Enhancing Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence: Why Mindfulness?

Abstract

As an adult-learning practitioner, I am intrigued by the process of helping learners, especially leaders, develop through the affective domain. Although leaders in my experience often comprehend the lexicon of emotional intelligence (EI), incorporating EI for leadership developmenthasprovenelusive.WhileresearchsuggestsEIisdifficulttodevelopinpeople,this paper argues that leaders can do so by tapping into a higher mental and emotional state, and that such mindfulness practices can enhance leaders’ EI. Findings suggest that (a) EI positively impacts leadership effectiveness, (b) mindfulness can serve as a method for growing EI, and (c) mindfulnesscanenhance thepracticeofleadership. Thepaperoffersrecommendationsforadult- learning practitioners who create EI- and mindfulness-based training and provides directions for future research.