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Lesson plan: Understanding Yourself and others

Description

Material for a 45-minute lecture, group activity and open discussion, part of the Managing the Command Centre training course for Kosovo police officers, developed by the OSCE Mission in Kosovo

Summary

This session is about a process whereby you gain a greater understanding of yourself and others. That might seem a strange statement but it is important for managers to analyze themselves; looking at what styles they used, how they respond to situations and problems, how they deal with people and their issues. Historically, managers were measured on skills and knowledge and to a certain extent experience. In contemporary management that is expected as the standard even to achieve the position or role.

Those competencies allow for a certain level of performance and follower satisfaction to be achieved but in an age where performance, efficiency and change drive the police service there are greater expectations on managers to get more from their people.

However, whilst it is the followers who generally produce the performance under the support and direction of managers it has been identified that where managers better understand their own strengths and when to use them, as well as their weaknesses and how either to manage them or reduce their impact produces a much better management approach. Through that process better follower satisfaction is gained that correlates with better performance.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence goes back as far as 1970 and the early part of the 1980’s but really came to the fore in 1995 through Daniel Goleman. The police service began to show an interest in it during senior level leadership programmes in the early 2000 period. It began to be delivered as part of all management courses around 2005 and continues both nationally and internationally.

When the Harvard Business Review published an article on the topic of Emotional Intelligence it attracted a higher percentage of readers than any other article published in that periodical in the last 40 years.

 

The purpose of this lesson is to:

a) Introduce the concept of Emotional Intelligence and its benefits for enhanced individual and organisational performance

After this block of instruction the participants will be able to:

  1. Be able to classify the key elements of Emotional Intelligence.
  2. Recognise the impact of self-awareness on leadership behaviour and effectiveness.
  3. Reflect on how improved Emotional Intelligence can impact on individual leadership performance.