Leadership development through an outdoor leadership program focusing on emotional intelligence

Abstract

This study examined the impacts of an outdoor leadership program on the development of emotional intelligence and leadership. Furthermore, an effort was made to understand the relationships among emotional intelligence, transformational leadership and outdoor experience as well as kinds of experiences during the programs that contributed to the development of emotional intelligence and leadership. Data for this study were collected between March and November 2005 from nine outdoor leadership programs and three classroom-based college courses. After screening out invalid and inconsistent subjects, 72 complete sets of questionnaires for the treatment group and 38 complete sets of questionnaires for the comparison group were retained and analyzed for this study. The research instruments included the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: Short (EQi:S) (Bar-On, 2002), the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X short) (Bass & Avolio, 1997), the New Social Desirability Scale (NSDS) (Strahan & Gerbasi, 1972), the Outdoor Leader Experience Use History (OLEUH) (Galloway, 2003), the Emotional Intelligence Experience Questionnaire, and the WEA Final Assessment Summary forms. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven participants from two of the outdoor leadership programs. The results revealed a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership; specifically, interpersonal aspects and positiveness of emotional intelligence were positively correlated with all factors of transformational leadership. A MANCOVA found that the participants in an outdoor leadership program significantly developed their emotional intelligence through their participation, especially stress management skills, but not transformational leadership. Furthermore, participants who received the Outdoor Leadership Certification showed significantly higher levels of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership at the post-test than those who were not certified. Answers from the open-ended questions revealed that certain kinds of experiences supported specific components of emotional intelligence and leadership, for example, debrief & feedback, leadership role, challenging experiences, entire expedition experience, and evaluations & assessments.

Based on the results of this study and literature, a developmental stage of emotional intelligence and leadership was discussed. Participants' experience level and program components regarding participants' developmental stages should be considered for future programming. Further studies are needed to examine more diverse populations (age, experience levels, program types etc.) for theoretical and practical implications.