Training Leaders to Manage Emotions in an Interpersonal Context

The ability to recognize, control, and appropriately express emotions has become increasingly important in an organization as dynamic and complex as the Army. In addition to facing many of the challenges of leading groups and individuals, such as providing encouragement or negative feedback to individuals and facilitating group performance in the face of obstacles, Army officers are also called upon to exert leadership in stressful environments and combat situations capable of testing the limits of even the most emotionally stable individuals. These challenges require emotion-related skills and capabilities that have gained considerable attention in the broader research and practice of leadership. The intent of the current research is to develop a skills-based theoretical model of emotion management that will serve as the underpinnings for developing officer training. The model will focus on how these skills can exert positive influences on interpersonal effectiveness in various kinds of affectively-laden situations likely to arise in a military context, such as dealing with combat-related stress, providing performance feedback, and handling interpersonal conflict. The model resulting from this Phase I work will be the foundation for a larger Phase II proposal focusing on developing and validating web-based training on the skills specified in the model.