive reasoning, pattern recognition, systems
thinking, analyzation, creative reasoning, i.e. “seeing the situation”
Basic Cognition Memory, deductive reasoning, basic inductive reasoning

Exploration of Leadership Behavior Competencies
The discussion on leadership competencies is vast – a search yields 20,700 academically
articles written since 2000 – and this discussion roughly aligns on the core competencies for
leading in the 21
st
century that cut across industries (Brandon, 2016; Seemiller & Murray, 2009).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 27
Due to their architecture, competency clusters for the “omnibus” leadership competency overlap
and share elements of the others; as mentioned in the prior paragraph, they are independent, yet not
siloed, acting as a root system for a leader’s style and personality. There are six cognition-related
competencies that were included in the list of competencies: oral and written communication;
critical thinking, information collecting, analysis; organizing & planning; strategic approach &
decision-making (Brandon, 2016; Seemiller & Murray, 2009). Of these, three are threshold
competencies (Oral & written communication; Performing & execution; Organizing & planning)
that remain critical to leadership (Brandon, 2016; Lacerenza, Reyes, Marlow, 2017). There are
three emotional awareness competencies: Integrity, Empathy, and Resilience/Adaptability
(Lacerenza, Reyes, Marlow, 2017; Brandon 2016). These cognitive and emotional competency
clusters underpin the Social Intelligence competency clusters including: active listening,
relationship management, and influencing as well the Cultural Intelligence cluster of inclusion,
cultural awareness, and group dynamics management (Ang & Van Dyne, 2015; Brandon 2016;
Seemiller & Murray, 2009). These combined competencies, as well as supporting and driving
change; performance and execution; networking and innovation, make up the omnibus competency
of “Leadership” Boyatzis; Brandon, 2016). Figure one outlines this scaffold of competency
clusters.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 28
Figure 1
Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Competencies of Twenty-First Century Leadership

A comparative study of leadership competency literature reviews produced in the mid-
1900s, late 1900s, and 2000-2016 reveals that there has been a shift of emphasis over time in
leadership requirements from task mastery and advanced cognition highly valued in the mid-20
th

century, which expanded to include differentiating emotional intelligence competencies and
threshold social intelligence competencies by the end of the 21
st
century, and evolved to require
differentiating social intelligence competencies as well as the addition of new cultural intelligence
competencies (Ang & Van Dyne, 2015; Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999; Lewis, 1990; Seemiller, &
Murray, 2013 ). This is due in part to recently improved definitions of those competencies as
leadership and behavioral science have become less siloed (Boyatzis, 2009). Another influence is
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 29
that expectations on leaders have evolved in response to the needs of the shifting workforce and
economic environment (Makino & Oliver, 2019).
As a result of these shifts, several competencies have faded, others have risen in
prominence, and some have been added to the repertoire for leadership in the twenty-first century.
Inclusion and cultural competence are now being classified as separate competencies; in the
previous century they fell under an umbrella of “fairness” or “good judgement” (Brandon, 2014;
Lewis, 1990). As power distance has shifted in organizational hierarchies, networking and
influencing have also gained greater import (Boyatzis, 2008). Personal adaptability, resilience and
empathy appeared for the first time shortly after the turn of the century (Brandon, 2014; Boyatzis,
2008; Lewis, 1990). As communication has increased in volume and usage, the influence of
threshold communication competencies has risen as well: oral and writing skills are now
considered a separate competency, as well as an expectation that leaders can communicate well
under a wider array of formats. Lastly, the previous century’s emphasis on optimizing tasks has
evolved into innovation and creativity for the twenty-first century (Boyatzis, 2009; Brown, 2009).
The call of the 1990s to optimize resources has morphed into supporting and driving change as the
rate of organizational transformation has increased threefold (Brandon, 2014; Buckingham, 2006).
Another area of note is that “differentiating” competencies, with an expectation of mastery once
reserved for those in senior leadership roles, are now being demanded to be mastered by staff at
lower levels than ever before, and are now viewed as a prequalifier for leadership experience, not
the result of it, as was expected in the last century (Boyatzis, 2009).
As with most fields, leaders in clinical settings have requirements and challenges that are
both unique to their sector and shared across whether they are physicians, managers, or nurses.
Research on front line medical leadership identifies several global competency clusters required
for clinical and operational managers. When broken down to their primordial components, these
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 30
include dynamic cognitive agility (thinking/reasoning skills), emotional agility (self-management)
skills, and socio-emotional (interpersonal) skills (Cerdena, 2016; Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, &
Bradley, 2015; Slipicevic & Masic, 2012; Van Fleet & Peterson, 2016). Clinical setting cognitive
competencies include medical technical expertise; policy analysis and development; and managing
& architecting comprehensive care systems in addition to other settings (Ladhani, et al, 2015).
Emotional Intelligence for leaders in clinical settings includes a much higher priority on resilience,
empathy, and resourcefulness (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2015). Social Intelligence
competencies include inter-professionalism, crisis management, and developing others in a role of
the leader as a teacher (Ladhani et al., 2015). This unique blend of social and emotional
intelligence requires a high level of mastery to deploy, highlighting a need for substantive
development of their leadership competencies through experience,
Benefits of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership in the Workplace
Empirical research over the past thirty years has widely demonstrated that the social
intelligence of leaders affect the culture, performance, and effectiveness of the organizations they
serve. Organizational effectiveness is the ability of an organization to meet its goals and
accomplish its mission as measured by its 1) operating performance, 2) effectiveness of internal
processes, 3) human capital strength, and 4) innovation and adaptability (Yukl, 2008). Socially
intelligent leaders impact organizational effectiveness through their decisions, behavior, and how
they build team culture (Yukl, 2008). This results in the increased motivation, performance, and
dedication of employees which in turn drives enhanced productivity, innovation, and financial
performance of the firm (Yukl, 2008; Brown, 2009). The ability of leaders to drive the success of
their organization does not seem to be limited to one type of leadership; rather it is the ability to
wield multiple leadership styles with agility (Yukl, 2010).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 31
Since 2010 the culture of medical leadership has been evolving to include more medical
providers in the leadership conversation. Research has demonstrated that medical units with
socially and emotionally intelligent front-line leaders are more effective in their healthcare
delivery (Mundt, et al, 2016). In response, healthcare professionals now receive competency-
based training for communication with patients (Lacerenza et al., 2017). However, physicians have
noted that naturally transferring patient communication to a leadership format may not be intuitive
- they report being less aware and having different motivations when communicating with nurses
and other staff than with patients (Busari & Isbouts, 2018). This seems to be supported by
leadership development competency programming. Clinicians who have undergone leadership
development programs self-report they are able to more effectively transfer patient-centered
communication skills to leadership roles, enjoy stronger comfort in their role, and are better able to
harness the strengths of their team to provide more effective care, decrease burnout, and reinforce
their joy in that practice of medicine (Busari & Isbouts, 2018; Elliott, 2017). The potential to
increase the number of joyful clinical leaders who can harness their team’s engagement in their
calling and provide more empathetic and effective care to patients is a powerful upside to
providing widespread leadership development to front line leaders in a clinical setting (Busari &
Isbouts, 2018; Cerdena, 2016). These observations are not unique to medicine: professionals in
formal and informal leadership roles across industries from technology to education to sales to
banking echo these sentiments (Brandon, 2016; Berger, 2014; Corporate Executive Board, 2015;
Kotter, 1996; Makino, & Oliver, 2019; Schwarz, et al, 2016; Yukl, 2010). support, and education.
Teaching Leadership Competencies: How Are We Doing?
The leadership theory body of knowledge is vast; in 2017, 26,573 articles had been written
on how to teach leadership – so why has a pedagogy not been defined yet? (Lacerenza et al.,
2017). It may be because 26,238 of the currently published articles were descriptive essays
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 32
leveraging recommendations from the author’s personal experience - a total of only 335 articles
provided leadership program outcomes able to be measured and benchmarked (Lacerenza et al.,
2017). Of these, a mere 23 have been written after 2001 with an opportunity to address teaching
the modern set of century competencies - only 13 included quantitative findings (Lacerenza et al.,
2017; Subramony et al, 2018). A 2015 worldwide literature review on healthcare leadership
programs for front line employees in healthcare settings yielded a total of eleven articles with
reliable quantitative results on this topic, standing in contrast to over one hundred thousand
experiential books and articles written on leadership development for administrative leaders by
2012 (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2015). Of these eleven articles, only a few included
discussions on the relationship between educational interventions supporting front line leaders’
Emotional and Social Intelligence and quantitative impact on the productivity of their teams (Frich
et al., 2015). These few studies have demonstrated statistically significant results in participant
behavior, including emotional reaction, incorporating business content into daily practice,
transferring new skills between settings, and results delivery (Lacerenza et. al., 2017).
A small and growing number of organizations report that leadership training programs
focusing on competency development are highly effective, indicating that progress is being made
(Schwartz, Bersin, & Pelster, 2014). Understanding the anatomy and development of social and
emotional competencies for leadership education by educators developing, giving rise to
improvements in teaching methods. Therefore, several academic articles state there is a dire need
to create a signature pedagogy to memorialize effective practices (Brandon 2016; Kiersch &
Peters, 2017; Patterson, 2013).
After all, leadership competencies are difficult to teach. Both higher education and
corporate leadership education programs have held fairly high success rates teaching threshold
cognitive competencies (Werner et al., 2016). However, the same is not true for social-emotional
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 33
behavioral competencies. Understanding the anatomy and development of differentiating and
social-emotional competencies for leadership education by educators is still developing (Ennis-
Cole, Cullum, & Iwunu, 2018). Academic publications written on leadership as recent as 2016
questions if developing social and emotional competencies is even possible; in contrast, the
behavioral sciences have been successfully developing these competencies in colleges,
professional development, and certificate programs for decades (Brandon, 2016, Bogo, 2015).
A reason for this disconnect is that leadership is a socio-emotional behavioral skillset and
teachers are typically practitioners who have field knowledge, but are not formally trained to
systematically design or teach social-emotional behavior change (Schwartz, Bersin, & Pelster,
2014). Teachers who are leadership practitioners chosen due to their expertise in leadership
(Threshold competencies) have minimal outcomes without a behavioral scholar involved to
support them. Scholar practitioner involvement is required for significant success (Ennis-Cole et
al., 2018). Another reason behind this trend is that traditional classroom pedagogy does not work:
programs that focus on lecture and leadership theory have been shown to demonstrate very little
results (Boyatzis, 2018; Ennis-Cole, 2018; Williams & McClure, 2010). However, research
demonstrates that leadership professors and corporate trainers rarely implement experience and
student-centered lessons, instead falling back on their familiar lecture and classroom although they
know it is ineffective (Busari & Isbouts, 2018).
Healthcare organizations face additional challenges developing its leaders – particularly
those on the front lines. Some challenges are logistical: time is a scarcity, the pace of work is
particularly intense in the healthcare field, and scheduling training time is an extra challenge for an
organization with employees scheduled for round-the-clock (Busari & Isbouts, 2018).
Occupational healthcare practice settings are often isolated in nature, with remote locations, and
strict privacy laws surrounding communication and behavior. This creates additional logistical
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 34
barriers for employees on the front lines face to access resources they need for development – such
as mentors and networking opportunities – versus a manager working in an administrative office.
Other healthcare leadership development challenges are cultural: healthcare leaders are
traditionally trained as scientists; social intelligence with coworkers does not play a part in
performance measurement, receiving promotions based on technical expertise, impervious to
communication skill level (Busari & Isbouts, 2018). Due to a multitude of factors, both trust and
respect for others’ expertise are lower in healthcare than in other fields, negatively impacting the
ability to create scholar-practitioner programming (Busari & Isbouts, 2018). Trust in one’s
educator is a critical factor for improving on behavioral competencies, as the psychological safety
that relies on it is a critical driving factor of behavior change: lack of trust in an educator’s
credibility significantly impedes learning effectiveness (Busari & Isbouts, 2018). However, the
benefits of emotionally intelligent leaders in the workforce are significant enough to warrant
efforts to address these barriers for the sake of the organization, the people it employs, and the
patients they serve.
Finding Strength: Successful Teaching Methods for EI and SI in the Workplace
Over the last decade, several promising teaching techniques for leadership competencies
have been published. Themes that carry across successful programs in corporate, academic, and
medical settings include learning that is practice-based and self-directed in a supportive
environment with ongoing development personal growth and skill building under expert, engaged
mentors (Allen & Hartman 2009; Eich 2008; Grunwell 2015). Topics noted to have been the most
valuable to address have been personality behavior styles, strengths-based leadership, and new
ways to apply current skills, empathy, and self and task reflection (Lacerenza et al., 2017).
Techniques noted by learners to be particularly effective include learning and applying skills in a
parallel format, an approach of appreciative inquiry, “stretch” project work during training, and
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 35
continuous professional development support (Kiersch, & Peters, 2017). Aspects of learning
environments that program participants have reported to have provided the highest impact include
mentoring, high challenge assignments paired with high support, and approval of innovation
(permission to fail!) by institutional leadership (Bogo, 2007; Gusic et al., 2010). Field mentors
have been reported as a best practice to teach any behavioral competency, as students accept
feedback more readily when the instructor has observed their practice as the instructor is seen as
knowledgeable and hence credible creating a relationship between student and field instructor that
includes trust and support (Bogo, 2007; Eva & Anderson, 2011; Miehls et al., 2013). Both student
feedback and empirical data have demonstrated educators make a large impact on learning when
they are both highly proficient in professional practice and teaching (Rhodes et al., 1999).
However, when it comes to leadership, most leaders are not trained as behavioral change
educators, and few behavioral competency educators hold leadership educator positions (Grigsby,
2015). One solution for this dilemma that has gained popularity is the notion of the “scholar-
practitioner” model in which a professional of deep leadership knowledge pairs with another with
deep behavior pedagogy expertise to develop education. This model has demonstrated significantly
more successful outcomes than programs led by either scholar or practitioner independently
(Lacerenca et al., 2017). When these qualities are objectively assessed it is discovered that there
are several learning approaches that have demonstrated significant success supporting their
development.
Learning Approaches to Lean On
When separated for examination, impactful themes in leadership education share key
components in Experiential Learning Theory (ELT), Adult Learning Theory (ALT), Social
Learning Theory, Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Field Education.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 36
● ELT includes learning through abstract conceptualization, concrete experiences, reflective
observation, and active experimentation (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb 2012).
● ALT includes learning that is self-directed, problem-solving oriented, intrinsically
motivated, and focuses on knowledge transfer and linking learning to current experience
(Kolb & Kolb 2012).
● Social Learning Theory gets through the “black box” of unconscious behavior through
modeling others’ behavior, practicing, integrating that behavior, receiving feedback, and
learning through reflection (Bogo, 2015).
● PBL is rooted in learning by working through “real-world problems,” either in active
situations or through case studies (Busari & Isbouts, 2018).
● Field Education includes engaging in “high challenge / high support” social learning in a
practice setting in a supportive environment under the care of a skilled mentor (Bogo,
2015).
The pedagogy used in the behavioral science fields has combined all five of these learning
theories into a comprehensive curriculum to successfully teach Emotional Awareness and Social
Intelligence competencies (Bogo, 2015).
Leadership Development as a Behavioral Science
The evidence suggests that approaching Leadership as a behavioral science and teaching it
with the same pedagogical approach as the others may yield measurable success. This pedagogical
approach, known as “field education,” includes learning that is pervasively embedded throughout
daily routines and practiced with consistency over an extended period of time (Shulman 2005;
Wayne et al., 2010). Elements of Field Education pedagogy include:
● Environments that approach learning mutually beneficial for the learner, educator, and
organization support learning,
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 37
● Learners are actively involved in driving their own learning with an expectation of high
autonomy and high support from mentors, to fuse professional notions with personal
meaning,
● Learning tasks are deployed in a real-world practice environment with high challenge and
high support levels that provide opportunities to build self-efficacy, confidence, and
wisdom through a balance of independent practice, repetition, and a variety of tasks that
offer the opportunity to learn,
● Learners have the opportunity to debrief experiences in a psychologically safe environment
with a trusted, experienced advisor, allowing them to rehearse complex interactions prior to
usage, record their learning experiences in the moment through writing or media, and later
reflect on it through a strengths-based approach with a growth mindset, and
● Students undergo multidimensional observation and evaluate their behavior through
reflection (Bogo; 2015; Shulman 2005; Wayne et al., 2010).
This study will evaluate a field education pedagogy as described in Chapter One and outlined
above to develop Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence competencies in participants and
measure how these methods impact the ability, knowledge, and motivation of front line leaders in a
healthcare setting to demonstrate proficiency in the Social and Emotional Intelligence competency
clusters. A detailed curriculum description is available in Appendix B.
Needs Analysis framework: Clark and Estes (2008)
This evaluation of the Field Education leadership program was guided by the Clark and
Estes Framework (2008), a six-step approach to assessing learning, motivation, and organizational
needs to meet performance goals, implementing interventions to address the needs, and evaluating
the results of the intervention. This model begins first with a strategic goal creation for
organizational performance that flows into tiered task-oriented outcome goals driving stakeholder
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 38
performance. Once these goals have been set, Clark and Estes (2008) recommend a third step of
completing an analysis to identify any performance gaps between current performance and the
established goals. The fourth step is spent determining the factors impacting gaps, and – to the
extent possible – identifying the causes of the performance deficits. Clark and Estes (2008) frame
the influence factors around the knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational components
that are impacting performance. The fifth step of the model involves crafting and implementing an
intervention to address the gaps in knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational support
for the performance goal. The sixth step is to evaluate progress and adjust as needed.
The cornerstone of the Clark and Estes (2008) framework is an assertion that performance
gaps are the result of one of three intertwined elements. At the global level, operational, structural,
or cultural organizational barriers may exist. In addition, stakeholders experience performance
gaps in skills or the factual, conceptual, procedural, or metacognitive knowledge needed for
performance (Krathwohl, 2002). Once equipped with knowledge, stakeholders require active
choice, persistence, and efficacy to rally the motivation to apply the mental effort to deploy their
skills (Pajares, 2006). Below is a discussion of the assumed knowledge and skills, motivation, and
organizational needs Occ-Med’s front-line leaders need to demonstrate competency in emotional
and social intelligence and utilize them in leadership functions.
To build effective strategies for health center leaders to strengthen and practice these
skills, it is critical to examine the motivational, knowledge, and organizational factors that guide
the development, refinement, and utilization of leadership competencies (Daly, 2006; Knowles,
Holton, & Swanson, 2012). The next three sections of this review will examine these influences.
Knowledge Influences
Research indicates that healthcare workplaces managed by leaders who demonstrate a high
effectiveness level of their social intelligence competencies have higher morale, lower incidents of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 39
medical errors, and improved productivity (Mundt, et al, 2016; Naidu, 2009; Yukl, 2008). For the
Occ-Med organization, front line leaders include those with formal management responsibilities
such as managers, assistant managers, and physicians, as well as individuals that have informal,
“dotted line” supervisory responsibilities, such as advanced practice clinicians (physician
assistants, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses) and the lead positions of non-licensed staff.
According to Field Education and Adult Learning Theory, for learning to be both absorbed
and applied, the following themes must be included in the learning experience to ensure the
curriculum is credible, relevant, and effective: (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2012):
● Connect to the learner’s concept of self and motivation for learning
● Be relevant, beneficial, and well-timed for the problems learners are facing
● Be available in a varied format that is available and attractive to the learner
● Respect the life experience and reflect the actual work of the learner
These themes are well-served when curriculum that develops self and relationship
management skills are deployed through case-based exercises that build critical and creative
thinking. Kolb’s framework of Experiential Learning reveals there are several components of
learning which must be strategically scaffolded on each other to achieve effective skill levels.
First, learners must obtain conceptual knowledge that is able to create an informational foundation
and framework for the competency: in a leadership development context, this would include
information including industry best practices (example: best practices of communication in
healthcare), different leadership styles (example: transformational or transactional leadership), and
related skills (example: transformational healthcare leaders use active listening to help improve
their team’s performance). As this conceptual foundation takes shape, procedural knowledge must
be layered upon it directing the learner how to utilize the new information (example: what to say
when applying active listening techniques); this procedural knowledge may take the shape of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 40
scripts, instructions, or step-by-step process instructions in an education session. Once the learner
understands how to apply the information, they require opportunities to connect the knowledge to
their current experiences, organize their thoughts around it, and rehearse the skills in
experimentation (example: using active listening skills in a coaching session); this would include
activities such as case study discussions, role-playing, or writing a personal script.
Finally, structured reflection opportunities build self-efficacy and allow learners to both
refine the skill levels as they are practiced and motivate the learners to continue their pursuit of
skill mastery (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2009; Kolb, 2005; Mayer, 2011). As this knowledge
scaffold grows stronger with interrelated learning sessions, participants acquire metacognitive
knowledge that synthesizes the techniques into a personal style, and coalesces this skill usage with
the learners’ behavior patterns (Krathwohl, 2002). Structured reflection opportunity is uniquely
critical for social skill development, as the human brain is unable to retain full consciousness of
social the social self while in the midst of a social behavior action; therefore, learners must
metacognitively process their performance before and after their social experience (Kahneman,
2011). This stands in contrast to motor activities (physical acts), where humans are capable of full
consciousness and able to make inductive adjustments during an action (Kahneman, 2011). The
following knowledge schemas influence Occ-Med’s front-line managers’ level of emotional and
social intelligence competence and ability to utilize them in a leadership context.
Front line leaders need to know what EI and SI competencies a leader needs to build
team effectiveness. The foundational area of knowledge is for participants to understand the
interpersonal and self-management skills a leader needs to be effective with their team in a clinical
setting. This, like other forms of conceptual knowledge, is made up of two parts. The first part
includes an understanding of the discrete information of a notion: such as which socio-emotional,
cognitive, and emotional agility skills are most important for a clinical leader to exhibit. A second
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 41
layer of conceptual knowledge linking the relationships between knowledge of skills that can be
transferred between in their professional and personal lives have trained on and used these skills
(Star & Stylianides, 2013). Conceptual knowledge development of front-line leaders EI and SI
competencies were assessed through a learner survey and Group interview questions on leadership
competencies and their relationships between productivity, morale, and systems. Procedural
knowledge development of EI-SI leadership competency was assessed through a learner survey
and Group interviews. The development of learners’ procedural knowledge of EI-SI competencies
was evaluated through self-report responses with a learner survey and Group interview questions,
as well as an external evaluation through a review of responses in Occ-Med’s work climate survey
to evaluate whether EI-SI competencies are being applied by front line leaders.
Front line leaders need to know how to combine EI and SI competencies, and when to
appropriately deploy them in leadership duties. Once knowledge of EI and SI competencies are
acquired and linked as a schema this conceptual knowledge must connect to a procedural
understanding of how to deploy them in their daily duties (Mayer, 2011). Front line leaders in this
program will learn procedural knowledge of their daily job duties in tandem with EI and SI skills
to ensure they are building procedural understanding as part of their cognitive competencies. For
example, one of the modules in the education program focuses on how to deliver feedback and
input through electronic means. This includes learning a communication framework, quality
measures for feedback, how to assess the situation (what do they need to hear), with considerable
practice on delivering feedback effectively through email and chat programs with real-world
exercises. Following best practice adult learning theory, this study will focus on one procedural
knowledge area at a time, layering them on each other as front-line leaders become comfortable
with skills and begin to automate them (Krathwohl, 2002). Front line leaders’ development of
procedural EI-SI leadership competency knowledge was assessed through a learner survey and
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 42
Group interviews. Both procedural knowledge and its deployment were evaluated with a review of
responses in Occ-Med’s work climate survey.
Front line leaders need to understand their personal EI and SI strengths and gaps in
their leadership role and identity. The front-line leaders’ knowledge of their personal
preferences, EI-SI strengths and gaps, and their identity as a leader are paramount to organize their
thoughts, solidify their schemas, and incorporate their skills (Baker, 2006). The understanding of
personal strengths and gaps is the foundation for metacognitive learning that will build self-
efficacy and support the ability of front line leaders to discover what they need to learn to increase
their performance (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2009). Without an understanding of their unique
gaps, front line leaders were unable to incorporate the educational experience into their behavior.
Metacognitive knowledge development of personal strengths and learning needs was evaluated
through survey and Group interview questions assessing learners’ self-understanding. Front line
leaders’ self-reports will then be compared with staff reports of their deployment of EI-SI
leadership competencies – and their procedural knowledge - in Occ-Med’s work-climate survey
responses.
These knowledge types and their influences together outline the schema that this study
endeavors to build in Occ-Med’s front-line leaders. Table 3 below summarizes the knowledge
types that participants in the leadership program require to demonstrate effective emotional and
social intelligence in their roles.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 43
Table 3
Stakeholder Knowledge Influences Related to Learning Goal Achievement
Organizational Global Goal
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by the end of 2020 by strengthening the
leadership competencies of the individuals with direct influence over its innovation and
productivity, as measured by designated operational performance indicators, and employee
feedback survey responses.
Stakeholder Goal
By 2019, front line leaders will demonstrate competency in emotional and social intelligence by
utilizing them in leadership functions as measured by the target metrics of the organizational goal.
Knowledge Influence Assessment of Influence
(Conceptual) Front line leaders
need to know what EI and SI
competencies a leader requires to
build team effectiveness.
Questions on leadership competencies and their
relationships between productivity, morale, and systems in
learner survey and Group interviews
(Procedural) Front line leaders need
to know how to combine EI and SI
competencies and deploy them in
leadership duties.
Related questions learner survey, and Group interviews,
compared with a review of responses in Occ-Med’s work
climate survey.
(Metacognitive) Front line leaders
must understand their own EI and
SI strengths and gaps in their
leadership style and identity.
Survey and Group interview questions addressing learner
self-reports, compared with staff reports of knowledge
application in Occ-Med survey responses.

Motivation Influences
Motivation is the degree to which a person selects to engage in a behavior or activity and
can be organized into two broad categories: intrinsic (for personal or internal benefit) or extrinsic
(to achieve an external goal or obligation) (Amabile, 2001). A blend of these motivation types was
required for participants of Occ-Med’s leadership program to incorporate new skills, as well as
transfer dynamic cognitive, emotional, and social intelligence strengths to leadership functions
from other areas to meet their extrinsic stakeholder goal.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 44
For this stakeholder group, research going back over 50 years has demonstrated that
managers experience the highest levels of motivation from self-efficacy of their interpersonal
competence level, orientation towards intrinsically motivated extrinsic goals, and the support to be
able to be effective in their roles, including the motivational influences of self-efficacy, goal
orientation, and utility value (Bandura, 2000; Lieff & Albert, 2012; Mayer, 2011; Myers, 1966).
Clinicians and physicians report greater levels of intrinsic motivation with primary drivers that
include a desire to help others, intellectual challenge, and self-efficacy of medical skills – factors
also built on goal orientation, utility value, and self-efficacy (Ratanawongsa, Howell, & Wright,
2006). This study will attempt to leverage these shared motivational influences to build a common
core of leadership knowledge and skill in the health centers.
Front line leaders need to view themselves as leaders of others/capable of leading
others. Self-efficacy is a person’s deep belief about their capacity to perform a task; this
determines their perspective, motivation, and behavior regarding it (Bandura, 2000). Self-efficacy
of clinicians (a front line leader) is one of the highest influence factors on positive patient
outcomes, and interpersonal skills have shown to improve reported self-efficacy levels of
healthcare providers by 37% for approximately six months after the training sessions (Ammentorp,
Sofoe, Kofoed, & Mainz, 2006; Naidu, 2009). To truly advance any of the target skills, front line
leaders must view themselves as capable of leading others and maintain a personal belief they have
an innate ability to learn new skills and/or transfer those skills from other areas of practice to
leadership behaviors (Bandura, 2000; Pajares, 2003). This self-efficacy lays the foundation for the
other motivational influences. For example, front line leaders must believe that they are able to
transfer the reflective listening skills they use with a patient to a performance conversation with
their assistant manager to be able to successfully do so. Front line leaders’ level of self-efficacy
was evaluated through survey and Group interview questions.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 45
Front line leaders need to believe in the inherent value of SI-EI based leadership to
improve the productivity and culture of their unit. Utility Value is an individual’s belief that
learning activities will improve their ability to do their job (Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, &
Harackiewicz, 2008). If program participants do not believe in the inherent value of the methods
taught in the program, they will not be motivated to use them. For example, a nurse practitioner
must believe that reflective listening skills will add value to a performance conversation with their
assistant for them to practice the skill for a long enough period to gain competency in its usage.
Research has suggested that healthcare leaders who inspire utility value in their healthcare units
demonstrate better patient outcomes, reinforcing the idea that leaders must understand and model
this mindset for their teams (Sansoni, Sorrentino, Mayner, & Lancia, 2016). Front line leaders’
level of utility value was evaluated through survey and Group interview questions.
Front line leaders need a desire to improve their leadership competencies and believe
that EI-SI competency development will help them accomplish their work performance
goals. Goal orientation an individual’s belief that learning activities will help them accomplish
their goals (Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, & Harackiewicz, 2008). Utility value is a driver of the
personal desire to improve dynamic cognitive agility, emotional agility, and socio-emotional skills
(VandeWalle, 1997). Only program participants that value learning new things and view
improving their leadership competencies as a worthy goal was motivated to work on improving in
these skill areas. For example, if a nurse practitioner has a strong belief that their learning in this
area was completed in school and does not need to be revisited, then they will not be open to
learning new methods. There is a substantial body of research that confirms medical culture is one
of ongoing learning and suggests this motivation would be the easiest to leverage, particularly
when paired with materials and exercises that engage the other two motivational influences
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 46
(National Center for Healthcare Leadership, 2014). The strength of front-line leaders’ goal
orientation was evaluated through survey and Group interview questions.
Table four summarizes the motivation influences and types that participants of the
leadership program will require to demonstrate effective skills in the target areas (dynamic
cognitive agility (thinking/reasoning skills), emotional agility (self-management) skills, and socio-
emotional (interpersonal) skills to improve leadership ability of program participants as well as the
methods that was used to assess the achievement of the learning goals.
Table 4
Stakeholder Motivational Influence related to goal achievement
Organizational Global Goal
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by the end of 2020 by
strengthening the leadership competencies of the individuals with direct influence over its
innovation and productivity, as measured by designated operational performance indicators,
and employee feedback survey response.
Stakeholder Goal
By 2019, front line leaders will demonstrate competency in emotional and social intelligence
by utilizing them in leadership functions as measured by the target metrics of the
organizational goal.
Motivational Influence Assessment of Influence
(Self-efficacy) Front line leaders need to view
themselves as leaders of others/capable of leading
others.
Development of self-efficacy was
evaluated through survey and
Group interview questions.
(Utility Value) Front line leaders need to believe in the
inherent value of SI-EI based leadership to improve the
productivity and culture of their unit.
Level of utility value was
evaluated through survey and
Group interview questions.
(Goal Orientation) Front line leaders need a desire to
improve their leadership competencies and believe that
EI-SI competency development will help them
accomplish their work performance goals.
Learners’ goal orientation was
evaluated through survey and
Group interview questions.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 47
Organizational Influences
Organizational influences are a critical consideration in leadership development, as
leadership styles and growth are dictated by organizational factors such as culture, communication,
processes, and barriers, no matter how much knowledge and motivation an individual has (Clarke
& Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011). Supported by the right mix of organizational influences, leadership
development programs have demonstrated an ability to improve skill levels in the areas that
managers struggle with most: communication, problem-solving, and maintaining effective working
relationships with peers (Hosie & Nankervis, 2016; Lacerenza, et al, 2017). This section will
explore three of the primary organizational influences impacting the ability of new leaders to
improve their EI and SI leadership competency levels.
A supportive organizational learning culture must be present for participants to feel
comfortable attempting to use their new skills. Just like the people that comprise them,
organizations and their cultures are dynamic entities, evolving at all times (Shore, 2011). The
evolution of the individuals in an organization, such as the stakeholders in this study, occurs as the
result of learning and adaptions to their environment (Watkins & Marsick, 2003). For individuals
to successfully transfer knowledge and motivation into new behaviors, the environment must be
favorable to the behavior change. Employees who feel they are in an environment that allows them
to learn, experiment, attempt new behavior, and learn from their mistakes without undue
punishment, demonstrate investment in deploying new behaviors (Kaya, 2015).
A critical component of widescale leadership behavior competency adoption is a strong
Organizational learning culture (OLC) (Osher et al., 2016; Watkins & Marsick, 2003; Yukl, 2010).
OLC is the process through which entities acquire, disseminate, and deploy new knowledge,
mindsets, and skills at macro and cultural levels. Research has demonstrated that organizations
with strong learning cultures share the following traits (Watkins & Marsick, 2003):
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 48
● Leadership makes concrete investments in efforts, prioritizes learning, and models desired
behaviors. (Strong leadership support)
● Formal and informal learning is intermingled with normal work duties as it is normal and
expected for employees to continuously learn on the job. (Continuous learning)
● The organizational culture supports appreciative inquiry, multidirectional feedback, and
collaboration. (Inquiry and dialogue)
● Access to learning and new information is widely available to employees. There are multiple
communication systems, typically technology-based, which facilitate knowledge sharing and
capture and systems integrated with work that support learning efforts and are well
maintained. (Robust knowledge-sharing systems)
● Employees are invested in the company vision and decision-making is closely distributed with
responsibility for outcomes, creating accountability and the motivation to achieve mastery for
the work which one is accountable. (Empowering shared vision)
● Systems-thinking is present as people understand the wider ecosystem in which they work.
The organization is transparent and encourages cross-functional efforts. (Connected to
context)
Through these elements, a strong learning culture supports employees to constantly seek and
transfer learning from theory to behavior. Due to their influence on the carriers of learning culture,
current leaders wield considerable influence on either support (or block) transformation efforts
through their traits and behavior (Appelbaum et al., 2015). Once enough individuals within OCC-
MED have deployed cognitive agility, emotional awareness, and social intelligence leadership
competencies it will create a “behavior bloom” within the organizational culture through social
learning that builds momentum towards organizational goals (Gibson, 2001).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 49
Learners need supportive learning environments, role models, and coaches as they
deploy and refine their new skills. In addition to a learning culture, a learning environment
for leadership competencies must be created. While the learning culture and environment are
certainly related, the environment is the situation that has been constructed for the learning to
happen within the wider organizational culture (Osher et al., 2016). The learning environment that
creates a demonstrable increase in motivation, skill, and dexterity in socio-emotional competencies
can be created in many diverse situations, but their elements are quite specific. Effective SEC
learning environments contain two parts. The first part of an SEC learning environment is its
context: emotionally supportive with high-interest content that involves learners in their own
learning (Osher et al., 2016). This is also notably mentioned in andragogy, problem-based
learning, and experimental learning theory, the three most effective leadership teaching strategies
according to the literature.
The second part of effective SEC learning environments includes the content and breadth
of situational learning. Cognitive (thinking), affective (mindset/emotional), and social (behavioral)
competencies must be built concurrently (Boyatzis, 2009; McClelland, 1973). To create
measurable strengthening of a behavior, the learning environment hinges on creating opportunities
to foster the development of several competencies in an intertwined format (Osher et al., 2016;
Lacerenza, Reyes, & Marlow, 2017):
● Self-awareness – metacognition, emotional literacy, sense of identity, and self-efficacy
● Self-management – emotional regulation, cognitive agility, and self-management
● Decision management – evaluate options and make choices based on priorities and goals
● Social Awareness – empathy, grasp of culturally appropriate behavior, reading social cues
● Relationship management – communication, collaboration, negotiating conflict, building
rapport
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 50
In addition to these elements, optimal SEC learning environments are high-challenge, high support
to ensure that learners maintain a zone of proximal development (Bogo, 2015; Vygotsky, 1978).
SEC learning is effective when learners must test their cognitive boundaries, practice difficult
decisions, stretch their ability to regulate emotions, and gain practice in uncomfortable social
situations, with real-life consequences under the care of a network of trusted, supportive,
accessible mentors (Bogo, 2015). A final consideration is that SEC learning environments must be
sustainable, as SEC competencies require six months to two years to fully materialize (Corporate
Executive Board, 2015; Osher et al., 2016; Wayne, Bogo, & Raskin, 2010). Whether the
organization was able to sustain a learning environment with the elements needed for effective
learning and maintain momentum over the required period of time was a major consideration in
whether the program participants are able to demonstrate the development of their social-
emotional leadership competencies.
The organization needs to provide Front line regular reinforcement and coaching
support to Front line leaders so they can leverage their new skills and be accountable to the
method. Learning environments with these elements are challenging to create in a classroom, and
for this reason the optimal learning environment for behavioral competencies involves components
of field learning with a dedicated mentor and field trainer for the behavioral sciences as well as
leadership (Bogo, 2015; Yukl, 2010). For front line leaders to be successful, OCC-MED must
ensure that there are trusted, trained mentors available to the participants as they work through
their new competencies (Wayne, J., Bogo, M., & Raskin, M., 2010). Teams and mentors must
provide adequate psychological safety and support to experiment with SEC usage in a new way:
failure at times is required to improve SEC (Brown, 2009). Programs able to sustain positive
results are rooted in collaborative partnerships between managers, key stakeholders and business
goals during the entire vision, planning and implementation phases so that program participants are
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 51
mentored with their performance goals in mind (Mitki & Herstein, 2011; Ready & Conger, 2003).
Ensuring there are high-quality mentors available to coach and hold participants accountable to the
new way of behaving will make a critical difference in whether the program participants are able
to deploy and retain the learning explored in the leadership program. Table five summarizes the
assumed organizational influences on the ability of participants of the leadership program to learn
and deploy dynamic cognitive agility (thinking/reasoning skills), emotional agility (self-
management), and socio-emotional (interpersonal) competencies, as well as the methods that were
used to assess the achievement of the learning goals.
Table 5
Organizational influences related to stakeholder goal achievement
Organizational Global Goal
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by the end of 2020 by strengthening
the leadership competencies of the individuals with direct influence over its innovation and
productivity, as measured by designated operational performance indicators, and employee
feedback survey responses.
Stakeholder Goal
By 2019, front line leaders will demonstrate competency in emotional and social intelligence by
utilizing them in leadership functions as measured by the target metrics of the organizational
goal.
Assumed Organizational Influences Assessment of Influence
Occ-Med needs a strong organizational learning culture for
participants to feel comfortable attempting to use their new
EI and SI skills.
Survey questions that target
supervisor trust and comfort with
failure.
Occ-Med must provide supportive learning environments
as they deploy and refine their new EI and SI skills.
Post-training survey questions
regarding quality of instruction,
retention, and engagement with the
material.
Occ-Med needs to provide regular reinforcement and
coaching support to Front line Leaders so they can
leverage their new EI and SI skills and are accountable to
the new method.
Participant interviews and survey
questions. Patient feedback survey
data changes.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 52
Conceptual Framework: Interaction of Influencing Factors on Stakeholder Competencies
The development and usage of leadership competencies in the work environment is a vast
subject, the understanding of which is still in refinement. A conceptual framework provides a
method to heighten the clarity of the abstract concepts and influences (Maxwell, 2012). This
creates a visualization of the anatomy of the structure, influences, and relationships of the concepts
with each other (Merriam & Tisdell, 2012). This process through which this conceptual framework
was created leveraged the four-phased design thinking approach (Brown, 2009). First, each idea
was explored independently by diverging the subject into its component parts and canvas the
perspectives contained in the academic literature to generate a diverse array of possible
explanations. The concepts contained in the literature were converged for inclusion based on their
independent merit, relevance, and rigor. The converged ideas were then analyzed to extract
meaningful themes and synthesized based on the field experience of the researcher.
This conceptual framework focuses on two primary concepts: A. leadership competency
development and B. the influences on their development and usage. The process of competency
development was described by utilizing a competency development framework as defined by
Boyatzis (2009) in the context of Experiential Learning Theory (Kolb, 1984). A gap analysis using
the framework outlined by Clark and Estes (2008) was used to determine the knowledge,
motivational, and organizational influences on both the competency development process and the
ability of stakeholders to successfully deploy them in a work environment. This conceptual
framework seeks to provide a visual demonstration of how these concepts interact and influence
each other.
This framework is a graphic representation of the concepts explored by this study. The
trapezoid at the bottom represents the process through which behavioral competencies are formed.
The foundational layer is the influencing factors of an individual’s motivation to develop a
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 53
competency. The influences studied by this effort include: Self-efficacy, or concept of self as a
leader; Utility Value, or whether there is value seen in the competency; and Goal Orientation, or
whether this competency is seen as having the potential to achieve the stated goals (Clark & Estes,
2008). The next component of competency development is the Mindset, or values, paradigm, and
thinking style, required for the competency (Boyatzis, 2009). Once motivation and Mindset have
been achieved, conceptual and procedural knowledge becomes a focus as the individual works on
building the skills associated with the competency (Boyatzis, 2009; Clark & Estes, 2008). The
nature of a two-dimensional image belies the non-linear nature of competency development as the
process is dependent on fairly constant metacognition, or self-reflection, to evolve through
multiple interrelated phases (Clark & Estes, 2008). One metaphor could be that a “metacognitive
engine” drives this development and influences competencies as they are deployed and refined.
Once a competency has been developed at a basic level, the process progresses out of the
trapezoid and into the concentric circles. In a healthcare setting, Social and Emotional
competencies are typically developed with patients in mind first, and as such is used on them first.
With additional training and metacognition, it is possible to expand the deployment of Emotional
Awareness and Social Intelligence competencies to usage with co-workers. The ability of the
individual to expand this usage is rooted in knowledge and motivation influences, as well as the
organizational influences. These organizational influences include factors such as training program
design, style and support level of organizational leadership, and the culture of the organization.
Organizational culture drives as competency deployment much the same way that metacognition
drives competency development. This process is illustrated in figure two.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 54
Figure 2
Leadership Competency Development and Deployment Process

Conclusion
The goal of this study was to measure the effectiveness of field education training methods
to develop front line leadership participants’ emotional awareness and social intelligence in
leadership functions. Strengthening these competencies will require participants to understand
effective leadership styles, know which skills a leader needs, see which patient communication
skills are transferrable, and explore participants’ personal leadership style. The program
participants must gain self-efficacy as a leader, see the inherent value of developing their
leadership competencies, and believe that these actions will help them achieve their goals. Finally,
OCC-MED must support this process through regular reinforcement and in a supportive learning
environment and a strong learning culture. This chapter provided the reader with insight on clinical

Self-regulation
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 55
leadership development and the factors that influence successful learning through a review of
related research. The next chapter will describe the methodology, sampling, and conceptual
approach used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 56
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
This chapter outlines the research strategy and methods used to collect organizational
information, select samples for surveys and interviews, and analyze the collected data to measure
the influence of Occ-Med’s leadership education program and its influence on front line leaders’
ability to demonstrate competency in emotional and social intelligence and utilize them in
leadership functions. Based on this methodology, Chapter Four and Five will discuss, respectively,
the findings and recommended solutions.
Purpose of the Project
Investigation of the research questions evaluated the influence of an innovative leadership
field education program to support Occ-Med’s goal to improve organizational effectiveness by
2020 by strengthening leadership competencies of the individuals who influence company
performance. The achievement of this goal was measured by designated operational effectiveness
indicators including operational reporting compliance rates, error rates, and employee feedback
survey responses.
Research Questions
The data gathered and outlined in this chapter explores the following questions:
1. What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences affecting front line leaders’
ability to demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles?
2. What are front line leaders’ perception of the influence of Emotional and Social Intelligence
leadership education on the effectiveness of their teams’ performance?
3. What evidence exists that Emotional and Social Intelligence-based leadership education
influences team effectiveness?
4. What are the recommendations to further support leaders’ social and emotional intelligence
development to improve team performance?
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 57
Conceptual Framework and Study Design
This study utilizing Clark and Estes’ (2008) needs analysis, a systematic conceptual
framework designed to clarify organizational performance goals and identify gaps between current
and desired levels of organizational performance. This strategy was used to frame the knowledge,
motivation and organizational influences under examination for the study. Individual and cultural
influences were primarily investigated with surveys, employee survey data, and Group interview.
Influences on effectiveness were primarily explored by analysis of organizational artifacts., which
included reports for invoicing errors, report submission compliance, staff surveys, and turnover.
Both were followed by participant group interviews to explore participant experiences. Findings
generated from the investigation were evaluated in a comprehensive manner.
This study utilized a convergent parallel approach, beginning with a study-related survey
sent to key stakeholders, continuing with two reflective group interviews, and concluding with a
forensic review of organizational documents including company error and compliance logs, as well
as comparative employee engagement surveys. This mixed-methods approach is appropriate due to
the fact that there is little available data on the effects of these types of educational programs on
organizational output. This lack of precedent presents an interesting challenge in appropriate
survey design. In these cases, previous researchers have recommended leveraging a mixed-
methods approach to evaluate the influence of an experimental educational intervention (Creswell
& Clark, 2017). A mixed methods analysis both acknowledges the impossibility of adhering to
laboratory protocols such as double-blind trials and leaves space for confounding variables that
may only be able to be partially controlled.
Stakeholder Group and Sampling Criteria
The stakeholder population of focus for this study, collectively known as “front line
leaders,” includes approximately twenty healthcare managers (many of whom are also healthcare
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 58
providers by education), fifteen administrative managers, fifteen team leads, and six healthcare
providers with a range of experience and seniority, for a total participant group of fifty-six
stakeholders. The managers include supervisors, assistant operations managers, regional managers,
and senior managers. The healthcare providers include four clinical leads (nurse practitioners, and
physician assistants), and two medical directors (physicians).
Front line leaders targeted for recruitment to join the study sample are employees of Occ-
Med that have participated in EI/SI leadership skills training program. These stakeholders were
recruited through webinar announcements, emails, and in-person requests. Specific criteria include
the following:
Criterion 1. Individuals that are current employees of Occ-Med in good standing (no
former employees were recruited).
Criterion 2. Employees participated in at least 80% of the training activities of the
program between April and October to ensure that they are able to give appropriate feedback.
Criterion 3. Sample members for the interviews may not have reporting relationships to
the researcher to prevent a conflict of interest.
The group interviews included seven front line leaders recruited through a purposeful
sampling strategy to discuss their experiences with the education methods, the knowledge,
motivational and organizational influences on their deployment of their EI-SI competencies, and
their perceptions on the influence of the leadership development programming on the effectiveness
of the organization. The study survey was emailed to all participants meeting criteria one and two
with an expected sample size of 56, who then self-selected for participation in the study sample.
There were forty-two responses to the survey, for a response rate of 75%.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 59
Data Collection Methods
An overall mixed-methods research strategy was utilized to achieve the multi-view
approach recommended for optimal research practice (McEwan & McEwan, 2003). To discover
whether field education targeting the differentiated competency clusters of Advanced Cognition,
Emotional Intelligence, and Social Intelligence (AC-EI-SI) will impact the organization’s
effectiveness, qualitative and quantitative artifact analysis of organizational error reports, and staff
surveys were paired with a quantitative and qualitative analysis of participant survey responses and
two qualitative group interviews. The knowledge, motivation, and organization influences on
program participants’ ability to deploy Emotional and Social Intelligence-based leadership was
examined through a survey sent via email and compared with previous employee survey responses.
To compare data collected via company documentation to participants’ experience of the situation,
two group interviews were conducted at the onset of the study to gather data on the front line
leaders’ perceptions and experience with the impact of leadership education on team effectiveness
(if any). Group interviews followed an emergent design, including several foundation questions to
concepts followed by unstructured drilling questions to further explore the topic (Cresswell, 2013;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). Table six below outlines what research activity will explore knowledge,
motivation, and organizational influences on front line leaders’ ability to deploy the competencies
supported by the educational intervention.
Table 6
Data Collection Methods of Knowledge, Motivation, And Organizational Influences

Email
Survey
Company
Documents
Group
interviews
Knowledge Influences X X X
Motivational Influences X X X
Organizational Influences X X X
Organizational Effectiveness X X
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 60
The goal of the qualitative sampling strategy was twofold. First, it sought to obtain an
inclusive perspective from front line leaders on the knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences that impact their ability to effectively demonstrate the social intelligence competencies
of focus in the training program. Second, it investigated the perceptions of front-line leaders of the
relationship between leadership development and organizational effectiveness. Group interview
participants were questioned on the effects of the leadership education on their leadership practice,
how that has affected their team effectiveness, and their perceptions of which financial and
productivity indicators were influenced (if any) by their leadership education.
Group Interviews
The combined group interview sample was six participants with a diversity of relevant
experience. Each of the two one-hour group interviews were conducted via videoconference, a
format that is commonly used in the organization, and comprised of three candidates each,
including two operational and two clinical participants each with a range of experience levels and
prior leadership training. The sample was recruited through email to all participants and the final
eight was chosen by the researcher based on an appropriate fit of role and experience. To make the
group members as comfortable as possible sharing their experience, one group interview included
mid-level managers and one included lower-level managers. The group interview question list is
available in Appendix D.
Survey Instrument
A survey was deployed to all 56 program participants through email after approximately
six months of programming (approximately 4-6 significant educational interventions). This survey
included twenty-four questions that addressed all three research questions with a primary focus on
the knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences (KMO) on participants’ behavioral
competencies. Of these, five are demographic identifiers (including tenure, worksite, and job type)
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 61
and two are open-ended questions. The other eighteen survey items focused on the elements of
KMO and culture known to affect the ability of leaders to successfully deploy the behavioral
competencies that these educational interventions seek to support. These eighteen survey questions
were measured by a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
Responses to the two open-ended questions were coded and analyzed for trends. The list of survey
questions is attached as Appendix C.
Survey Procedures
The survey was sent to all participants through a secure link emailed to a work email
address with instructions not to share it, approximately six months after the initiation of leadership
education training. The program chosen for the survey was surveymonkey.com, a highly ranked,
secure program. All passwords will only be known by the researcher. The survey was timed to
capture information after participants had three major and four minor interventions paired with
four months of formal mentoring. Previous research has indicated that six months of robust
education interventions creates enough influence to demonstrate measurable outcomes in behavior
(Osher et al., 2016; Wayne, Bogo, & Raskin, 2010). Participants were recruited to complete the
study through in-person, webinar, and email invitations and then self-selected for participation.
This method was chosen due to the high percentage of remote employees in the company. The
survey was deployed for one week, and reminders were sent during this time. Response rates were
monitored in real time in the software, and the survey was locked at the end of the collection
period. No incentive for survey completion was provided.
Documents and Artifacts
Organizational performance data was examined to identify any effects that providing this
leadership education program may have had on the culture and performance of the participants’
teams. Occ-Med, Inc currently creates internal reports on productivity and performance goals for
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 62
each of the departments to which participants are assigned. To explore the relationship between
leadership development and productivity, this data was examined by comparing dates when
education interventions were deployed with reports on productivity for the subsequent period. In
accordance with recommended methods, these reports were triangulated project logs to seek
conflating effects of operational interventions (Denzin, 1970). This data was also compared across
teams to seek trends that corroborate and validate any possible effects of educational interventions
on productivity indicators between groups and demographics (Eisner, 1991). While a variety of
productivity indicators are included in KPIs or collected by the organization, this study has
specifically examined three productivity indicators; user error, reporting, and employee surveys,
based on the input of senior leadership at the organization.
Examination of error rates and productivity data were complemented by a review of the
educational program documents for substantive information regarding deployment timing and
methodology, substantive content, and pedagogical strategy to examine whether the program
structure and content has matched the evidence-supported methodology outlined in chapter two of
this dissertation, as well as to triangulate the dates and content of educational interventions to the
relevant dependent variables that may have been impacted (Bowen, 2009).
In addition to the aforementioned productivity and performance data, insight into the
effects of leadership development on participant team culture were sought through a comparative
examination of culture engagement and effectiveness indicators on the organizational climate
survey, including engagement and manager effectiveness scores. Patient response data on the
organizational surveys were examined during comparisons of educational intervention periods as
available. Responses in the employee surveys were triangulated with participant surveys to
corroborate perceptions.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 63
Validity and Reliability
Every reasonable step has been taken to ensure the validity and reliability of this survey
items. The questions in the survey instrument were designed by the researcher to relate where
possible to Occ-Med’s engagement survey and external benchmarks to strengthen the validity of
the survey. Ten of the twenty-four questions are nationally benchmarked survey items in
surveymonkey.com, the software through which the survey was deployed. To promote reliability
in the survey, questions are purposely simple and understandable; the survey garnered a 67.3
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score
1
indicating that the survey questions are easily comprehensible
to adults with an education above eighth grade, and is a key indicator for increased respondent
attention focus and response accuracy in past studies (Harmon, 2001). The validity and reliability
of the response scales for the survey include a neutral midpoint and five options for all questions
which research indicates is one of the most valid and reliable scale designs; this also maintains
consistency with both internal and external survey question benchmarks (O’Muircheartaigh,
Krosnick, & Helic, 1999). The survey items then underwent an internal Occ-Med peer review by
executives, and an external peer review by colleagues at the University of Southern California
prior to the pilot.
The internal reliability of the survey has been addressed in three ways. First, the survey
questions are arranged in an order that prevents them from “priming” each other or leading the
reader towards a particular answer (Krosnick, 2018). Second, the twelve survey items that are not
benchmarked are worded concretely and in close alignment with the principles they examine. For
example, self-efficacy, a motivational influence for leadership, is tested with the question: “It is
important for me to enhance my leadership skills,” (Clark and Estes, 2008). Third, the survey

1
Score computed at https://app.readable.com/text/
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 64
instrument was piloted three times; with one-third of the participants, four months before the full
survey.
Ethics
As the director of training, the researcher is employed in a senior leadership position within
the organization but does not directly or indirectly supervise the stakeholders. The researcher has
been responsible for the majority of internal research for six months and has interacted with the
stakeholders as a researcher prior to this study for other Group interviews, interviews, and surveys,
which have demonstrated positive outcomes for the participants. In addition, every effort was
made to share that information of this study was for a dissertation separate from organizational
use, to ensure that the participants understand how their responses will be utilized.
Participation in this study was voluntary, and as such, stakeholders were informed that their
participation was optional, they were able to opt-out at any time, and that their feedback will in no
way impact their job or performance records either by the researcher or by their direct supervisor,
to clarify the dual role of colleague and researcher. Feedback was confidential and information will
be stored securely in accordance with ethical research best practice, and study participants were
informed of how this information will be stored and anonymized (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015). To
ensure informed consent, stakeholders were informed of the study’s goals both verbally and in
writing during the recruitment and before participation in all surveys and interviews. In addition to
these methods, there were several ways for participants to easily opt out of the study should they
no longer want to participate.
The primary interest in this project is to explore what leadership development methods
have been most effective and whether it is aligned with what the research states is most effective.
Some of the education that has been implemented has been more aligned with research best
practices than others. To mitigate the researcher’s bias as a facilitator, related questions were sent
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 65
in surveys rather than by interview.
Like all researchers, there is a potential bias that may impact research and should be
addressed. First, the researcher’s professional background as a program facilitator and
instructional designer may impact my view on the program evaluation. Second, the educational
background of Social Work (BSW/MSW) will impact the researcher’s lens through which
behavioral competency development is viewed. Third, the researcher’s previous experience
regarding what educational activities have proven successful or unsuccessful may impact personal
views on value.
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations There are several limitations to this study. While every reasonable effort was
made to control for these limitations, it may not be fully possible. First, due to the nature of
providing education at a systemic level, it is impossible to conduct a blind study for the
intervention, and no team in the organization was fully unaffected, preventing the comparison of a
control group. Second, the data collection period is formative, being conducted after six months,
rather than summative, preventing the measurement of the efficacy of the full curriculum. Third, it
is impossible to fully control for external influences over organizational effectiveness. Lastly,
while every effort is made to encourage candor in surveys, Group interviews, and documentation,
it is impossible to control participants’ level of honesty.
Delimitations The delimitations of this study begin with the reason that the topic was
chosen. The subject of how to improve current methods of teaching behavior change in the
workforce is a topic of high interest for the researcher due to their background in teaching behavior
change as a counselor and licensed social worker. Currently few studies exist that explore usage of
empirically proven leadership competency development programs or that explore the effects of
leadership development on all dimensions of organizational effectiveness. Due to the constraints of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 66
the doctoral program, the choice was made to conduct a formative assessment of the curriculum
after six months and to narrow the focus of the qualitative research to the front-line leaders. Lastly,
the frameworks delimiting the study include the Knowledge-Motivation-Organization Influence
framework, the Cognitive, Emotional, and Social Intelligence Competency frameworks, Adult
Learning Theory, and Social Work’s signature Field Education framework. These frameworks
delimit the study by shaping the paradigm behind the research, the data that is examined, and the
language used to define the concepts discussed.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 67
Chapter Four: Findings and Discussion
The focus of this study was to explore A) the knowledge, motivation and organizational
influences affecting front line leaders’ ability to demonstrate high Emotional and Social
Intelligence (EI-SI) in their roles, B) these leaders’ perception of the influence of the leadership
development program using a field education framework on the teams’ effectiveness and C) if any
evidence exists that suggests this influence occurred. The Leadership competencies under inquiry
were defined according to the behavioral competency framework of differentiated emotional and
social intelligence field education and framed the intervention (Boyatzis, 2009, Bogo 2015). This
chapter presents the findings from the interviews, surveys, and organizational reports; a discussion
of their implication; and recommendations for future research. Recommendations for future work
based on these discussions are presented in chapter five.
Results and findings of this study utilized quantitative data to validate the perspective of
study participants on the development of leadership competencies and their effectiveness of
participants’ teams. Data were collected via a quantitative survey, then validated with participant
interviews and triangulated with forensic organizational data, including engagement surveys, and
error reports, as described in chapter three. The goal was to establish a general understanding with
the survey, and a deeper understanding through interviews, then seek empirical evidence that
aligns with the participants’ perceptions.
The qualitative methods and findings are framed by grounded theory, as the researcher was
examining whether the assumed influences on performance were validated (Merriam & Tisdell,
2015). In line with grounded theory, the results of the interviews focus on axial themes that arise in
the data related to the research questions, the conditions, interactional strategies, and consequences
related to the phenomenon (Kelle, 2005). Lastly, confounding influences such as major business or
operational changes or adjustments in upper management are noted in the discussion. Various data
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 68
sources are reported to compare the various perspectives that inform the research questions,
comparing participant reports with each other and organizational data. The data collection
activities and instruments are summarized below in table seven.
Table 7
Data collection activities and instruments
Instrument Instrument type
Collection
date
Time period captured
in data (estimated)
Sample
size
Program kickoff n/a n/a Feb – May 2019 (rolling) n/a
Culture Survey A Company record 7/1/ 2019 2/1/2019 – 7/1/2019 n=16
Culture Survey B Company record 9/23/2019 5/10/2019 – 7/1/2019 n= 66
Training Feedback
Survey
Company record 5/10/2019 3/10/2019 – 5/9/2019 n= 27
Participant Survey Study instrument 10/27/2019 5/1/2019 – 10/27/2019 n= 40
Participant Group
Interviews
Study activity 10/31/2019 5/1/2019 – 10/31/2019 n= 06
Billing Error
report
Company record n/a 2/1/2019 – 10/31/2019 n/a
2018-2019
turnover report
Company record n/a 5/1/2019 – 12/31/2019 n/a

Participating Stakeholders
Data were collected from a sample of 40 out of 56 qualifying participants. These
participants provided their perceptions of the research topic through the survey. Two of the 42
responses were removed due to the fact that they did not meet the minimum threshold for
engagement with the program, i.e. they did not report attendance of any webinars or seminars. This
left a final sample of 40, at a 74% response rate.
Survey respondents included a range of tenure, experience, hierarchy level, and job
function. Of the survey stakeholder group, 10 respondents had been at the company for less than
one year, 19 had worked there between two and five years, and 13 had been employed there for
over five years. There was a range of management experience: eight participants had been
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 69
managing others less than 1 year, 13 had between two and five years of experience, and 21 had
over five years of supervisory experience. There was also an array of job functions: 18 employees
worked in clinical operations (including clinical management), 10 employees worked in
administrative functions (including Finance, HR, and training services), six were in the drug
testing TPA division, and four respondents were in a full clinical role. Lastly, there was a spectrum
of job levels between participating stakeholders, including 5 directors, 15 managers, 11 assistant
managers (or supervisors), and 4 lead employees. When compared to the overall population of
company managers, the 40 survey respondents were demographically representative in work
function. While it is difficult to discern, it appears that there were fewer proportional responses
from front line leads which make up 14% of the sample, but 39% of the overall group. Shift leads
are sometimes in semi-supervisory roles and may have opted out of the group because some do not
view themselves to be managers, and others seldom participate in training due to scheduling
challenges. These demographics are summarized in Table eight below.
Table 8
Summary of Survey Participant Demographics
Time at company
in years
Percent of sample Time managing
people in years
Percent of sample
0 -1 24% 0 - 1 19%
2 - 5 45% 2 - 5 31%
5 + 31% 5 + 50%

Job function Percent of sample Job Level Percent of sample
Clinical Operations 43% Director 12%
Administration 24% Manager 36%
Drug testing 14% Assistant Manager 26%
Clinical 10% Lead 14%

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 70
Six of 40 final survey respondents also participated in two group interviews of three
stakeholders each following the survey. The interviewee stakeholder group included two assistant
operations managers, one mid-level administrative manager, two clinical managers (registered
nurses), and one nurse practitioner lead. Two senior level interviewees were scheduled, but
interviewees were unable to attend. The ethnic/gender demographics of the final interview group
included one Latino male, and one Asian female, one African American female, and three
Caucasian females. Transcripts from the interviews were coded and themes that were supported
both in the interviews and surveys will be reported in findings. Direct quotes used in this chapter
will be coded under pseudonym initials. A description of the interview participants is summarized
below in Table nine.
Table 9
Summary of Group Participant Demographics
Position Gender Demographic
WD Assistant Manager Female African American
JG Manager Male Latino
TA Manager Female Caucasian
ML Clinical Manager, Physician Assistant Female Asian
CR Regional Manager, Registered Nurse Female Caucasian
US Regional Manager, Registered Nurse Female Caucasian

Variance between participating stakeholders
Prior to discussion of the research questions, it is worth noting that the focus of training
activities varied across groups, in order to appropriately meet leaders’ individualized learning
needs. The goal was to keep learners in an ideal zone of proximal development throughout the
program, in line with best practice for effective learning (Vygotsky, 1978). Front-line leaders with
lower levels of experience were assigned different learning activities than managers with higher
levels of experience and previous education. For example, a newer manager would receive an
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 71
opportunity to develop and refine their systems-thinking through tactical, cross-functional
improvement projects, while another more experienced manager was assigned to a far more
complex, ambiguous project linking executive strategy to frontline outcomes through data-
tracking. However, both these learners were working to push their systems-thinking to the next
level through the process. Details of these adaptions are available in appendix B as part of the
program curriculum outline. The results were generally similar across groups, regardless of their
prior leadership training experience. As a result, findings are not presented separately for leaders
based on their different levels of prior experience and leadership training, and therefore
differentiated learning activities in this program, unless their study results were different from the
overall group.
Findings will be presented organized by research questions. First, the assumed knowledge
findings for stakeholders will be discussed, followed by assumed motivation influence findings,
and then the assumed organizational influence findings. This discussion is based on data from the
study survey, staff survey data, and group interviews. Next, findings on front line leaders’
perception of the influence on leadership development on their teams’ productivity will be
discussed. This will also be based on the study’s survey and interview data. Finally, any findings
related to evidence of leadership education influence on team effectiveness will be discussed. The
discussion of this question will utilize data from turnover reports, error reports, and compliance
submission reports.
Research Question One: Findings
What are the knowledge, motivation and organizational influences affecting front line
leaders’ ability to demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles? This
study began with a needs assessment to explore influences on whether the program participants
will be able to demonstrate the behaviors that the educational intervention is seeking to encourage.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 72
Knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences may support or hinder front line leaders’
deployment of behavioral competencies, affecting the outcomes of the leadership field education
pilot program, and providing guidance for the final program. It is critical to assess these areas of
influence and evaluate them as a current asset or ongoing need for the target stakeholder group.
Chapter five will outline recommendations for targeted support of influences that are considered
ongoing needs with reinforcement of influences that assessed as current assets. This section will
describe the gap analysis findings on knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences, and
discuss the more nuanced findings that arose during the inquiry.
Knowledge Influences
This study investigated the conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge
influences on front line leaders’ ability to demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in
their roles. The conceptual knowledge influence examined whether front line leaders know what
competencies comprise EI-SI leadership behaviors to deploy them successfully. The procedural
knowledge influence investigated whether front line leaders know how to combine EI and SI
competencies to effectively deploy them in leadership duties. The metacognitive influence
examined whether front line leaders understand their own strengths and gaps to demonstrate strong
EI-SI behavioral competencies in their leadership roles.
The following section of chapter four discusses the findings related to conceptual,
procedural, and metacognitive knowledge influences on front line leaders’ ability to demonstrate
high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles. First the section will demonstrate whether
the influence was found to be a current asset or a continuing need, followed by highlights of more
nuanced findings. Knowledge influence evaluation findings are summarized in table ten as
follows.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 73
Table 10
Summary of Knowledge Influences Evaluation Findings
Knowledge Influence Need or Asset
(Conceptual) Front line leaders need to know what EI and SI competencies
a leader requires to build team effectiveness.
Current Asset
(Procedural) Front line leaders need to know how to combine EI and SI
competencies and deploy them in leadership duties.
Ongoing need
(Metacognitive) Front line leaders must understand their own EI and SI
strengths and gaps in their leadership style and identity.
Ongoing need

Conceptual Knowledge Findings
This study sought to explore if front line leaders of Occ-Med possess conceptual
knowledge of what behavioral competencies they need to build their team’s effectiveness. The
needs analysis examined whether program participants understood the concepts and were able to
name SI competencies such as relationship management, communication, and systems-thinking
during open-end inquiry.
Front line leaders in Occ-Med have demonstrated conceptual knowledge of the EI and
SI competencies a leader requires to build team effectiveness. Conceptual knowledge of
leadership behavioral competencies is evaluated to be a current asset for Occ-Med frontline
leaders. The study survey revealed that 89% of study survey participants agreed or strongly agreed
with the survey statement “I understand what I need to do to be successful in my role” (mean =
4.15 / 5, 0.66 standard deviation). The open-end survey questions demonstrated a strong trend that
the most mentioned valuable areas of the education program between May and October 2019 was
education on high emotional intelligence leadership styles (64% of comments), followed by social
intelligence (relationship-skill building) modules (43% of comments), and a clarification of
business expectations and systems (43% of comments). This trend was well demonstrated by a
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 74
survey response in the open-end comments that the learning sessions “…that focus on tools that
will develop how to think and behave as a leader and a team” were the most helpful sessions.
The interview data revealed a similar trend as five of six participants demonstrated general
conceptual knowledge unprompted, describing behavioral competencies such as communication,
troubleshooting, influence, and relationship-building as important to leadership. 100% of
interviewees highlighted systems-thinking and reasoning skills as one of the most important
learning areas that had taken place. 100% of interviewees were able to discuss the Goleman
leadership styles and how they used them in their work to enhance team effectiveness, and 67%
were aware that it was part of the “emotional intelligence” framework.
Front line leaders reported a clear understanding of what they need to do to be successful
and displayed a widespread ability to name the behavioral competencies that build team
effectiveness (per Boyatzis’ framework) in common communications in survey responses and
interviews. 100% of interviewees reported that conceptual knowledge in a specific and nuanced
format was more important than the general framework knowledge, in line with the adult learning
theory principle of relevance to the learners’ knowledge individual usage. During the evaluation
process, two additional nuanced findings on conceptual knowledge were uncovered that are worth
discussion.
Conceptual knowledge of specific competencies is a significant influence when linked
with procedural and metacognitive knowledge that relates specifically to the learners’
challenges and situational deployment. The clear theme that emerged related to this topic is that
for conceptual knowledge to be retained it needs to be linked to procedural knowledge of how to
deploy leadership competencies in a relevant format to the learner’s specific situation and
challenges with five of six (83%) interviewees describing the need for relevant, process-driven
information as the highest priority. 100% of interview participants agreed that leadership
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 75
development was not effective when it was deployed in a format that was passive (i.e. lecture and
listening) and/or general (i.e. framework information without direct connection to their job).
Interviewee JG stated, “to move the needle…it must be pertinent to me right now.” 100% of
interview participants reported being able to successfully mimic role model behavior through
social learning without specific conceptual knowledge. This was echoed in the survey as 65% of
all employee comments on the survey described the highest value leadership education as targeted
to their situation including function, location, and team culture.
These insights may give clarity into what separates effective from ineffective programs. As
described in chapter two, traditional leadership education programs are often ineffective. These
programs are implemented in a passive classroom learning environment aimed at providing
general conceptual knowledge as primary and procedural knowledge as a secondary priority –
much like other business topics. However, the learner perception in this case describes a need to
teach behavioral competencies through the learning style used in the sciences – the laboratory
format where priority is on strengthening procedural knowledge supported by conceptual
knowledge. This format also includes elements of the “flipped classroom,” where learners self-
study basic concepts and arrive to the session ready to deepen and apply this introductory
knowledge. The macro implication of this finding is that conceptual leadership education is best
gained through a lab and flipped classroom approach rather than the standard classroom format.
Social learning environments that blend conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge
acquisition may in fact be the ideal environment for learning leadership behavioral competencies.
These approaches are a hallmark of the field education pedagogy, suggesting that this system may
provide promising practices for use in leadership education.
These findings also stress that for conceptual education to be effective it must be modified
to the learners’ specific utilization format, rather than remaining at a general topical information
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 76
level. The macro implication of this finding is that leadership educators who utilize standardized or
“out of the box” curriculums to ensure validated conceptual knowledge much be sure to: a). tailor
specific information to the learners’ situation, b). provide procedural activities so that conceptual
knowledge can be gained in a procedural context, and c). create experimental laboratory-like
learning exercises that relate to situations that learners will encounter in the field.
Conceptual knowledge of performance expectations, the company ecosystem, and
company strategy was perceived as a major influence of the ability of frontline leaders to
deploy differentiated leadership competencies, including systems thinking, reasoning skills,
and social intelligence. This was not originally addressed within the assumed conceptual
knowledge influence but was discovered during the study when it was brought up by participants
in interview one and supported by participants in interview two. Conceptual knowledge of the
company ecosystem would be considered adjacent to procedural knowledge of social intelligence
and systems thinking. Conceptual understanding of the leveled ecosystem and its stakeholders was
described as critical foundational knowledge for being able to be motivated to act on procedural
and metacognitive knowledge of social intelligence behavioral competencies by all six
interviewees. During these conversations, interviewees reported that promotion to a higher level
includes exposure to a new group of people and a more complex company “ecosystem” than at
previous levels. Specifically, a new level includes new job duties that require interfacing with a
wider array of stakeholders, business functions, and departments.
According to interviewees and survey respondents, this requires a clear understanding of
performance expectations for the team, stakeholders (i.e. resource-owners and experts), and a
strong knowledge of the company ecosystem, including available resources and relationships
across departments. This was described by 100% of interview participants as a critical priority for
their leadership effectiveness and described by 67% of survey participants as one of the most
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 77
helpful topics in their leadership training. Interviewee ML observed that the process of learning the
company system must be an experience with a strategy, “structure, and foundation” for it to be
effective and efficient, rather them being “thrown into the deep end.” This statement was echoed
across both interviews and the open-end survey responses. Interview discussion highlighted the
fact that conceptual knowledge education on the company ecosystem of structure, stakeholders,
and resources should also include elements of procedural knowledge on how to leverage social
intelligence competencies in the various settings that they would find themselves operating in.
An example scenario of what participants described would be as follows: when newly-
promoted Occ-Med managers are learning staffing payroll management, if conceptual knowledge
only includes information on labor laws company protocols, basic billing rules (i.e. if staff hours
are billable or not) and department goals, they will be unable to use systems thinking to make
decisions that benefit the entire organization. If the conceptual knowledge provided includes the
Occ-Med overtime goals, full billing rules (i.e. if overtime is billable, and how this compares to
others), profit margins, revenue cycle process, as well as introductions to the payroll manager, and
invoicing manager for future reference, then the new manager will be motivated to deploy the
competencies of systems thinking to influence in their work.
In summary, interviewees described this contextual information as a major driver of
whether they are able to implement their conceptual knowledge of competencies: they need
knowledge of the system to implement systems thinking and social intelligence. These findings
indicate that companies should “front-load” a structured effort to equip managers with conceptual
knowledge of performance expectations and the internal company ecosystem, including strategy,
vision, and the matrix of departments, their resources, and their people. Once front-line leaders
have solidified this conceptual (and procedural) knowledge, it must be maintained through
metacognitive learning.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 78
Procedural Knowledge Findings
This study sought to explore whether front line leaders possess the procedural knowledge
of how to combine cognitive, emotional, and social leadership competencies and deploy them in
leadership duties. The needs analysis examined whether program participants felt they had
adequate knowledge and education on how to use their conceptual knowledge in a wide variety of
situations. This was based on manager self-reports in interviews and surveys on whether they had
procedural knowledge (how/when to deploy) of EI-SI leadership behavioral competencies
including focus, emotional control, and relationship management.
Front line leaders demonstrate procedural knowledge of how to use social intelligence
in leadership duties in some situations, but not others. Procedural knowledge is evaluated to be
an ongoing need for Occ-Med frontline leaders. This area is a priority for Occ-Med to address with
its leaders: 100% of interview participants and 73% of survey respondents shared that education
with procedural knowledge of different leadership styles and how to deploy them supports their
ability to use their competencies. Research has demonstrated that this process may take up to two
years for a majority of managers to fully perform in a leadership capacity (Corporate Executive
Board, 2015). This research suggests that an additional year of support for procedural knowledge
may be advisable. The data collected in this study seems to align with the profile of a group of
leaders that are in the formative process of amassing procedural knowledge of leadership
behavioral competencies.
The training feedback survey for the company (n=27) suggests that a good foundation of
procedural knowledge exists for the group. However, as this survey included less than half of the
full participant group (n=27, N=56) it is an incomplete picture. This survey revealed that 76.9%
agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “I don't let my feelings get the best of me,
even when others are being difficult” prior to beginning the program (EI competency: emotional
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 79
agility). This group size rose to 85.3% of managers agreeing with that statement after 24 hours of
EI-SI competency training. A similar phenomenon occurred as 76.9% of participants agreed with
the statement “when things are stressful, I can stay focused on what's important” - 88.5% agreed
with that statement just after completing 24 hours of training. Additional education requested in
the training survey responses included how to: use leadership styles (45%), manage relationships
(36%), and reasoning skill-related competencies (36%). This suggests that managers perceive
themselves to be more capable of demonstrating procedural knowledge appropriately than prior to
the program, but desire additional education.
The interview participants provided additional insight into the theme of what procedural
knowledge might be missing; 100% of interviewee participants report that the biggest blocker to
understanding procedural knowledge is how to appropriately deploy competencies in a wide array
of situations. JG summed up the theme well when he stated, “I want to know my boundaries. I
want to know I have fences and where they are…. I need to know what ‘our way’ of doing things
are at the company level … to challenge myself and to get to new areas in my development.” In
summary, as managers express knowledge of general procedures and a need for further specific
education on how to deploy behavioral competencies in a wide array of situations, this will be a
continuing effort and is evaluated to be an ongoing need for study stakeholders.
Metacognitive Knowledge Findings
This study sought to explore whether front line leaders understand their own EI and SI
strengths and gaps in leadership. The needs analysis examined whether program participants felt
they had adequate knowledge of their own strengths and gaps in their leadership style. This was
explored through survey questions and interviews on whether they had metacognitive knowledge
of their own leadership style.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 80
Front line leaders demonstrated a beginning understand of the strengths and gaps in
their leadership style and many stated a desire for ongoing metacognitive education.
Metacognitive knowledge is evaluated to be an ongoing need for this group. In the study survey,
23% of program participants report that they had not received mentorship or equivalent reflection
opportunity. Requests for more mentorship opportunities were also mentioned in the comments of
corporate training surveys. Metacognitive knowledge acquisition is evaluated to be an ongoing
need for study stakeholders.
Structured reflection time to process leadership responsibilities was considered a primary
driver of competency development and deployment by 100% of interview participants. A strong
theme emerged in interviews that challenging work paired with accessible managers and high trust
mentors, whether a colleague or a supervisor, as a highly effective form of the
procedural/metacognitive learning needed for leadership competency development. 100% of
interviewees aligned on this. These comments align with Experiential Learning Theory and the
Field Education recommendations to combine high-intensity field learning experiences with high
trust, supportive mentors for reflection.
Frontline leaders report the ability to achieve metacognitive knowledge of EI-SI
competencies through reinforcement and social learning, including effective mentoring, or
deep, trusting relationships with a team with high EI-SI culture. Interview respondents
describe the metacognitive knowledge building process in terms of social learning by using
phrases such as learning most when they “spend a lot of time together” with mentors they respect,
or are able to “have flow” or “synergy” with role models and team members. “Stretch projects”
and challenging work duties were perceived by 50% of interviewees as carrying little value to
competency development without social learning or metacognitive support. TA described these
experiences as an “almost magic” process; WD stated, “you learn most when you can be
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 81
vulnerable and there's trust” with their team and mentors. This metacognitive “engine” of mutual
talent development may give insight into why high-performing teams are able to achieve at the
level they are.
Another theme was the phrasing and concept of a new manager “leveling up” their thinking
and social intelligence through metacognition and performance as a result of the training was an
ongoing trend as interviewees described the process of developing competencies and learning to
deploy them with enough skills to influence productivity. This process was perceived by three
interview participants as a new leader “coming along” through several steps of improvement
leading to a “leveling up” where the deployment of new competencies blossomed and began to
influence outcomes. Based on the timing of the perceptions shared in the interviews of colleagues’
development, the process to “level up” advanced cognition appears to take three to four months,
emotional intelligence takes slightly under six months, and social intelligence is a six to nine
month process when given effective, ongoing social learning opportunities for each – and they tend
to happen in that order according to the perceptions of those in the program. More research is
needed to validate this perception with a wider audience.
Conclusion
To summarize the evaluation on whether front line leaders possess adequate knowledge to
demonstrate high emotional and social intelligence in their roles, conceptual knowledge is
considered a current asset and procedural and metacognitive knowledge are considered ongoing
needs. While procedural and metacognitive levels have improved during the program, learners
have stated that there is still a need for development in these areas. They have requested education
with a focus on how to apply their procedural knowledge to a wider array of situations. Learners
also shared a desire for more reflection opportunities to strengthen their metacognitive knowledge.
During the needs analysis of knowledge influences on front line leader social intelligence
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 82
behavior, interview and survey themes provided nuanced insights on the process through which
social intelligence is successfully built. These insights into the process of behavioral competency
development in leaders may provide practical insight for practitioners of leadership education and
research in future work.
Motivation Influences
This study investigated three motivation influences of frontline leaders’ ability to
demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles, particularly competencies that
have been newly developed through a leadership development program. First, the study examined
whether front line leaders’ self-efficacy or view of themselves as a capable leader of others,
influenced their ability to learn and deploy EI-SI behavioral competencies. Second, this study also
investigated whether front line leaders in the organization are influenced by utility value, or belief
that developing leadership competencies is useful and has value for success, in their motivation to
enhance their competencies. Lastly, the study investigated whether front line leaders’ motivation is
influenced by goal orientation, or the belief that EI-SI competency development will help them
accomplish their goals. The following section of chapter four discusses study findings related to
motivation influences. The evaluation findings are summarized in Table 11 below.
Table 11
Summary of Motivation Influences Evaluation Findings
Motivation Influence Need or Asset
(Goal Orientation) Front line leaders need a desire to improve their
leadership competencies and believe that EI-SI competency development
will help them accomplish their work performance goals.
Current Asset
(Utility Value) Front line leaders need to believe in the inherent value of
SI-EI based leadership to improve the productivity and culture of their
unit.
Current Asset
(Self-efficacy) Front line leaders need to view themselves as leaders of
others/capable of leading others
Current Asset
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 83

Goal orientation for the development of leadership competencies to accomplish their
work performance goals is evaluated as a current asset of Occ-Med front line leaders. Both
clinical and administrative study participants reported they perceive developing EI-SI
competencies to be important to achieving their goals. The study survey, deployed in October
2019, revealed that 97% of participants agreed with the statement “developing leadership skills is
important to my success.” This is consistent with a training feedback survey in April where 96% of
survey responders agreed with the statement “It is important for me to enhance my leadership
skills.” In addition, 92% of the study survey respondents report that they take leadership training
seriously or very seriously. The other 8% reported, “neutral/they do it because they feel obligated
to.” No survey takers responded that they do not take leadership training seriously. This data,
collected seven months apart, suggests that the motivation influence of goal orientation has
remained as an asset in front line leaders throughout the program.
Utility value of EI-SI based leadership is evaluated to be a current asset in Occ-Med
front line leaders. Study participants report that they perceive the development of EI-SI
leadership competency to have utility value. 95% of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed
that “Learning to manage my emotions makes me more effective in my role.” This is was
consistent with responses to the training feedback survey. In that survey, 95% agreed with the
statement “Better leadership skills will help me have better outcomes for my work” and 87%
agree/strongly agreed that “I am already applying the knowledge and skills from this training in
my role (or will apply very soon).” This information, collected seven months apart, suggests that
the motivation influence of utility value has continued as an asset in front line leaders throughout
the program.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 84
Self-efficacy is evaluated to be a current asset for Occ-Med front line leaders.
Leadership self-efficacy, or belief that one is capable of being a good leader, was noted as a
motivation influence over EI-SI leadership competency development in interviews and surveys.
The clear theme that emerged in the interviews was that self-efficacy is a key influence on the
development of leadership. One week prior to the training, the mean of responses in the training
feedback survey to the statement “When I look in the mirror, I feel like a leader” was 3.6 (scale of
1/strong disagree – 5/strong agree). The same group’s mean response to the question rose to 4.1,
with 83% of the group agreeing or strongly agreeing with that statement after 24 hours of Occ-
Med leadership education. This rise in self-efficacy before and after EI-SI competency-focused
educational interventions was also described by stakeholders.
The reason for this data trend was illuminated in the interviews as three of six participants
described entering the program with “imposter syndrome” (low self-efficacy) that they report
being resolved by the first 24 hours of leadership education during the program kickoff. The theme
is summed up well by the interview participant ML (a high-performing manager in the
organization) who said “I walked in (to leadership training with) a bit of imposter syndrome, so it
was hard for me at first because I was overwhelmed… Did I leave with the same feeling? No.” ML
mentioned specifically that education related to communication, innovation, and systems-thinking
(specifically organizational goals and corporate strategic plan) aided the development in her self-
efficacy as a leader. These themes suggest that self-efficacy may be able to be developed in
tandem with advanced cognitive and emotional intelligence competency clusters in front line
managers.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 85
Conclusion
In summary, goal orientation, utility value, and self-efficacy were evaluated to be current
assets for the Occ-Med leaders. These motivation influences remained consistently high
throughout the pilot program deployment. The 14% rise in self-efficacy indicators after field
education suggests that this style of learning may support self-efficacy development in tandem
with other competency development.

Organizational Influences
This study investigated three assumed organizational influence over the ability of frontline
leaders to deploy leadership EI-SI behavioral competencies: learning culture, learning
environments, and learning reinforcement. Evaluating these organizational influences is critical
because learners equipped with adequate knowledge and motivation must be in an environment
that facilitates the usage of those skills. The umbrella influence on learners’ ability to deploy EI
and SI skills evaluated by the study was the strength of organizational learning culture (OLC).
Strong OLC has been shown to create an environment that supports the development and
deployment of high EI-SI leadership behaviors, whereas a weak OLC suppresses EI and SI
learning (Watkins & Marsick, 2003). Companies with strong OLC have six shared characteristics:
1. Robust knowledge-sharing systems
2. Systems-thinking is present
3. Healthy inquiry and dialogue
4. Empowerment and shared vision
5. Continuous learning
6. Supportive leadership (Watkins & Marsick, 2003).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 86
This study evaluated the strength of these characteristics to induce the strength of Occ-Med’s
learning culture through the results of surveys deployed for this research study and staff culture
measurement by the organization. Like most aspects of the human environment, these
characteristics are intertwined and represented in culture, environment, and action. Characteristics
will be addressed under the organizational influence they most closely align with. The findings of
this inquiry into these organizational influences will be addressed in the following section. The
results of the needs evaluation are summarized in table 12.
Table 12
Summary of Organizational Influences Evaluation Findings
Organizational Influence Focus Area Need or Asset
Occ-Med needs a strong organizational learning culture
for participants to feel comfortable attempting to use
their new EI and SI skills.
Inquiry & dialogue,
Systems thinking,
Knowledge-sharing
Current Asset
Occ-Med must provide supportive learning environments
as they deploy and refine their new EI and SI skills.
Empowerment,
Leadership support
Current Asset
Occ-Med needs to provide regular reinforcement and
coaching support to Front line Leaders so they can
leverage their new EI and SI skills and are accountable to
the new method.
Inquiry & dialogue,
Continuous learning
Ongoing Need

Organizational learning culture strength is evaluated to be a current asset overall in
Occ-Med teams. A theme of inquiry and dialogue emerged in survey responses of sufficient OLC
strength for learners to deploy EI-SI competencies as they are developed. In the September 2019
culture survey, 98% of managers agreed with the statement, “I am totally comfortable asking my
supervisor questions” (n=66). Following this theme, 100% of study survey respondents agreed or
strongly agreed with the statement “I am open to hearing my team’s ideas and suggestions.” This
inquiry and dialogue appear to be supported with systems thinking and knowledge sharing by the
September 2019 culture survey as 94% of managers agreed that “I understand how my work
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 87
impacts the organization’s business goals,” and 86% of managers agreed that, “I have a clear
understanding of processes and policies within my department.” These are strong statements when
considered in the context that 47% of these survey takers have been working at Occ-Med for under
two years, and 53% had been in their current role for under one year at the time of the culture
survey. This suggests that the data is sufficient to assess the organizational culture at the team level
as a current asset. A team dynamic that is rooted in the OLC principles of inquiry & dialogue,
knowledge sharing, and systems, will likely support a healthy learning climate.
The learning environment is assessed as a current asset for front line leaders to
deploy and refine their social intelligence and leadership. A supportive learning environment
for behavioral competencies includes empowerment to use one’s judgment, supportive leadership,
and freedom to fail as the front-line managers develop their leadership behaviors.
Most front-line leaders report being empowered to use their judgment. In the research
survey, 87% of survey-takers agreed with the statement “I am empowered to solve problems using
my own judgment.” The research survey also revealed that 90% of managers agree with the
statement “I am not afraid to admit mistakes at work,” and 73% report that “I feel supported by my
manager.” Of the 27% that reported a neutral attitude toward manager support, the majority report
being empowered (72%) and comfortable admitting mistakes (73%). These trends appear to reflect
sufficient manager support considering no managers responded negatively to the question, and
39% of Occ-Med managers work remotely, often in a different time zone than their direct
supervisor.
These themes appear to support the assessment that a supportive learning culture is a
current asset of Occ-Med overall, demonstrating a theme of employee perceptions through surveys
and interviews that they are empowered and provided the freedom to fail by supportive leadership.
These aspects of OLC are linked to front line leaders’ ability to try out new skills and behavioral
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 88
competencies (Marsick & Watkins, 2003). If this characteristic was not present, it would inhibit
learners from applying their new learning - thereby dimming the effects of the educational
intervention. This also highlights the value of including team level comparative data in company
assessments to uncover lower performing “pockets” and target interventions for them.
Regular reinforcement and coaching support for front line leaders are evaluated to be
an ongoing need for front line leaders. The research survey, deployed in October 2019, asked
“How many training activities have you participated in?” The average number of types of training
activities was 3.5 for 2019, with the most activities common reported as monthly online class
session hosted by training director (85% of responders), mentoring from supervisor (62% of
responders), and in-person executive education (59% of responders). These trends demonstrate
substantial penetration of the intervention for a company with a distributed workforce providing
round-the-clock care in 18 states. However, this data also suggests that 38% of managers had not
received supervisor mentoring and 41% have not yet received in-class training from the Occ-Med
LD program as of October 2019. There is more work to be done to provide more managers
learning experiences on a regular basis, particularly in-class Tang University sessions and
mentoring support, which interviewees unanimously labeled as some of the most impactful
experiences to acquire leadership competencies. These workshops and mentorship given from the
company to its learners represent an important part of the reinforcement that occurs in a strong
learning culture.
Another aspect of continuous learning and reinforcement includes providing learners the
ability to access learning when they need to reinforce their own knowledge in the moment through
a robust channel. Throughout the interviews, a clear theme emerged that front-line leaders perceive
easily accessed independent reference resources to be critically important for reinforcement and
continuous learning. All six interviewees reported that follow up resources such as high-quality job
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 89
aids, articles, and related items available for independent reference when the need arises to have a
positive impact on their learning and use these items often. As WD described it, “It was super
helpful for me…. (having) really good materials to walk away with … great reading materials that
I still go back and reference.” Currently, the organization only has a small hub of reference
materials and most communication in the organization flows verbally without a written record.
Due to the feedback in surveys and interviews as well as the minimal resources in the organization
available for learners to autonomously reinforce their own knowledge, the organizational influence
of reinforcement and coaching support is evaluated as an ongoing need for front line leaders. On a
macro level, this theme means that the lack of robust knowledge-sharing systems between
departments may impede the growth of the managers that are navigating the system by preventing
them from connecting them with the information they need and diminishing their ability to fortify
their knowledge when they need it.
Conclusion
The first research question explored the influences on front line leaders’ ability to
demonstrate high Emotional and Social Intelligence in their roles. These influences will determine
whether the program participants will be situated to deploy the new skills and competencies that
they are learning in the leadership development program. Based on the reports of the program
participants, the learning environment is conducive to utilize the new program learning. Occ-
Med’s organizational learning culture and learning environments were judged by this evaluation to
be current assets that strong enough to support new leaders to deploy and refine their new EI and
SI skills. Regular reinforcement and coaching support to front line leaders were assessed as an
ongoing need as they learn to leverage their new EI and SI skills and are held accountable to the
new method. The following research question will explore whether front line leaders observed any
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 90
influence on their ability to support their teams’ behavior and outcomes through the deployment of
stronger social intelligence.

Research Question Two: Findings
What are front line leaders’ perceptions of the influence of Emotional and Social
Intelligence-based leadership field education on the effectiveness of their teams’
performance? Front line leadership education at Occ-Med leverages a theory-in-practice
framework with a working title of Leadership Field Education (LFE). The curriculum outline for
the program is available in appendix B. This system is adapted from Social Work’s Field
Education methods of building professional expertise and competency development. This follows
the basic Council of Social Work Education guidelines for university training adapted for learners
in a corporate environment. This framework is designed to build professional expertise, while
building advanced cognition, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and cultural intelligence.
Leadership Field Education adapts the core elements of Social Work Field Education to build these
competencies in leaders. The primary focus of Field Education is to socialize professionals to their
role and develop the ability to apply a core skillset with agility in a wide array of situations. There
are eight hallmarks of field education that the LFE program used as its guiding principles:
● Problem-based learning classroom instruction
● Individualized learning plans within a standardized framework
● Learning job functions directly from subject matter experts
● Systems thinking oriented contextual knowledge presentation
● Balanced development of technical, behavioral, and cognitive skills
● Training in empathy, resilience, and other areas of emotional intelligence
● Training that targets the usage of competencies for a wide variety of environments
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 91
● Learning environments that strategically push learners out of their comfort zone
under the care of a trusted mentor (High challenge + high support)
First, this section will discuss whether front line leaders perceived a general difference in
the LFE framework from a traditional program. Then it will review front line leaders’ perceptions
on whether the field education style of programming supported their competency development.
Finally, it will discuss interviewees’ perceptions of if the field education program had any
influence on the effectiveness of their teams’ performance. It was important to understand if the
leaders perceived a difference in the LFE program than other leadership programs prior to judging
their perception of the FE program influence.
Front line leaders perceived that the LFE program was different than a typical
leadership education program. Prior to the LFE program, OCC-Med had an ongoing consultant-
based leadership program the year prior. Therefore, it was critical to clarify if there was an
awareness between typical leadership seminars and an LFE session. The interviewees who were
exposed to the prior leadership training appeared to have a strong awareness that there was a
difference in the education style, citing interactivity, integration of EI education, and learn-work
sessions. JG summed up the trend with the statement, “You’ve done things that supported me in a
way where I feel like this time is different (than prior programs).” In the survey, interviewee US
noted that the LFE style of training using subject matter experts as field mentors and teachers
creates secondary and tertiary “ripple effects” in the organization. These findings refer to other
participant comments that they experience a sustained level of motivation and intent to stay with
the company. On a macro level, Field Education may demonstrate a cultural impact through the
“ripple effects” of involving more individuals in the company in training than in a typical training
method. Involving experts in training under the support of the training department builds their
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 92
communication and leadership skills, as well as offering opportunities for connections between
departments. More exploration is needed in this area.
Study participants’ perception of field education is that it is a desirable way to
strengthen social intelligence and related performance areas. Training surveys from the three-
day program kickoff conference revealed that learners perceived LFE styled sessions to be more
useful and enjoyable than non-LFE sessions. While not a true A/B test, there were LFE and non-
LFE sessions on most learning topics. In most topics, the LFE-style sessions were named as more
useful over the traditional sessions. When asked which were their favorite learning sessions at the
annual summit, 13 commenters named LFE-styled sessions 19 times vs. traditional-framework
sessions 14 times. When asked “Which were the most useful sessions?” 13 attendees named FE-
styled sessions 18 times and traditional sessions six times. One commenter shared, “I have sat
through many leadership training and this has been the most interactive, informative and
successful training as it incorporated many key people within our company that truly understand
the needs of the company and the team.” Interactivity, SME trainers, and situational deployment
are hallmarks of how the LFE framework teaches expertise and social intelligence. These comment
trends suggest that learners perceive LFE to be both distinctly different and successful.
This theme was continued in the interview data, as six of six interviewees stated a strong
preference for experiential education that builds new skills and knowledge as well as competencies
to “plug the knowledge into” such as systems thinking and social intelligence. Five of six
perceived the LFE framed education program to effectively accomplish this. Their descriptions of
successful education include those that build understanding concurrently with competencies
through problem-based learning. The other interviewee was optimistic but observed that a longer-
term program than six months may be needed to fully understand effectiveness. At a macro level,
the implication of this finding would include that leadership competency development may be
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 93
most effective through programming that includes relevant, problem-based exercises conducted in
a group format that blends learning and work sessions.
A field education framework is likely able to simultaneously maintain a proximal zone
of development for managers with a wide range of experience levels. As one of the hallmarks
of Field Education is individual development, the focus of training activities varied across groups
to appropriately meet leaders’ individualized learning needs. The goal was to keep learners in an
ideal zone of proximal development throughout the program, in line with best practice for effective
learning (Vygotsky, 1978). Front-line leaders with lower levels of experience were assigned
different learning activities than managers with a higher level of experience and previous
education. For example, a newer manager would receive an opportunity to develop and refine their
systems-thinking through tactical, cross-functional improvement projects, while another more
experienced manager was assigned to a far more complex, ambiguous project linking executive
strategy to frontline outcomes through data-tracking. However, both these learners were working
to push their systems-thinking to the next level through the process. Details of these adaptions are
available in appendix B as part of the program curriculum outline.
Overall program feedback did not vary substantially between experience levels and amount
of prior leadership training. The experienced manager group (>5 years’ experience) trended
slightly more neutral than newer managers (<3years’ experience), ranging from 0.05 to 0.1 lower
on training influence questions. One example of this variance would be a response mean of
3.9(sd=0.62) vs 3.95(sd=0.67) for the question “This leadership development program has
strengthened my awareness of my personal leadership style and strengths, as well as what I need to
work on.” (scale of 1-strong disagree to 5-strong agree). This suggests that problem-based learning
and LFE activities were able to maintain proximal development learning across these groups.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 94
The common theme across learners of all experience levels that activities begin with a
basic foundation of evidence-based information, and then the participant “earns” their learning
through high-challenge activities in high-support environments, followed by reflection allowing
the participant to “connect the dots” and recognize the patterns in their learning experiences. This
style of learning, which favors behavioral scientist pedagogy over leadership development
program design, appears to be able to successfully maintain a proximal zone of development for a
diverse group of leadership experience and orientation. The practice implication of this insight is
that how leadership development is taught is even more important than what is taught when it
comes to translating leadership education into team effectiveness.
Study participants perceived that the LFE program strengthened their performance
in duties that are driven by a leader’s social intelligence abilities. All six interviewees shared a
perception that the LFE program has impacted their behavior, and as a result influenced the areas
that they are responsible for driving progress in. In both the open-ended comments and interviews,
a clear theme emerged as frontline managers reported a perception of overall personal
effectiveness. “I feel that my effectiveness in my role has improved,” stated one survey
respondent. Two seasoned managers in interviews agreed that LFE program activities provided an
appreciated opportunity to “step back and reflect” as part of the educational session that was
helpful for the continued development of their effectiveness in managing relationships even after
considerable experience with leadership programs. All six interview participants perceived that
learning to have a high value and facilitating more effective and efficient work. When viewed
through the lens of organizational effectiveness, this strengthening of leaders’ effectiveness
underpins an organization’s ability to build its human capital.
To explore the relationship the research survey occurring six months after the program
kickoff, responders were filtered for individuals who reported participating in enough program
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 95
activities to be considered an FE benchmark. Survey responses that reported experiencing in-class
training, e-classes, mentorship, and stretch projects met the criteria and were utilized for the
analysis. This group (n=23) perceived their performance as a leader to be impacted by their
experiences with the leadership program. When asked, “Do you feel that leadership development
activities have strengthened your performance any of the following areas?” the average number of
areas reported by participants to be strengthened was 3.2. The top five performance areas that
survey responders perceived to be strengthened were: meeting expectations (75%), managing
relationships (70%), operational quality (60%), managing change (60%), and troubleshooting
(50%). Lower-experience leaders perceived their top area of improvement to be managing change
(80%), while higher experience leaders reported managing relationships (69%). In a healthcare
context, most of these areas are highly integrated with a leader’s ability to demonstrate social
intelligence (Gilchrist, 2016).
It is worth noting that neither change management nor troubleshooting were specific areas
strongly supported by the curriculum at the time of the survey; however, the support of these
competencies’ underpinning clusters seemed to have value to change management efforts. The
areas that were trained up by the program were systems thinking, creative reasoning, pattern
recognition, influencing, and company eco-system knowledge. Participants noted that this support
led to a more effective troubleshooting process throughout interviews and surveys (outlined
specifically elsewhere in this chapter). Leaders' perception of performance improvement shifted
depending on their job roles, and most survey takers reported a mix of three to four performance
areas they perceived to have been strengthened by the leadership activities.
This survey trend of SI-related processes was illuminated in the interviews by manager
perceptions. WD summed it up with a description of how she felt she was able to help her team
“… put out small fires before they turn into larger issues… by having that open line of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 96
communication.” This perception signals that front-line leaders' deployment is used to “read” and
“negotiate” more challenging social situations. This is a typical description of strong social
intelligence, which participants claim was been bolstered by field education training. When viewed
through a lens of organizational effectiveness, effective troubleshooting is linked to the efficiency
and strength of internal processes (Yukl, 2008). This, combined with effective change management
and change-ready mindset, supports a critical area of organizational effectiveness characterized as
innovative adaptation by Yukl (2008). These findings suggest that field education leadership
training supports efficiency and innovative adaptation in the front lines. More research is needed to
determine the strength of the influence.
A comparison of the surveys from May and October yielded an interesting insight that the
sessions most mentioned as favorite or most useful appear to align with the perceived biggest
performance areas strengthened by the program. The recap in table 13 below appears to loosely
support learner perception that the LFE program was able to support the development of
competencies in a useful way.
Table 13
Comparison of Program Kickoff Post-Session Survey with Research Survey
Top mentions in the feedback survey for
favorite / most useful sessions (combined)
May 2019
Top leadership areas perceived as
strengthened
by LFE program
October 2019
1. Leadership styles (Emotional
Intelligence)
1. Meeting expectations
2. Relationship management 2. Managing relationships
3. Company goals and expectations 3. Operational quality
4. Accountability and teams 4. Managing change
5. Contracts and budgets 5. Troubleshooting

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 97
Front line leaders perceive their teams’ effectiveness to have been strengthened after
the training in several areas. The interviewees perceived there to be an influence from the
program that was wide-reaching and at times difficult to quantify. TA stated, “it's amazing to see
what’s been done and how much impact … how far the (program’s) footprint has touched people.”
Quantifiable insight of this theme can be found in the data from the research study.
In the research survey, 84% of respondents perceived an enhanced ability to meet team
productivity goals post-training. Responses to open-end questions in the research survey included
comments by front line leaders sharing the areas of team effectiveness that they perceived to have
been affected by the new behaviors that they gained from experiences in the LFE program. These
can be joined into themes:
● Teams show improved ability to complete assignments and projects faster and meet
“self-defined, client-defined or regulatory deadlines” (4 mentions)
● Improved employee compliance to submit reports (3 mentions)
● Improved contact center call times, as leaders are better able to track employee
behavior and their times (2 mentions)
● Improved team accountability, motivation ability, and buy in to complete
unwelcome tasks (3 mentions)
● Overall higher effectiveness and agility in approach to meet goals (3 mentions)
Survey responders perceive these areas to be influenced in their teams based on their
personal behavior following the experiences in the LFE program.
The themes that appeared in the survey continued with the interview data. Four of the six
interviewees shared that they believed their enhanced leadership supported more proactive
behaviors in their teams. As the interview participant CR put it, “(My) people are more proactive
… and have more follow-through.” Five of six interviewees provided unprompted illustrations of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 98
employees guiding their own work more independently, fixing errors in a shorter amount of time,
and improving communication as examples of what new behaviors interviewees were seeing in
their teams following their own leadership training. This aligns with research that supportive usage
of reasoning skills and social intelligence competencies by a leader supports enhanced competency
usage by their direct reports (Boyatzis, 2009). This also supports the field education paradigm of
group leaders as social learning facilitators (Bogo, 2015). On a macro level, this suggests aligning
metacognitive exercises with practical learning enhances leadership competency usage by front
line leaders which “trickles down” to their teams through social learning.
Interview themes on proactive staff behavior were able to illuminate the survey comments
regarding the improved ability to help staff understand the importance of tasks, such as submitting
reports correctly and on time. As one interviewee put it, before training, they expressed frustration
of being able to get consistent outcomes from their team - the situation was, as they put it, “we’d
run in this huge circle constantly because … I need to do this project that you (i.e. direct report)
have done 17 times because it’s still not correct.” After going through training, they found they
were able to coach their teams to the point where they were able to “provide the reports … (and)
provide the correct information right away.” This aligns with another interviewee’s observation
that the training has improved her ability to make sure her employees “… have what they need to
do what they're, you know, being asked to do… they're not out there on their own; we're doing this
together like teamwork.” Commenters in interviews and surveys noted a few trends that occurred
post-training, including drops in errors, specifically billing and payroll errors, completeness of
reports submitted, and fewer deadlines being missed. This was attributed to a proactive mentality,
stronger task ownership, and better communication nurtured within the teams.
While not mentioned in the surveys, a clinical leader that participated in the second
interview perceived systems thinking and leadership competencies gained in the LFE may have
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 99
generated enhancement in their productivity and effectiveness as medical practitioners. This theme
was captured by ML describing a clinical colleague in the program: “He's definitely leveled up as
far as thinking things through, and being more conscientious about things like, ‘How do I handle
this case, and ... what do I need to give … to the (healthcare) providers that we’re working with?’
On a macro level, this suggests that the field education leadership training program supports front
line leaders to improve the quality cycle in their teams: the leader delegated tasks with better
information and supported the employee, which led to better quality task management and quality
output by their team members. This suggests that leaders are employing higher SI competencies to
influence their direct reports to deploy systems thinking and social intelligence to improve the
quality of their work.
In open-end responses of the research survey, front line leaders shared the perception that
agility in approach to meet goals to be strengthened by the LFE program. This emerged in the
second interview discussion, as three interviewees described their opinion that they have
consistently witnessed this in their teams. US described her perception of her team’s recent
approach as “Sure we can do this - the system might not be built quite yet, but we can do this. We
have the abilities.” This mentality aligns with the perceptions of enhanced proactive behavior
mentioned in previous paragraphs and supports the innovation component of organizational
effectiveness in the company. These findings suggest that LFE training supports managers’ ability
to build proactive behaviors in their teams that yield higher quality work output with shorter time
to completion. The macro implication of this finding is that managers that
A clear theme emerged across all study activities that field education leadership training
appears to positively enhance front line leaders’ ability to manage relationships with their teams
and colleagues. Of the managers completing the survey, 70% reported that managing relationships
were influenced by their training regimen. Open-ended comments included details on specific
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 100
areas they have experienced improvement including learning to connect with remote staff, and as
well as new ways to deal with people with different types of personalities. One high-level manager
shared that as a result of the training, the front line managers she oversees “are better able to gauge
where our (phone) agents are at” in a performance context, which has resulted in improved
performance in her team for call times. This was also mentioned in the survey comments.
Conclusion
Perceived areas of influence on team effectiveness by the field education leadership
program are summarized in Table 14 below. The following research question will explore if any of
the company artifacts in these areas demonstrate similar movement to the perception of the front-
line leaders.
Table 14
Summary of Perceived Areas of LFE Program Influence on Team Effectiveness
Organizational Effectiveness area Manager-perceived influences of LFE on team function
Human Capital Strength
Better communication
Stronger teamwork
Proactive mindset & behaviors

Operational Performance
Improved prioritization and decision-making
Improved follow-through
Meeting goals and expectations
Higher compliance rates for submitting reports
Internal Processes
Fewer payroll errors
Fewer billing errors

Innovation
More effective delegation
Shorter turnaround on tasks
More efficient troubleshooting
Change-ready mindset

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 101
Research Question Three: Findings
What evidence exists that Emotional and Social Intelligence-based leadership
education influences team effectiveness? For purposes of the study, team effectiveness is defined
in the same terms as organizational effectiveness at the team level. Manager reports in interviews
and the survey several areas where they perceived their teams’ activities had changed after their
front-line leaders participated in the development program. The third research area examines these
areas to see if the organizational records provide objective trends that align with front line leaders’
perceptions of improvement as described in research question two. The level of organizational
effectiveness includes so many internal and environmental drivers that this research does not
presume to infer causation of the LFE program for performance changes. In this case, internal
reports were examined for objective support of perceptions and observations from the front-line
leaders described in the research activities. Areas that organizational records were available to
verify included: lower invoicing errors by managers, increased compliance of clinical activity
report submissions by front line staff, increased teamwork, and enhanced morale. The records that
were chosen to represent those trends were the Clinical Activity Report submission log, client
invoice error log, annual turnover report, and related questions on 2019 staff surveys.
First the report submission compliance will be discussed, followed by findings on invoicing
errors, then a brief overview of survey changes, ending with a review of turnover trends. The
findings of the examination of these organizational artifacts are outlined in the following section.
Company reports support perceptions of increased compliance in clinical report
submissions by teams led by LFE participants, an indicator of team effectiveness for
innovation. Yukl (2008) describes the timely sharing of reliable data as a critical factor in an
organization’s ability to innovate and adapt, part of organizational effectiveness. As mentioned
previously, front line leaders in interviews and surveys shared the perception that LFE supported
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 102
their ability to increase their teams’ submissions of daily Clinic Activity (CA) Report. The CA
report is an important organizational tool used to measure clinic productivity and conduct valuable
information from the front line to leadership so that the company can adapt and support activities
in the field. LFE participants shared that they perceived their own improved ability to instill
proactive behavior and thinking styles in their teams enhanced CA report submission compliance.
Employees working in 64 onsite clinics are required to submit this report detailing clinic activities
at the end of every shift. This report includes information on the number of patients handled during
the shift, injury categories, and types of tests completed for patients (hearing tests, lung function
tests, etc.). The report was instituted in May. Although the timing was similar to the LFE program,
they were unrelated.
In the first month of the reporting requirement, 54% of sites submitted their CA reports on
time. According to the department director SG, in June managers began to strongly message the
CA report and its importance, in July minor changes were made to improve the submission process
based on front line feedback escalated to the director by the managers, and no information is
available for the month. August managers began to take formal accountability measures. By
September, the submission compliance rate reached 78% in these teams. In October, the CA report
was moved to a new system of record and was moved to a software system to make it easier for
clinic teams to submit the report and by December 2019 the CA report submission compliance rate
was 98%. This progress is summarized in figure three below. While many factors are involved in
staff compliance, this evidence is in agreement with the perception from front line leaders that they
felt supported by the training to improve reporting compliance, as the steps taken by the managers
to support the staff behavior of submitting reports fall within the topics defined in the LFE
curriculum (accountability, communication, data management).

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 103
Figure 3
Percent of Sites Submitting Clinical Activity Reports Within Deadline

Company reports support LFE participant perceptions of lower errors in invoices
submitted by invoicing by themselves and their direct reports, however, it is unclear if this
influenced a decrease in errors or maintenance of a low error rate: this is an indicator of
team effectiveness for internal processes. Yukl (2008) describes reducing errors as an indicator
of the efficiency of internal process reliability, a key factor in organizational effectiveness. Front
line leaders in interviews and surveys described a decrease in the number of errors appearing in
monthly client invoices submitted by LFE participants. The process through which client invoices
must be approved and processed through each job that managers complete each month is a
complex procedure that must be completed within a short time to ensure that their job clients are
billed for the appropriate healthcare services. Beginning with the program kickoff seminar,
managers received billing education with systems-thinking competency support in April, data
usage education with analyzation competency support in June, and invoicing education with
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 104
advanced inductive reasoning support. This combined support of financial, data education, and
advanced cognition competencies were perceived by managers to positively influence their ability
to complete their invoicing procedures correctly and on time.
Prior to the LFE program, errors were common, but not tracked, according to the Occ-
Med’s billing manager. In February, four months before the FLE program start, the billing
department began to track the number of errors. In 2019, corrections of manager work were
recorded in the billing department’s Invoice Errors Log, which tracked initial errors made by
managers when recording job codes and payroll information for billable staff on client invoices.
These job invoices were then checked by the billing department before being sent to clients. Errors
in billing amounts or job coding for staff time or expenses were captured in the log whether
discovered by billing staff or by the client. This was tracked separately until the end of October
2019; at that point, the practice of keeping an invoice error log was ended and the log was merged
with overall error records. It is worth noting that large new clients were brought on in July and
October, which led to slightly elevated error rates as managers learned new job billing rules for
those accounts.
For purposes of the study, the data were examined month-by-month from February to
October. The number of combined coding and billing amount errors were divided by the number
of omnibus invoices submitted during the month, to create an error-to-invoice ratio. The error log
revealed that the ratio of errors to invoices was 0.43 (total errors = 33) in February, which dropped
through March and April to 0.05 (total errors = 4) in May. The error rate rose slightly until July
when the final segment of invoicing education was provided to managers and maintained a low
rate from August to October (0,07, 0.06, 0.11, respectively). This theme is summarized in figure
four as follows.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 105
Figure 4
Ratio of Errors to Invoices by Month, 2019

While this trend does somewhat verify participant perception that billing errors were lower
after the LFE program start, the number of errors appear to drop prior to the LFE program kickoff,
as soon as managers became aware of them. This data suggests that LFE workshops may have
supported managers to maintain a low rate overall and minimize what might have been a
significant escalation of error rates when two large new clients were brought into the invoicing
process. On a macro level, these trends may suggest that competency-based financial education
can influence managers’ ability to maintain performance in situations with new challenges, which
is a hallmark goal of the LFE education style.
Staff morale surveys supported manager perceptions that the LFE program improved
relationships with the team, an indicator of team effectiveness in human capital strength.
Yukl (2008) cited teamwork as an indicator of the human capital strength category of
organizational effectiveness. Front line leaders in interviews and surveys perceived an increase in
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 106
cooperation within their departments, and listed relationship management as one of the most
commonly perceived areas influenced by training. Yukl (2008) cited teamwork as an indicator of
the human capital strength category of organizational effectiveness. In May 2019, a staff culture
survey was completed in Carson, California location of the company to measure staff morale at
that division. While the timing was convenient for the LFE program kickoff, it was unrelated to the
program and chosen due to concerns of manager quality and staff morale. Managers in this
division participated in the LFE program and had a range of experience from a few months to 20
years. In early September, a staff engagement survey was performed with similar questions for the
company. By that time, the managers in the Carson location had received an average of 35 hours of
LFE education over four months. This included LFE education on staff engagement,
communication, customer service, leadership, as well as behavior coaching support. While this
survey is not representative of the entire group, it may indicate the influence of LFE intervention
for managers affects the morale of the team they serve in the short term.
For the May survey, n=31 and the September survey, n = 43 for the division. Questions
were scored on a 1 – 5 Likert scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree. Not all survey movement
was dramatic, due to the data points were only about 100 days apart: for example, the group’s
mean score from “My manager has my back” rose from 3.65 to 3.70. In the area of teamwork,
however, the group average agreement for the question “There is a spirit of cooperation in my
department” rose from 3.55 to 3.90, or 9.8% between surveys. Additionally, “I am proud of the
work that my team produces” rose from 3.78 to 4.2, or 9.6%. This evidence suggests that teams in
this division may share the perception with their managers that teamwork improved during the
early stages of the LFE education program period, even if their perception of their relationship
with their managers had not shifted. It must be emphasized that this is an early stage formative
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 107
assessment, and the full influence of the programs will be better understood after a year of
intervention.
After the organization implemented emotional and social intelligence-based
leadership education, annual reports demonstrate evidence of a downward trend in the
monthly voluntary employee turnover rate, an indicator of team effectiveness in operational
performance. Yukl (2008) described high performing employee retention as an indicator of the
operational performance category of organizational effectiveness. Retention of high performing
employees provides a competitive advantage in operational performance by retaining unique skills,
knowledge, and strategic relationships within the organization (Yukl, 2008). For purposes of this
study analysis, voluntary turnover and monthly voluntary turnover rate were defined with the
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) standard definitions (2018). Voluntary turnover is defined as
employment separations initiated by an employee; exclusive of layoff, discharges, and company
transfers (BLS, 2018). Turnover rate was defined as the number of separations (voluntary or
involuntary) during the month divided by the number of employees who received pay for that
month for the mid-month pay period inclusive of the 12
th
of the month (BLS, 2018). These
definitions were applied to Occ-Med staff headcount and termination records to calculate and
compare 2018 and 2019 annualized monthly voluntary turnover rates before and after LFE
program implementation.
The ending 2018 annual voluntary turnover rate was 17.0% for the organization; by the end
of 2019, the annual voluntary turnover rate had dropped to 14.7%. The annual average rate fell
from 19% to 16%, respectively. Upon calculation it was noted that the 2019 monthly annualized
voluntary turnover rate fell below the 2018 rate approximately 30 days after the LFE program
kickoff and remained so through the end of 2019. Linear regression analysis of the trendline slopes
between 2018 annualized monthly voluntary turnover (y = 0.263, SE = .05) and 2019 annualized
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 108
monthly voluntary turnover (y = -0.008, SE = .01) indicates that the implementation of the
leadership field education program significantly influenced the drop in voluntary turnover for the
organization, t(20) = 5.82, p = < .001.These findings are summarized in figure five below. The
macro implication of this statistically meaningful finding is that an effective leadership
development program has the potential to improve employee retention rates, even in environments
where voluntary turnover rates are lower than the industry average, as Occ-Med’s is (BLS, 2018;
BLS; 2019).

Figure 5
Comparison of 2018 and 2019 Occ-Med voluntary turnover trends

Conclusion
Overall the findings in research question three suggest initial evidence that confirms manager
perceptions of enhanced team effectiveness following the introduction of leadership field
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 109
education into the organization. Following the leadership field education, CA Report submission
rates were improved, billing error rates by managers decreased, voluntary turnover rates dropped,
and staff survey teamwork indicator scores show promise. While this does not presume causation,
it suggests evidence of a positive effect that should continue to be examined through longer-term
data collection and analysis. These elements are associated with the four main areas of
organizational effectiveness. Available evidence of employee retention and report compliance
rates presented a fairly strong verification of manager perception. Teamwork enhancement was
promising, but not studied for a long enough time for a full picture. Billing errors described a trend
that was not dissimilar to manager perception, but more explanation is needed. These findings are
summarized in table 15 below.
Table 15
Summary of Evidence Supporting LFE Participant Perception on Team Effectiveness
Organizational
Effectiveness area
Measurement of LFE influence on
team effectiveness
Verified perception?
(Yes/No/Somewhat)
Human Capital Strength
Stronger teamwork

Somewhat
Operational Performance Higher employee retention Yes
Internal Processes
Less billing errors

Somewhat
Innovation
Higher compliance rates for
submitting data reports
Yes

Chapter Four Conclusion
Each research question provided nuanced findings with implications for leadership
educators practicing in the field. This study began with an inquiry into the knowledge, motivation
and organizational influences affecting front line leaders’ ability to demonstrate high Emotional
and Social Intelligence in their roles. It continued with an exploration of manager perception of the
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 110
influence of Emotional and Social Intelligence-based leadership development on their ability to
enhance their teams’ effectiveness. It concluded with an investigation into company records to
seek supporting evidence for those manager perceptions. These inquiries yielded nuanced insights
that spanned across research questions and may provide value to practitioners building field
education-based programs in their organizations for front line leaders.
● Competency learning occurs in active, laboratory-like environments: not passive
classrooms. Implication: Knowledge must be applied as it is acquired with activities
such as case studies, problem-based learning, and high-challenge, high-support field
learning.
● The foundation of leadership competency development includes a strong knowledge of
the company ecosystem. Implication: Managers need to understand the company’s
resources, politics, internal expert network, and how to access them before deploying
leadership competencies. Clarity on performance goals at a personal and company
level, and how to navigate the ecosystem to accomplish those goals, is the first step to
developing social intelligence leadership competencies.
● Social learning is a driving factor: employees learn social intelligence and leadership
competencies from peers as well as leaders. Implication: Utilize cohorts and group
learning to raise the social intelligence of management teams.
● High performing teams are social intelligence incubators. Implication: High performing
teams groom each other for leadership by developing each other’s social intelligence.
Leadership development even begins before the promotion to management.
● The ability to act on social intelligence knowledge is driven by a metacognitive engine.
Implication: Learners may not act on their knowledge of what they “should” be doing
unless they are confident. Personal reflection in a psychologically safe environment
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 111
allows learners to align their knowledge and behavior. Reflection opportunities (often
prioritized lower than other learning activities in traditional formats) has the same - or
higher - value as didactic education to learners. Integrated reflection is a necessary
component of a leadership development program.
The evidence examined as part of the pilot program yields promising results, however, they are
formative evaluations and are limited by nature. It is recommended to revisit the research once the
field education program is fully developed to discover if these initial results can be replicated
across groups and examine the evidence more robustly to validate front line leader perceptions
shared as part of this study. It is recommended that further research build on this study by
incorporating a comparison group, measurement of project turnaround times, profitability, and
communication metrics into the research conversation. The recommended future work to support
front line leaders’ ability to positively influence their team’s performance will be addressed in
Chapter 5. The findings in this chapter will inform recommendations for the organization to
address gaps and build on strengths in influences identified during the current field education pilot
program.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 112
Chapter Five: Recommendations
The following sections review recommendations to further support leaders’ social and
emotional intelligence development to improve team performance. This chapter is framed as three
sections: recommendations for the supporting intervention, implementation of the intervention, and
evaluation of the intervention. Recommendations for future work and supporting interventions will
follow the Clark and Estes (2008) Knowledge-Motivation-Organization (KMO) framework by
addressing the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences on front line leaders’
performance. The future work to support front line leaders will be implemented as a wrap-around
support program with educational and operational elements.
This goal of the program will be to build a formal framework that follows field education
learning, providing the opportunity to develop their leadership in high-challenge, high-support
learning environments that encourage the independent practice of advanced cognitive and EI-SI
competencies. The goal of the program will be to advance learners’ knowledge of their role and
organization and improve their decision-making and performance through advanced systems
thinking, technical skills, and reasoning skills (i.e. advanced cognition competency).
As these competencies are developed, frontline leaders will receive support and education to
strengthen their ability to manage themselves, their relationships, and situations through improved
emotional intelligence (i.e. empathy, resilience, situation-reading). Lastly, front line leaders will be
held accountable to learn, enhance, and leverage Social Intelligence competencies (active listening,
relationship management, influencing skills) to increase the effectiveness of their teams’
innovation, performance, and execution (i.e. Leadership Competencies).
The assessment of the implementation of the recommended program will leverage the
Kirkpatrick New World (2016) evaluation model (KNW). The KNW model is framed as four
levels: Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results (2016). Each level assesses a different area and
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 113
level of impact of learning activities in an organization. These include learners’ Reaction to the
program, their Learning acquisition, Behavior change following the program, and Results of those
changes in the organization (Kirkpatrick, 2016). The periodic evaluation of the program will assess
whether the program implementation is meeting its goals, provide opportunities to make
adjustments, and evaluate the return on expectations for the organization.
Recommendations to Strengthen Knowledge Influences
The findings of the study indicated EI-SI competency development in new leaders includes
conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive influences. These knowledge influences are individual
priorities to address in this situation; however, they are ideally met with education interventions
that address multiple learning needs at one time (Bogo, 2015: Kirkpatrick, 2016).
Recommendations to support these influences will be based on Social Work’s Field education
framework and will include overlapping learning between knowledge influences. This will develop
leaders’ knowledge as well as their cognitive, affective, and social competencies required to use
that knowledge effectively (Boyatzis, 2009; McClelland, 1973). This information is summarized in
Table 16 below and is detailed in the narrative that follows.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 114
Table 16
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Knowledge Influence Principle and Citation Recommendation
New frontline leaders
need knowledge of the
system in which they
work and how to
leverage resources. (D)
People learn better when they
trust their teachers’ expertise
(Bogo, 2015)
People learn better when they
can emulate competent models
(Bandura, 2000)
Provide ILT training from SME
owners with reference materials
for policies, computer systems,
budgeting, division of duties
(RACI). Create accessible
resource hubs.
Frontline leaders need to
develop differentiating
cognitive competencies
to support their growth.
(D)
Case study + reflection = most
powerful form of learning;
teaches generalizable principles
(Thompson, Getner,
Loewenstein, 2003)
Higher-order knowledge checks
improve retention (KNW, 2016)
Use teaching methods that build
creative and critical thinking
skills, including case studies,
higher-order knowledge checks,
and stretch projects.
Frontline leaders need to
know what EI-SI
competencies a leader
needs to build team
effectiveness. (D)
This knowledge is not gained in
college or other settings in a
meaningful way (Berger, 2014)
Provide Instructor-led
education on EI/SI leadership
styles, team effectiveness, and
employee engagement.
Frontline leaders
struggle to combine and
prioritize EI-SI
competencies and
deploy them in
leadership duties. (P)
Agility is critical to successful
leadership (Goleman, 1995)
Curriculum framed by future
needs is most effective (Schank
2003)
Conceptual knowledge must
connect to an understanding of
how to deploy in daily duties
(Mayer, 2011)
Ensure that leadership
education incorporates an
emphasis on, and practice
exercises for, EI-SI agility: i.e.
adapting one’s style to be
effective in each situation and
with the individuals in it.
Frontline leaders need to
better understand their
personal EI and SI
strengths and gaps in
their leadership role and
identity. (M)
structured reflection
opportunities build self-efficacy
and allow learners to both refine
the skill levels (Mayer 2011)
Real-world practice with high
challenge and high support
levels supports motivational
influences (Bogo, 2015)
Provide assessment for
leadership style, personality
type, and communication skills.
Use high-stakes/ high-support
stretch projects
provide 1:1 mentor
opportunities to create double-
loop learning reflection
Abbreviations: (D)eclarative; (P)rocedural; (M)etacognitive; (EI) Emotional intelligence;
(SI) Social Intelligence
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 115
Conceptual Knowledge Solutions
The study findings indicated that 87% of frontline leaders considered robust knowledge of
the organizational systems in which they are required to work, as well as an understanding of the
system resources (i.e. usage of resources and connection to resource owners) to be a critical factor
in their effectiveness. This would suggest that new managers need information about the new
systems and resources they will be interacting within their leadership capacity as well as an
understanding of how to interact with those systems and resources effectively. These findings align
with the principles of Organizational Learning Culture theory which states that learning takes place
when front line leaders are connected to, and understand, the wider context in which they work
through transparent, cross-functional efforts (Watkins & Marsick, 2003). A recommendation
rooted in social learning theory was selected to close this declarative knowledge gap. Bandura
(1971) found that individuals learn declarative knowledge best when they can learn it from
someone they are able to follow as a behavioral model. Clark and Estes (2008) have further
demonstrated that individuals can transfer and retain knowledge more effectively when able to
independently reference information after learning.
In light of these findings, the recommendation is to provide instructor-led training by in-
company subject-matter experts on the new policies, computer systems, budgeting, as well as their
scope of duties. The recommendation is to also create a user-friendly hub of reference materials,
such as videos, job aids, and matrices available for independent access in formats that managers
can use during the workflow in their jobs. An example of this would be standardized discovery
meetings (i.e. “office hours”) with the Director of Operational Excellence to review the
organizational role divisions (RACI chart), change management resource hubs, company
innovation practices, and facilitate introductions to any intra-organizational partners that would be
helpful to the new manager.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 116
The study also found that 73% of frontline leaders confirmed it is important to know what
EI-SI competencies are required for a leader to build team effectiveness. Literature has long
reported that this knowledge is not gained in college or other formal education settings in a
meaningful way for many on a topic as complex as leadership. Rather, it is built concurrently with
field experience and the previously mentioned systems and resource knowledge compounded the
effectiveness of the learning in both areas. Therefore, a recommendation based in Field Education
was selected to close these declarative gaps synchronously. The recommendation is to provide
ongoing experiential education on EI-SI leadership styles, team effectiveness principles, and
employee engagement during the same period as education on the higher-level resources in group
settings, a method that has demonstrated effectiveness in the past (Goleman, 2007). An example
would be a “book club” including leadership books or articles such as Who Moved My Cheese by
Johnson & Blanchard paired using case study group exercises from daily work which includes
systems that the new managers are newly learning and interacting with.
Findings of this study indicate that high-value learning experiences for new managers are
in line with principles of adult learning theory: i.e. learning experiences must be in engaging
formats, connected to motivation, timed well with their current challenges, and leverage learners’
wisdom (Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2012). Empirical evidence from Corporate Executive
Board’s 2015 research indicated that 60% of new managers in the study sample struggled to
communicate with stakeholders and solve problems effectively in the company ecosystem for at
least two years after hire. This evidence supports the above recommendation to provide training on
higher-level job skills in tandem with concrete knowledge of the associated differentiating
competencies in smaller sessions that include metacognitive learning unique to the person and their
job function.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 117
Procedural Knowledge Solutions
Decades of research has indicated that mental, emotional, and social agility is critical to
successful leadership (Goleman, 1995). To gain this agility, conceptual knowledge of
competencies must connect to a procedural understanding of how to deploy and adapt them within
the construct of their daily duties (Mayer, 2011; Schank 2003). This would suggest that these
frontline leaders utilize the same styles to which they are comfortable and need additional training
on how to read the room and switch styles. The recommendation to close this procedural
knowledge gap is to ensure that leadership education incorporates an emphasis on, and practice
exercises for, EI-SI agility: i.e. adapting one’s style to be effective in a given situation and with the
individuals in it. An example of this would be watching videos that includes leadership styles
agility, noting cues when styles shift, and discussing optimal usage in team environments that
managers commonly deal with.
In 2018, Abdelkarim, Schween, and Ford surveyed medical faculty from 21 American
universities (n =243) to explore the efficacy of problem-based learning methods for medical
doctors in clinical environments. These faculty agreed that conventional learning supplemented
with peer-to-peer learning that explored real-world problems to result in robust learning with
favorable knowledge retention rates for medical environments (p>0.05). Findings from this study
supported the previous research when it revealed managers desire conceptual and procedural
knowledge paired with EI-SI competency guidance that is relevant to their specific situation and
identity.
Metacognitive Knowledge Solutions
The findings of the study indicated that 95% of frontline leaders believe that higher
emotional intelligence (i.e. managing emotions) makes them more effective in their role. A
recommendation rooted in field education learning theory was selected to support metacognitive
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 118
learning. Research has demonstrated that a real-world learning environment that includes high
challenge and high support levels, paired with structured reflection opportunities supports self-
efficacy, learning motivation and continued skill refinement (Bogo, 2015; Mayer, 2011). This
would suggest that providing frontline leaders opportunities to stretch their competency levels in
supportive, yet challenging environments, paired with structured opportunities for self-assessment
and reflection would improve their competency strength. The recommendation is to provide self-
assessments on leadership style, personality type, and communication skills. Managers would
ideally use real-world stretch projects as learning opportunities paired with structured mentorship
sessions to create reflection opportunities.
An example of this would be for participants to take a leadership self-assessment, use
elements of a designated leadership style in new ways over the course of the following month
during a stretch project, and discuss the results with a mentor or coach. This framework is also
often used to integrate new counseling styles into therapeutic practice and is a signature
component of the field education model used by social work and counseling programs, affirming
the efficacy of this approach in EI-SI skill education (Bogo, 2015).
Recommendations to Strengthen Stakeholder Motivation Influences
This study explored three motivation influences on front line leaders’ EI-SI competency
development: self-efficacy, goal orientation, and utility value. The findings affirmed that
stakeholder motivation is high. Respondents reported high goal orientation and utility value for
learning EI-SI competencies in leadership. As such, self-efficacy is chosen as the priority to
address in an effort to maintain high levels of motivation. Recommendations for supporting this
influence will be rooted in building self-efficacy through Social Learning and Growth Mindset.
This information is summarized in Table 17 below.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 119
Table 17
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Motivation
Influence
Principle and Citation Context-Specific
Recommendations
Frontline leaders need to
believe they can master EI-
SI competencies.
Self-efficacy
Belief about their capacity to
perform a task (Bandura, 2000)
learners must believe EI-SI is
malleable through effort context
(Dweck)

Growth mindset
workshop, include
storytelling by senior
leaders on how they
improved their own SI
Frontline leaders need to
believe in the inherent
value of SI-EI
competencies in leadership
to improve the productivity
and culture of their unit.
Utility Value
Need for achievement: learning
activities will improve their
ability to do their job and meet
goals (McClelland et al, 2011)
Addressed with
intervention as above
Frontline leaders need a
desire to improve specific
EI-SI competencies.
Goal Orientation
Specific, difficult tasks produce
higher commitment (Locke &
Latham 2002)
Self-determination (autonomy,
relatedness, wellbeing) (Deci &
Ryan, 1985)
Data indicates there is no
gap for this influence

Recommendations Related to Self-efficacy and Utility Value Support
The study findings indicated that 97% of respondents reported high or adequate motivation
to improve their leadership-related emotional intelligence. This would suggest that an intervention
to maintain this motivation level would be ideal. To sustain frontline leaders’ motivation for
continued development, educational efforts should continually target learners’ self-efficacy and
provide immediate utility value. A recommendation rooted Growth Mindset Theory has been
chosen to support this motivation, as growth mindset spans both of these motivation areas and has
been demonstrated to enhance the effectiveness of social intelligence in leaders who possess it
(Caniëls, Semeijn, & Renders, 2018). Dweck’s (2010) research found that the successful
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 120
development of EI-SI competencies is deeply linked to a growth mindset, or the belief that these
competencies are malleable through effort. Similarly, self-efficacy theory posits that an
individual’s belief about their capacity to perform a task determines their perspective, motivation,
and behavior regarding it (Bandura, 2000). In light of this, the recommendation is to take a three-
pronged approach to ensure that learners are exposed both to growth mindset education and
individuals that model that mindset and behavior. This would include providing distilled education
through experiential growth-mindset workshops annually, include growth mindset-based
icebreaker exercises, embed growth mindset concepts and language into class material regarding
EI-SI competencies, and assign mentors and education facilitators who exhibit growth mindset
behavior and language.
The value of a growth mindset to leadership efficacy has been affirmed by several studies
(Chase, 2010; Heslin and Keating, 2017). Most recently, a study in 2018 found that the
development of a growth mindset enhances managers’ proactive personality traits (i.e. usage of
social intelligence competencies), leading to greater engagement of the entire team (Caniëls,
Semeijn, & Renders, 2018). These results provide a promising practice for Occ-Med to model in
pursuit of its strategic goal.
Recommendations to Strengthen Organizational Influences
This study explored three aspects of organizational learning culture: environment,
resources, and procedures. Leadership is providing adequate resources in the organization;
therefore, environment and procedure have been prioritized to address in the recommendations.
Recommendations for supporting these three influences will be based on the Field education
methodology to develop aspects of organizational learning culture. This information is
summarized in Table 18.
Table 18
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 121
Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Organization
Influence
Principle and Citation Context-Specific
Recommendation
Leadership makes concrete
investments in efforts,
prioritizes learning, and
models desired behaviors.
Learners must gain practice in
uncomfortable social situations,
with real-life consequences under
the care of mentors (Bogo, 2015)
Deploy the program with
all LFE elements and a
dedicated leadership
educator.
Occ-Med must provide
supportive learning
environments as they
deploy and refine their
new EI and SI skills.

Robust knowledge-sharing
systems (Watkins & Marsick,
2003)
On-demand information
hubs of policies,
processes, and learning
materials that can be
accessed independently
Structure of regular
reinforcement and
coaching support to Front
line Leaders
Learning environments must be
sustainable, as SI competencies
require six months to two years to
materialize (Osher et al., 2016;
Wayne, Bogo, & Raskin, 2010)
Monthly learning
touchpoints for all front-
line leaders: staff
meetings, one-on-one
meetings

Deploy a Leadership Program That Follows Field Education Framework
Commit resources to deploy a program that meets Leadership Field Education criteria.
Both survey and interview participants reported that formal ongoing leadership development
programs have a significant positive impact on their effectiveness; however, when that
programming is disjointed, disconnected, or occasional, learning interventions are far less
effective. The programs they describe as effective include consistent interactive workshops,
opportunities to gain practice outside the classroom, and a strong support network. The
recommendation for the organization is to take an approach of Field Education to provide leaders
the appropriate resources to learn. Field Education requires notably more resources, periodic
workshops, or e-learning. This would include assigning a resource-owner, creating a multi-faceted
program, and taking a multi-year approach to planning and resource allocation. An example of this
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 122
would be to assign an individual to create a two-to-three-year curriculum with opportunities to
learn through workshops, experiences, and mentors.
The Field Education framework of Social Work and counseling education purports
interactive theory education followed by high-challenge/high-support learning in a supportive
environment under the care of a skilled mentor (Bogo, 2015). This approach has been used with
success since 1980 in Social Work education to teach job skills that require significant social
intelligence and critical thinking skills (Raskin, 2010). This style of programming combines two
other theories to provide skill-based behavioral competencies. Experiential Learning Theory leans
on interactive education, concrete experiences, reflective observation, and active experimentation
(Kolb & Kolb, 2012). While Problem-Based Learning (particularly popular in medical school)
includes working through real-world problems case studies and a practicum under the mentorship
of a preceptor (Busari & Isbouts, 2018). As such, it appears that the literature supports the learners’
feedback and the recommended approach for a field education-based intervention.
Create robust knowledge-sharing systems
Create robust knowledge-sharing systems that allow front line leaders access to update
policies, procedures, and learning resources. Front line leaders indicated in both surveys and
interviews that the ability to independently use information to make decisions, guide their actions
and direct their behavior is a critical component of their learning, and identified several areas of
improvement in this area for the organization. This would suggest that information for front line
leaders that is easy to access and responsive to their needs would be advisable. A recommendation
rooted in organizational learning culture theory (OLC) was selected to close this organizational
gap. OLC indicates that multifaceted, integrated communication channels that facilitate knowledge
sharing support learning efforts (Watkins & Marsick, 2003). A situationally relevant example of
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 123
this type of support would be creating on-demand information hubs for policies, processes, and
learning materials that can be independently assessed when front line leaders need them.
A hallmark of both Field education and social work is a focus on socializing employees to
higher roles through social learning. Robust, accessible communication channels are a critical
component of successful social learning that connects front line leaders across the organization
(Watkins & Marsick, 2003). These formal communication channels are through written and verbal
means. Written communication channels ensure employees are kept aware, often through digital
means, including informative email updates, newsletters, and resource hubs; these channels serve
as a foundational component for manager development, organizational effectiveness and
innovation-ready culture (Watkins & Marsick, 2003, Yukl, 2008). Verbal communication channels
include knowledge-sharing between coworkers and mentors through in-person meetings, coaching
conversations, and even online chats (Watkins & Marsick, 2003). While verbal communication
channels will organically develop, structuring these channels strategically to support learners will
greatly improve learning outcomes and enhance the speed and quality of the socialization process
to the new role (Bogo, 2015, Watkins and Marsick, 2015). To enhance accountability between
front line leaders’ learning process for the participants, their supervisors, and the organization, it is
recommended that a formal support network be put in place in the form of a formal mentoring
program.
Provide Regular, Structured Reinforcement and Coaching Opportunities
Build a learner support structure that includes regular reinforcement and coaching to Front
line Leaders that will provide an opportunity for accountability and reflection on their EI-SI
competency usage in their roles. The study findings indicated that front line leaders found
mentorship and inclusive meetings to be some of the most valuable development activities. This
would suggest that regular mentor meetings are an important part of successful leadership
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 124
development and in line with organizational learning culture theory and principles of field
education (Bogo, 2015; Watkins & Marsick, 2003). An approach rooted in the field education
framework was selected to support this development need. The recommendation is that the
company institute a formal verbal support network. This network would include monthly team and
one-on-one supervisor meetings and a formal mentorship program that includes mentor training
and a curated mentee-matching process (Bogo, 2015).
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
The implementation and evaluation plan will be guided by the Kirkpatrick New World
(KNW) model. The KNW model (2016) is comprised of four assessment levels: Reaction,
Learning, Behavior, and Results. Each level assesses a different area and level of impact of
learning activities in an organization. The level of Reaction measures how favorably participants
engage with the material and relevance of the training to their usage needs. The level of Learning
measures how participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitudes, confidence and
commitment. Level of Behavior measures the participants’ behavior change following the program
and incorporates the system-level drivers that support or diminish behavior change. The final level,
Results, tracks the implementation and influence of the intervention on the behaviors and
environment (Kirkpatrick, 2016). According to Kirkpatrick, the goal of an education intervention
is to provide or surpass Return on Expectations (Kirpatrick, 1993). To achieve this, training
design, deployment, and evaluation must incorporate behavior change into its methodology and
flow from - and to - the specific educational needs and expectations of the program (Kirpatrick,
2016).
Occ-Med’s goal is to improve organizational performance by December 2020, as measured
by improvement on the four indicators of organizational effectiveness by strengthening the
communication, socio-emotional, and thinking skills of the individuals with direct influence over
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 125
the organization’s effectiveness and productivity. Yukl (2008) defined four dimensions of
organizational effectiveness. These dimensions guide the leading indicators for the organization as:
● Operational performance
● Effectiveness of internal processes
● Human capital strength
● Innovation and adaptability (agility) (Yukl, 2008).
These dimensions can be characterized as an overlapping, interdependent ecosystem; not unique,
discrete quadrants of organizational behavior. As such, the metrics used to represent these
indicators will also overlap and interact with each other (Yukl, 2008). The discussion of this
evaluation and their metrics will be scaffolded on the KNW model for this study, beginning at the
macro level of results (level four), then drilling down to level three (behavior) next level two
(learning) and finally level one (reaction).
Evaluating Results of the Program
The first level of evaluation that will be addressed is the KNW Results level. A balanced
scorecard comprised of five metrics will be studied to track the progression of Occ-Med’s results
through its organizational effectiveness indicators (i.e. operational performance, internal process
strength, human capital strength, and agility) during and after the intervention. The observations
and measurements on the balanced scorecard will be used to indicate whether stakeholders are
achieving the desired outcomes. The influence of the intervention on operational performance will
be represented by changes in organizational reports that track managers' administrative errors in
complex processes. Changes in human capital strength will be represented by two metrics:
quarterly shifts in reporting compliance and semi-annual employee engagement scores on the
organizational staff surveys for participants and teams they supervise. Perceptions of the
effectiveness of internal processes will be represented by movement in semi-annual manager
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 126
effectiveness indicator scores from the staff survey in teams that are supervised by participants.
Lastly, organizational agility and innovation will be represented by an innovation indicator score
from the staff survey. A discussion of the structure of these survey indicator scores will be in
subsequent sections. Table 19 below summarizes the outcome indicators and metrics.
Table 19
Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
Operational
performance Error rates will drop 25%
A) Review of error trend reports before
and after the educational intervention
Internal Outcomes: Balanced Scorecard
Human
capital
strength
Employee engagement indicator
scores will rise both for participants
and teams they supervise
A) Examination of survey response data
before, during, and after the intervention
Effectivenes
s of internal
processes
Manager effectiveness indicator
scores will rise in teams that are
supervised by participants
A) Examination of survey response data
before, during, and after the intervention
B) Interview responses
Ability to
adapt
/innovate
Innovation indicator score will rise
in participants’ teams
A) Examination of survey response data
before, during, and after the intervention
B) Interview responses.

Evaluating Learners’ Behavioral Competency Development
The next KNW level to be addressed is Behavior. Within this study the focus is on
developing behavior competencies that drive results for the organization. Achieving the desired
outcome in goal metrics above will require the demonstration of key behavioral competencies by
participants. While a longitudinal study would be able to examine all competencies within a
cluster, metrics will seek the demonstration of a few representative competencies for measurement.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 127
In lieu of the capacity for a full map, these competencies will be examined through designated
metrics that have been shown in other studies to indicate the usage of a key competency.
Within the Advanced Cognition competency cluster, demonstration of analyzation and
reasoning (inductive and creative) will be noted through changes in error reports that currently
track complex daily tasks. For the Culture Intelligence cluster, group dynamic management will be
measured by the employee survey responses within their departments. Social Intelligence measure
will focus on relationship management and be tracked by movement in participants’ manager
effectiveness indicator score. Emotional Intelligence will be looked at leadership self-awareness
and empathy as demonstrated by their teams’ engagement indicator score. Lastly, the
demonstration of the leadership competency cluster will focus on innovation and
performance/execution and be tracked via the innovation indicator score. These competencies are
interwoven, their demonstration and metrics are as well. Movement in each competency metric has
a symbiotic relationship to the others and should ideally be considered in comparison and contrast
to each other, rather than in siloes (McClelland, 1973). This is summarized in Table 20.

Table 20
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 128
Competency Metric Method Timing
Advanced Cognition
(Analyzation, Reasoning
skills)
Rate of errors Error report quarterly
Cultural Intelligence
(Group dynamic
management)
Employee feedback on
manager behavior in culture
surveys
Employee
satisfaction survey
Bi-
Annual
Social Intelligence
(Relationship
management)
Peer feedback in annual
performance evaluation
180-degree
performance
evaluation
Bi-
Annual
Emotional Intelligence
(Self-awareness,
Empathy)
Employee engagement
indicator scores of participant-
supervised teams
Staff culture survey Bi-
Annual
Leadership
(Innovation,
Performance)
Innovation indicator score of
participants’ teams
Employee
satisfaction survey
Bi-
Annual

Deployment of social intelligence and the behaviors that comprise it in a leadership
setting are influenced by the presence of supporting drivers. The Kirkpatrick New World
Model categorizes these drivers as those that reinforce the behavior, encourage the behavior,
reward the behavior, and monitor its usage (Kirkpatrick, 2016). The presence of these drivers is
required to support behaviors that are critical to social intelligence; for them to be effective
requires drivers that must target specific behavior with a method appropriate to the goal, deployed
at a schedule that will provide reinforcement, encouragement, reward, and monitoring at
appropriate intervals for success (Kirkpatrick, 2016). This KNW framework will be utilized to
scaffold the recommendations for the organization to support the critical behavioral competencies
for leaders’ social intelligence.
To reinforce learned social intelligence behaviors, required drivers include a regular
training schedule that with monthly webinars and other learning activities supported provide
follow up toolkits with readings and video reference materials that encourage independent usage of
the learned behavior. This will support the usage of the featured competencies, as well as
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 129
analyzation and reasoning skills as part of the self-learning process. Another required form of
reinforcement is the daily modeling of socially intelligent leadership behavior by the executives so
that new leaders can witness how to behave in various situations as they arrive. These regular
touchpoints will reinforce the usage of the behaviors targeted to be developed by the program.
As these behaviors are reinforced, other drivers are required to encourage learned social
intelligence behaviors. These drivers include placing learners into a “high challenge/high support”
environment with challenging work and coaching sessions for reflection with their supervisor on a
weekly or monthly basis. Recommended drivers to reward usage of learned social intelligence
behaviors is to build metrics into compensation programs that are related to the skills targeted in
the program: in this case, using employee satisfaction data would reflect participants’ ability to
manage relationships and groups effectively (a key behavioral competency targeted by the
program). A second driver would be to create a behavior-based recognition program using the
corporate values to reward usage of EI-SI competencies throughout the organization, including the
participants.
In addition to reinforcing, encouraging, and rewarding the behavior, usage of learned social
intelligence must be monitored to hold individuals and the organization accountable. Some of the
previous drivers will also monitor their usage by proxy, for example review of behaviors in one-
on-one meetings. In addition, EI-SI based metrics that track participants’ performance including
turnover rates and other organizational effectiveness metrics will monitor the ongoing deployment
of the competencies as they are under development. The required drivers described above to
support key social intelligence competencies are summarized below in Table 21.

Table 21
Required Drivers to Support Key Social Intelligence Competencies
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 130
Method(s) Timing Critical Behaviors Supported
Reinforcing
Follow up readings, videos Monthly Analyzation, Reasoning
Regular training schedule Monthly All
Executive modeling Daily Relationship management
Encouraging
Coaching Weekly Self-awareness, Empathy
Stretch Projects Ongoing Innovation
Rewarding
Compensation Annual Performance Bonus
Recognition program Monthly Relationship management
Monitoring
Job metric monitoring Weekly Performance
regular 1:1 meeting Monthly Self-awareness, Empathy

Leadership competencies, the educational interventions that build them, and the
drivers that support the critical behaviors needed to deploy them each depends on support
from the organization to come to fruition. This support involves prioritizing the
recommendations and allocating adequate resources to achieve a level of influence necessary to
achieve the organization and stakeholder goals.
The first recommendation is to deploy a robust leadership field education learning program
that is focused on socializing their frontline leaders to a leadership role through high-challenge,
high-support learning environments that exposes them to the full organizational working system.
This is a recommendation with a large scope and will require resources allocated for it to succeed,
including:
● A full-time training director dedicated exclusively to managing the program and a budget
for possible outside consultants
● Time allotted to train the organization’s experts on how to train and mentor others
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 131
● The company must include formal accountability measures that will require front line
learning to deploy their social intelligence competencies, including tying social intelligence
usage to compensation, performance management, and career growth
The second recommendation is to create on-demand information hubs of policies, processes, and
learning materials that can be accessed when mentors or other supports are not available. This on-
demand hub would require multiple departments to participate in creating well-organized
information hubs to build a comprehensive solution. This effort would take up to one year and
include a variety of resources, including:
● The creation and organization of a training library that includes reference materials, books,
and videos for leadership and technical skills.
● Creation of department pages with easy-access searchable libraries of key documents,
forms, policies, and protocols that managers would need.
● Dedicated I.T. specialist hours to create the department pages in a cloud-based service that
helps organizations share and manage content, such as an application like Microsoft’s
Sharepoint.
● A guiding committee and project management support from the members of the
Operational Excellence team to manage the organization-wide initiative.
The third recommendation is that the organization create, and adhere to, a calendar of training
events that ensure multiple learning touchpoints per month for all front-line leaders. These events
should be a variety of in-person and online meetings. This would include a one-on-one coaching
session, staff meeting, training webinar, and annual learning summit. Resources needed from the
organization to implement this recommendation are:
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 132
● Budget and staffing to produce quarterly one-day summits where learners can work, reflect,
and learn
● Budget and staffing to produce regular training events for all managers
Learners’ behavior following the program will be captured through the organization’s
formal performance evaluation process. Behavior change is most accurately measured through
direct observation of the behavior over time (Boyatzis, 2009). As that is not realistic in a corporate
setting, colleague feedback will be utilized as a proxy. Each year managers will be assessed
through two dimensions: 1) Through consideration of their teams’ feedback on the company
culture survey, which includes eight questions related to manager EI-SI competency levels, and 2)
Peer feedback on the annual performance evaluation regarding manager behavior-based
competencies.
Evaluating learners’ knowledge acquisition
The next KNW level evaluates stakeholder learning; this program will integrate its
evaluation of participants’ learning (i.e. knowledge acquisition) and their reaction to the program
(i.e. engagement, relevance, and interest).
The organizational performance goals are rooted in the learning objectives of the
front-line leaders who will be responsible for driving that performance. The front-line leaders’
learning objectives for the program are as follows:
1. Front line leaders will advance their knowledge of their job role and organization and improve
their decision-making and job performance through advanced systems thinking, technical skills,
and reasoning skills (i.e. advanced cognition competency).
2. Front line leaders will strengthen their ability to manage themselves, their relationships, and
situations through improved emotional intelligence (i.e. empathy, resilience, situation-reading).
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 133
3. Front line leaders will leverage Social Intelligence competencies (active listening, relationship
management, influencing skills) to increase the effectiveness of their teams’ innovation,
performance, and execution (i.e. Leadership Competencies).
The current program will have the goal of socializing front line leaders to a leadership
role, strengthening their knowledge of the organizational ecosystem, and building their
personal resources to handle the challenges they face with skill. This program will contain two
training components: orientation training and ongoing training. Orientation training will be for all
individuals who are hired or promoted into a management role over their first 60 days, and
ongoing training will be sustained with a continuous year-round calendar. The new hires will be
enrolled in both programs. Orientation Training Program components include:
● One day training on manager effectiveness either with the in-house training team or
through a partner organization that addresses the leadership skills related to their level.
● Rotating 90-minute learning sessions with the stakeholders related to their department, job
functions, and product cycle of their practice area. These side-by-side shadow sessions are
designed for each individual by their manager and the training director, and usually include
10-15 practical sessions over the first 4 weeks.
● Eight 60-minute rotating learning sessions, called “SME Office Hours.” The Office hours
connect the new managers to the experts throughout the organization that will be a key
support for their function, for example; Information Technology systems training,
Operational Excellence project management, HR compliance training, Payroll, and others.
Ongoing training program components for front line leaders include:
● Monthly Tang University Webinar on rotating management topics,
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 134
● Monthly emailed toolkits that are themed around the Tang University Webinars and any
other emailed questions that new managers have,
● Access to a training library with on-demand videos, resources, books, and guidance,
● Ongoing challenging stretch projects: each manager has at least one challenging innovation
project at all times,
● Monthly one-on-one mentoring sessions with their supervisor,
● Monthly mentoring sessions with an assigned mentor
● Quarterly full-day seminars where learners can work, learn, and reflect
● Assessment tests with debriefing sessions on personality, communication, and leadership
styles (example: DiSC, Meyers-Briggs, and/or Business Chemistry workshops)
The sample curriculum of topics covered by the program is attached as Appendix B.
Ongoing evaluation of the program is a critical component of its success, enabling the
stakeholders to adjust to it in real-time. The evaluation will be ongoing and utilize KNW to
assess the learning components of the program. In-class learning checks will assess the level of
conceptual knowledge and confidence gained during training. Monthly one-on-one reflection
meetings will allow supervisors to assess the progress of participants’ confidence, commitment,
procedural skills, and attitude. Procedural skills (i.e. hiring and administrative duties) will be
followed by formal and informal audits after thirty days to track improvement. There will be
quarterly post-training surveys to assess confidence, commitment, and learners’ reaction to the
training. Quarterly reports will track the commitment and level of usage in the field. Lastly, a
semi-annual employee survey will examine participants’ commitment to usage and their teams’
perceptions of that commitment and usage.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 135
Evaluating Learners’ Engagement Level with Program
The first level of assessment of the Kirkpatrick New World Model addresses learners’
reaction to the educational intervention. This includes their level of satisfaction, engagement, and
their perception of the level of relevance of the material to their current challenges. Learners’
reactions will be addressed along with their learning in training surveys and in-class assessments.
These elements are represented in Table 22 below.
Table 22

Evaluation of Reaction and Learning for the Program.

Activities Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”
In-class knowledge checks monthly
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”
1:1 meeting with supervisor monthly
Follow-up skill audits 30 days from skill acquisition
Employee survey and other internal metric reporting bi-annually
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”
Training Post-Survey quarterly
1:1 meetings with supervisor monthly
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”
In-class knowledge checks monthly
Training Post-Survey quarterly
1:1 meeting with supervisor monthly
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Training Post-Survey quarterly
1:1 meeting with supervisor monthly
Employee survey and other internal metrics reporting bi-annually

Evaluation Instruments
The evaluation tools for the initial program assessment (pre-test) included a training pre-
test that is a self-reported assessment of learners’ knowledge, motivation, and mindset towards
leadership competencies. The survey questions address Level 1 (engagement, relevance,
satisfaction) and Level 2 (knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence, commitment). The survey was
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 136
created in survey software and sent through a confidential email link. The list of questions is
attached as Appendix C. Ongoing quantitative program assessment will include a quarterly short
training survey sent to address ongoing reaction and learning components. This survey instrument
is attached as Appendix G.
Late Program Assessment. The evaluation tools for the late program assessment will be a
comprehensive assessment examination of all four levels of the program. Reaction and learning
will be reassessed via the deployment of the early program evaluation instruments. Learner
behavior change will be assessed by examination of participants’ behavior indicators on the
organization’s employee survey, attached as Appendix H. Results will be examined by
organizational reports on errors and turnover discussed in Table 20.
Data Analysis and Reporting Evaluation data will be analyzed and presented quarterly to
the executive and leadership committee meetings promptly using the standard internal
template. Data will be reported in terms of median and growth over time. These reports will be
framed in a “Plus-Delta” format (i.e. continue, increase, or change) and be stored on the Training &
Development Sharepoint page for later access. Findings made during the periodic analysis and
reports will be converted to action items: discoveries will be viewed as opportunities to be followed
up on with the appropriate stakeholders.
The Clark and Estes (2008) Knowledge-Motivation-Organization model has been used to
frame the recommendations and an intervention plan for leadership field education. The
intervention’s implementation and evaluation strategy have leveraged the Kirkpatrick New World
(2016) evaluation model. This evaluates learners’ level of favorable Reaction, Learning retention,
Behavior enhancement and Results of efforts (Kirkpatrick, 2016). Robust ongoing evaluation
practices with actionable findings will provide an opportunity to accelerate the impact of the
program to optimize the achievement of stakeholder and organizational performance goals.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 137

Future Research
This study sought to address a question on the minds of many corporate leaders and
organizational psychologists: how can we equip talented employees with the behavioral
competencies they need to maximize their technical expertise as leaders? Specifically, if Field
Education practices from Social Work will continue to demonstrate successful outcomes for
building behavioral competencies such as social intelligence once it is adapted for use in a
corporate context. While this pilot program has demonstrated promising results, many questions
remain to be explored, including: (1) What are the longer-term effects of field education on the
individual participants, their teams, and the organizational culture? (2) What is the development
progression of competency clusters through a field education curriculum, and is it possible to
isolate these competencies reliably? and (3) How can we better measure the effectiveness of
leadership’s influence on teams in areas that are competency-driven, such as troubleshooting and
client relationships?
Conclusion
Learning new behavior is a complex endeavor, and leadership education researchers have
widely acknowledged there is room and appetite for a new approach. By stepping back from
“building a leader” and focusing on “building the elements that make a leader great” we can land
on a suite of teachable mental, emotional, and social competencies that yield the outcomes we are
seeking when deployed. Field Education has been providing social workers, psychologists, and
educators with those skills for decades, as it is designed to develop the emotional and cognitive
skills that support the desired behaviors of leadership. The initial promising outcomes of this pilot
program has revealed that a field education framework has the potential to teach these same
behavioral skills to corporate learners as well.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 138
The implication of inviting behavior modification methods into the workplace for this
purpose has substantial opportunities for quality of outcomes and overall teachability. In the event
this method can be distilled and memorialized for corporate learners as it has been for college
learners, it will substantially shorten leader’s learning time to effectiveness. With full cohorts of
socially intelligent front-line leaders, companies will reap benefits that are the result of having
socially intelligent cultures, including higher innovation, stronger human capital, and greater
operational performance.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 139
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DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 149
Appendix A: Outline of Behavior Competencies
Global Leadership Competencies
Basic Cognition
Deductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning (basic)
Memory
Spatial understanding

Emotional Intelligence Combines two competency clusters for a total of 10 individual
competencies. Is implicitly dependent on the strength of the competencies above.
Advanced Cognition
Advanced inductive reasoning
pattern recognition
systems thinking
analyzation
creative reasoning, i.e. “seeing the situation”
Emotional Awareness
Emotional literacy
self-awareness
emotional agility
empathy
self-management, self-control, i.e. “reading the situation”

Social Intelligence Total of four competencies; is reliant on strong proficiency of the
differentiating competencies in the emotional intelligence cluster listed above.
Active listening
Empathic expression, i.e. “negotiating the situation”
Influencing
Relationship management
Social awareness
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 150
Cultural Intelligence Three competencies below with crossover into empathic expression
and relationship management. Deeply linked to mastery of the other competencies in the social
intelligence cluster.
Cultural awareness
Group dynamics management
Inclusion

Leadership Total of 21 competencies. Mastery requires the proficiency of all the above
competencies, as well as:
Innovation
Networking
Performance & execution
Supports and drives change

Medical Leadership Competencies
Advanced Cognition / Expertise
Medical technical expertise
policy analysis and development
managing & architecting comprehensive care systems (Ladhani, et al, 2015).
Emotional Awareness
resilience
empathy
resourcefulness (Frich, Brewster, Cherlin, & Bradley, 2015).
Social Intelligence
inter-professionalism
crisis management
educator: developing others as experts and leaders (Ladhani et al., 2015).

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 151
Appendix B: Curriculum Outline
Theme &
2019 training
hours*
Competencies and
clusters addressed
Topics addressed Teaching style*
Referenced author
and theory
Emotionally
Intelligent
Leadership

8.0 hrs
emotional
awareness,
advanced cognition,
social awareness
Emotionally
Intelligent leadership
Styles and
appropriate uses
Self-assessment,
reading,
lecture overview,
group discussion
D. Goleman,
6 styles of leadership,
Transformational
leadership
relationship
management,
communication
Servant Leadership,
Followership

Videos,
group discussion,
360 feedback
Servant Leadership
D. Sivers,
First Follower Theory
emotional
intelligence,
social intelligence,
cultural intelligence
Employee
engagement, stay
interviews,
Employee coaching
Webinars,
group discussion,
coaching
Motivational
interviewing,
executive coaching
process
Building
Teams

3.0 hrs
group dynamics,
communication
Individual group
roles, Ideation under
pressure
Group exercises,
group discussion,
lecture
D. Tuckman, Group
Roles
T. Wujec, Build a
Tower, Build a Team
social intelligence,
leadership,
advanced cognition
Functions of high
performing teams
Lecture,
group discussion,
case study exercise
P. Lencioni,
The 5 Functions/
Dysfunctions of teams
Operational
Excellence

11.0 hrs
innovation,
social intelligence,
advanced cognition,
leadership
Innovation,
continuous
improvement,
operational
excellence
Lecture,
group discussion,
case study exercises
Lean,
Design Thinking
advanced cognition,
execution
Budgeting, HR skills,
project management,
strategic goal-setting,
industry knowledge
Case study
exercises,
webinars,
on-the-job training
Corporate policies,
State/federal laws,
Industry updates
Working with data,
Managing to KPIs,
Advanced I.T. system
training
Webinar,
Hands-on system
demonstrations,
Case study exercises
Data dashboards,
HRIS systems,
Basic research and
analysis methods
Relationship
management

6.0 hrs

emotional
intelligence,
social intelligence,
cultural intelligence,
leadership
De-escalation,
Service recovery,
Customer service,
Client relationships,
Lecture,
case studies
role play,
on-the-job training
Motivational
interviewing
Personality workshop Group workshop Deloitte,
Business Chemistry
communication eFeedback,
written
communication
Webinars, reading,
case study exercises
Makino system:
“SNAPS”/ “SIA”
* Front line leaders received biweekly 30-minute coaching sessions with managers not reflected in this table.
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 152
Brief, Representative Summary of Learning Activities Outside Classroom

Rookie manager
< 40 hrs education,
< 3 yrs managerial experience
Experienced manager
> 40 hrs education,
> 5 yrs managerial experience
Training
themes
• Develop “depth”, then “breadth”
• Develop expertise in threshold
competencies
• Develop foundations of
differentiating competencies
• Emotional and Social Intelligence
• Expand their comfort zone
• Develop expertise in
differentiating competencies
• Learn through coaching others
• Social/Cultural Intelligence,
Leadership competencies
Learning activity Learning activity
Development of
expertise
• Problem-based workshops
• Learn-work sessions from SMEs
• Ongoing reading and learning
• Problem-based workshops
• Learn/work sessions with
executives
Refinement of
expertise
● Guided, tactical stretch projects
● Opportunities to act independently
with the help of written
guide/notes
● Interaction with exemplar
colleagues
● Projects that turn corporate
vision into new tactical
outcomes
● Quality assurance activities
● Data-tracking, reporting, and
using data to drive outcomes
Development of
breadth
Projects that:
● apply learned principles to new,
yet adjacent situations
● make basic process improvements
● implement cross-functional
change
● require diplomacy
Projects that:
● push learner outside comfort
zone
● have ambiguous solutions
● bring complexity and conflicting
cross-functional priorities
● require negotiation
Development of
metacognition
● Receiving coaching from mentors
● Train others
● Develop internal training
documents (protocols, job-aids)
● Receive coaching from mentors
● Learning by coaching others
● Develop guiding documents
(memos, policies, protocols)

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 153
Appendix C: Survey Questions
The survey instrument is listed below, including the answer scale and corresponding research
question. This survey was deployed in October 2019.
Survey Question Answer Scale
I have worked at this company for:

0-1 years / 2-3 years / 3-5 years / 5 + years
My department is:

Operations / HR / IT / Finance / etc
My work level is:

Assistant Manager / Manager / Director /
Healthcare Provider
How many people are in your daily work team,
including yourself?
1-5 people / 6-10 people / 11-15 people /
16+ people
I understand what I need to do to be successful in
my role.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
There are social skills I learned in other areas of my
professional life that have served me well managing
people.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
These trainings strengthened my awareness of my
leadership style, strengths and weaknesses.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
After taking these trainings, I am better able to
function in difficult situations.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
These trainings improved my ability to prioritize
and make decisions at work.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
These trainings helped me work with my clients
better.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
I am confident in my ability to work with the people
that report to me and help them get along.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree /5 – Strongly agree
I consider myself to be a leader.

1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
Being good at managing my own emotions will
make me more effective in my role.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
It is important for me to enhance my leadership
skills.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
My manager has my back.

1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
It’s ok to admit I made a mistake at work.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree /5 – Strongly agree
I am empowered to solve problems with my own
judgement.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
I am open to hearing my team’s ideas and
suggestions.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 154
I take action on my teams’ suggestions.
1- Almost never / 2 – once in a while/
3 – Sometimes / 4- Often / 5 – Very often
Employees treat each other with respect at this
company.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
I am proud to tell others of the results my team
produces.
1- Strongly disagree / 2 – Disagree /
3 – Neutral / 4- Agree / 5 – Strongly agree
Has the leadership training you received at Occ-
Med positively affected your ability to achieve any
of your KPI goals?
Yes / Somewhat / No
If so, which ones have been affected and how? Open ended response
In your opinion, has the Occ-Med leadership
training enhanced your ability to achieve your
team’s productivity goals?
Yes / Somewhat / No
If so, which productivity KPIs have been affected
and how?
Open ended response
What have been the most helpful parts of the
leadership program for you?
Open ended response
Is there anything you would suggest changing about
the current program?
Open ended response

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 155
Appendix D: Group interview Script
Number of participants: four Number of Group interviews: two
Description:
Virtual Group interviews conducted through videoconferencing software to accommodate remote
participants. The transcript will be transcribed by Microsoft Stream and uploaded to a secure
folder.
Group interview Outline:
Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with me today. I really appreciate you lending me your
expertise. I expect this discussion to take 60 minutes.
Introduction Overview:
● Explain the purpose of the study: to help me understand what kinds of learning experiences
are useful - or not - leadership education for a research study.
● Explain any items on the table and how they will be used.
● Explain how the collected data will be stored and used.
● Ensure that any release and/or consent forms are signed (if not already done) and answer
any questions.
Today I’ll be asking about two things: I’d like to know more about your experience in this
program, and I would like to know if I’d also like to hear some of the life experiences that may
have helped you develop as a professional. Sound good?
● Have you participated in any formal leadership training prior to this program?
● Can you tell me about the most impactful training you’ve had so far?
● What kind of non-classroom leadership support have you had during the program? Was this
useful?
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 156
o Prompt: maybe a mentor, or a work project that helped you develop your
leadership?
● What has been the most helpful to you in your own process to build your leadership
practice?
● Based on your experience, if you could wave a wand and create the perfect leadership
program – one that’s really effective - what would that look like?
● Did you notice any changes in your teams around the times they were receiving leadership
education program?
● Did you notice any changes in your KPIs or productivity?
● Do you think the leadership development influenced those changes?
● Are you aware of anything that may have happened during the same time period that might
be affecting those outcomes?
● Is there anything that the training may have affected that we haven’t discussed here?
Thank you so much for letting me learn from you today. Hearing about your experience was really
valuable.
● Do you have any questions for me?
● Provide a quick recap of the next steps and how to get in touch later if needed.

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 157

Appendix E: Informed Consent Language
Group interview informed consent language:
● I am recording this session for the sole purpose of referring back to it later in order to
make a transcript of our meeting once complete. I will be changing your name to
numbers and it will be confidential. All of the feedback given to me will be combined
and nothing will be reported out individually or in a way that can be traced back to
you. Therefore, this meeting is confidential. It is also totally voluntary; you are
welcome to stop at any time if you need to. There are also no penalties for anything
that you say in this meeting. Are there any questions please?
Study Survey informed consent language:
● The goal of these questions is to help us understand what kinds of learning
experiences are useful (or not!) in leadership education for a research study, which is also
my dissertation. To this end, we'd like to know more about your perceptions, thoughts, and
experiences. Your input is incredibly valuable Please note that this survey is anonymous.
Your responses will be kept in confidence by the study administrator. Identifying
information will be removed, and responses will be reported in groups to protect everyone's
anonymity. This survey is also voluntary and can be stopped at any time without negative
consequences. Please note that this survey is anonymous. Your responses will be kept in
confidence by the study administrator. Identifying information will be removed, and
responses will be reported in groups to protect everyone's anonymity. This survey is also
voluntary and can be stopped at any time without negative consequences. Thank you so
much for your time, insight, and participation. If you have any questions, please reach out
to the survey administrator: Kelly Makino, MSW
DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 158
Appendix F: Leadership Program Kickoff Survey Questions

Survey deployed: May 2019

All questions were asked on a 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale

Sense of self as a leader:
When I look in the mirror, I feel like a leader.
It is important for me to enhance my leadership skills.
Better leadership skills will help me have better outcomes for my work.
I trust in my ability to lead a team well.
Leadership skill indicators:
I don't let my feelings get the best of me, even when others are being difficult.
I am confident in my ability to help the people that report to me get along.
I am a good decision-maker at work.
I am good at analyzing situations and finding a way forward.
When things are stressful, I can stay focused on what's important.
I am open to hearing suggestions from my team.
I take action on the ideas of the people that report to me most of the time.
I am empowered to solve problems on my own.
Team culture indicators:
At this company, employees treat each other with respect.
My manager has my back.
I am proud of the results that my team produces.
I am not afraid to let my manager know I made a mistake.
Training effectiveness indicators:
This training strengthened my awareness of my leadership style, strengths and weaknesses.
This training improved my ability to handle difficult situations at work.
This training improved my ability to prioritize and make decisions at work.
This training helped me work with my assigned clients better.
I am applying the knowledge and skills from this training in my role.
What I received from this training was worth the time and expense to attend.
Through which of the following formats do you prefer to learn when in-person
demonstration isn't possible? (Select all that apply)

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 159
Appendix G: Quarterly Training Survey

All questions were asked on a 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale except for open-end
questions.

Did the trainer give you the right level of information?
Too much detail - I got bored
Enough information, but it wasn't relevant to me
Not enough information - I still had questions
Just the right amount of detail and information - it was useful

The trainer actively invited questions.
The trainer made the session interesting and involved me in the learning.
The trainer helped me connect the material to my work and make it useful.
I would take another class with this trainer.

I got what I was hoping for from the session: it was worth my time to attend.
This training improved my ability to handle a challenge at work.
I 'm confident I can use what we talked about at this training in my work.

What was the best (most useful) part of the session? (open-ended respsonse)

DEVELOPING SOCIALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERS 160
Appendix H: Employee Engagement Survey Instrument

Survey deployed: May 2019 and September 2019

All questions were asked on a 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale

RETENTION
How likely are you to search for a new job in the next 30 days? (1= very likely / 5= not likely at all)
My supervisor treats all employees fairly and consistently.
I am satisfied with my overall compensation.
MANAGER EFFECTIVENESS
How realistic are the expectations of your supervisor?
My manager has my back.
I receive clear feedback from my supervisor regarding my performance.
I am totally comfortable asking my supervisor questions.
My supervisor recognizes work well done.
TEAM CLIMATE
I am proud of the work that my team produces.
There is a spirit of cooperation in my department.
Employees in my organization willingly accept change.
How likely is it that you would recommend working here to a friend or colleague?
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
I understand how my work impacts the organization’s business goals
My work gives me a sense of purpose.
I get excited about going to work.
I am determined to give my best effort at work every day.
CAREER GROWTH
I am satisfied that I have the opportunities to apply my talents and expertise.
I am satisfied with the job-related training my organization offers.
I am satisfied with my opportunities for professional growth.
COMMUNICATION
Employees treat each other with respect.
I have a clear understanding of processes and policies within my department.
Management keeps me informed on matters that impact the department.
Communication between departments is usually healthy and effective.
The senior leaders of this company foster a positive work environment.
ORGANIZATION
My company values employee input, feedback, and suggestions.
I have great confidence in my company's future.
My company cares about their employees.
My company's goals are important to me personally.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract At the time of publication of this dissertation, fewer than 20 publications describe leadership development programs that demonstrate quantitative influence on team effectiveness or objective improvement in learned leadership competencies. More research is required to seek education strategies able to demonstrate measurable outcomes. This mixed-methods study evaluated the outcomes of an adaption of Social Work’s Field Education pedagogy to develop leadership competencies for front line managers in a healthcare company (N=56). This mixed methods study evaluated a participant survey, two group interviews, related company records and three culture surveys. Linear regression analysis was conducted on voluntary turnover trendlines. ❧ The results of the research survey confirmed front line leaders with adequate conceptual knowledge and high motivation retain an ongoing need for procedural and metacognitive knowledge to consistently deploy EI-SI in their roles. Study survey revealed that participants perceived their personal effectiveness to have improved an average of 3.2 areas post LFE program participation. The most commonly named areas of improvement included meeting daily expectations, operational quality, and managing relationships. Interview trends also revealed perceptions of enhanced organizational effectiveness in direct-report teams following leaders’ participation in the LFE program. Company records during the intervention period confirmed improved report submission compliance and higher cooperation levels in these teams. Linear regression analysis of turnover records revealed a statistically significant drop in voluntary turnover (p = .001) following initiation of the LFE program. Study trends suggest the LFE framework has promise as an effective pedagogy to develop SI behavioral competencies in leaders and effectiveness in their teams. The dissertation concludes with recommendations on how to implement and evaluate an LFE workforce program.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Makino, Kelly Duffy (author)

Core Title Developing socially intelligent leaders through field education: an evaluation study of behavioral competency education methods

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 04/27/2020

Defense Date 04/27/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag behavior competency,behavioral competency,best practices leadership development,corporate training,corporate university,critical thinking skills in leaders,developing pipeline,educational psychology,emotional intelligence,field education,how to develop leadership skills,leadership,leadership case study,leadership change over time,leadership competencies,leadership development,leadership education,leadership pipeline,leadership program,leadership skills,OAI-PMH Harvest,organizational culture,organizational development,organizational psychology,organizational social work,social intelligence,talent development,workplace development

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Krop, Cathy (committee chair), Garza, Gregory (committee member), Lynch, Douglas (committee member)

Creator Email makinokelly@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-291972

Unique identifier UC11665398

Identifier etd-MakinoKell-8368.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-291972 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-MakinoKell-8368.pdf

Dmrecord 291972

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Makino, Kelly Duffy

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA