Improving Emotional Intelligence through Personality Development: The Effect of the Smart Phone Application based Dharma Life Program on Emotional Intelligence.

Latha Poonamallee,Manisha Nagpal,Alex M Harrington,Alec Musial

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00169

Latha Poonamallee, Manisha Nagpal + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00169

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Abstract

Emotional intelligence is established to predict success in leadership effectiveness in various contexts and has been linked to personality factors. This paper introduces Dharma Life Program, a novel approach to improving emotional intelligence by targeting maladaptive personality traits and triggering neuroplasticity through the use of a smart-phone application and mentoring. The program uses neuroplasticity to enable users to create a more adaptive application of their maladaptive traits, thus improving their emotional intelligence. In this study 26 participants underwent the Dharma Life Program in a leadership development setting. We assessed their emotional and social intelligence before and after the Dharma Life Program intervention using the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI). The study found a significant improvement in the lowest three competencies and a significant improvement in almost all domains for the entire sample. Our findings suggest that the completion of the Dharma Life Program has a significant positive effect on Emotional and Social Competency scores and offers a new avenue for improving emotional intelligence competencies.

Highlights

The role of emotional and social intelligence in leadership and professional success is wellestablished in literature (Goleman, 1995; Boyatzis and Van Oosten, 2003; Parker et al, 2006; Riggio and Reichard, 2008)
This study investigated the effect of participation in the Dharma Life Program on the ESCIU scores
We found support for our hypothesis, that completion of the Dharma Life Program improves Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) scores

Summary

Introduction

The role of emotional and social intelligence in leadership and professional success is wellestablished in literature (Goleman, 1995; Boyatzis and Van Oosten, 2003; Parker et al, 2006; Riggio and Reichard, 2008) This in turn has triggered research on understanding, assessing, and measuring the competencies (Mayer and Salovey, 1997; Morand, 2001; Boyatzis and Sala, 2004) accompanied by a growing recognition that leaders are not an exception to the emotionally charged nature of organizations. Due to normal workplace frustrations and workload, leaders may not communicate what they want to say in the right manner They may get irritated and frustrated and this in turn negatively affects the mood of the other employees as well. This creates a bidirectional emotional contagion, which if recognized early, can provide an opportunity to improve the workplace environment

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