Abstract
There has been limited leadership research on emotional intelligence and trust in governmental public health settings. The purpose of this study was to identify and seek to understand the relationship between trust and elements of emotional intelligence, including stress management, at the Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH). The KDPH serves as Kentucky’s state governmental health department. KDPH is led by a Commissioner and composed of seven primary divisions and 25 branches within those divisions. The study was a non-randomized cross-sectional study utilizing electronic surveys that evaluated conditions of trust among staff members and emotional intelligence among supervisors. Pearson correlation coefficients and corresponding p-values are presented to provide the association between emotional intelligence scales and the conditions of trust. Significant positive correlations were observed between supervisors’ stress management and the staff members’ trust or perception of supervisors’ loyalty (r = 0.6, p = 0.01), integrity (r = 0.5, p = 0.03), receptivity (r = 0.6, p = 0.02), promise fulfillment (r = 0.6, p = 0.02), and availability (r = 0.5, p = 0.07). This research lays the foundation for emotional intelligence and trust research and leadership training in other governmental public health settings, such as local, other state, national, or international organizations. This original research provides metrics to assess the public health workforce with attention to organizational management and leadership constructs. The survey tools could be used in other governmental public health settings in order to develop tailored training opportunities related to emotional intelligence and trust organizations.
Highlights
LEADERSHIP AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH WORKFORCE The foundation of the public health infrastructure encompasses the information and knowledge systems, the public health workforce, and organizational capacity, which are required in order to accomplish core functions and essential public health services usually led by governmental public health organizations (1)
In order to assure a competent public health workforce, continuing to identify and prioritize areas related to public health leadership and training is crucial
The Public Health Workforce Research Agenda includes two areas that are applicable to this research: (1) how is workforce competency measured at an individual level or for a specific role such as leadership? and (2) to achieve a significant impact, are certain individual competencies of greater importance than others? (38)
Summary
LEADERSHIP AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH WORKFORCE The foundation of the public health infrastructure encompasses the information and knowledge systems, the public health workforce, and organizational capacity, which are required in order to accomplish core functions and essential public health services usually led by governmental public health organizations (1). The public health workforce has been described as the most important component of public health organizations and is the focus of 1 of the 10 essential public health services (2). Strengthening the public health workforce contributes to developing strong public health organizations and to improving the public health infrastructure (3). In order to determine how best to focus the limited resources available for improving the public health workforce, research that highlights and prioritizes the areas of greatest need within the workforce is important. Emotional intelligence and trust may be factors that predict organizational performance in public health settings as well as competencies that can be identified within organizations, promoted through training, and studied through organizational practice-based research (6). The published literature on leadership, emotional intelligence, and trust has largely focused on the business and private sectors and not the public or governmental sectors
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