Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Toni Pauls
Project Type
EdD Colloquium - ONU
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery
Presentation Type
Presentation
Abstract
The researcher’s study aimed to understand the perceptions of private university department chairs when engaging with emotional intelligence (EQ) at work. The qualitative approach provided the boundaries for the voice and the experience of the participants as the researcher collected interviews, department meeting minutes, and department program reviews from a sample of five department chairs across three, private universities. The following departments served as the study’s population: mathematics, family and consumer science, business, education, and modern languages. Findings revealed participants perceived job satisfaction through the mediator of emotion. Participants identified the emotional challenges of department chair and perceived emotion within the context of department chair as something to be worked through rather than overcome. Participants worked through the emotional challenges through communication and balance of priorities. Participants disclosed the significance of emotional regulation through the lens of identity, and the researcher found support of the department chair’s multi-faceted identities surfaced as important within the boundaries of the researcher’s study. Findings revealed contextualization of the department chair’s experience with emotional regulation to be subjective to the confines of the individual department, although, the need for emotional regulation while serving one’s institution transcends context. The researcher concluded department chairs do not receive formal, institutional emotional support and perceive support through organic, informal structures. Participants’ emotional regulation depended on organizational membership behavior based on individual capacities. The researcher’s contribution to the field of higher education explicated the blurred lines between participants’ internal, organizational identities and external identities and the perception of emotional support.
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Advocating for the Middle Man: An Explication of Chair Perceptions on Overcoming Emotion at Work
Reed 330
The researcher’s study aimed to understand the perceptions of private university department chairs when engaging with emotional intelligence (EQ) at work. The qualitative approach provided the boundaries for the voice and the experience of the participants as the researcher collected interviews, department meeting minutes, and department program reviews from a sample of five department chairs across three, private universities. The following departments served as the study’s population: mathematics, family and consumer science, business, education, and modern languages. Findings revealed participants perceived job satisfaction through the mediator of emotion. Participants identified the emotional challenges of department chair and perceived emotion within the context of department chair as something to be worked through rather than overcome. Participants worked through the emotional challenges through communication and balance of priorities. Participants disclosed the significance of emotional regulation through the lens of identity, and the researcher found support of the department chair’s multi-faceted identities surfaced as important within the boundaries of the researcher’s study. Findings revealed contextualization of the department chair’s experience with emotional regulation to be subjective to the confines of the individual department, although, the need for emotional regulation while serving one’s institution transcends context. The researcher concluded department chairs do not receive formal, institutional emotional support and perceive support through organic, informal structures. Participants’ emotional regulation depended on organizational membership behavior based on individual capacities. The researcher’s contribution to the field of higher education explicated the blurred lines between participants’ internal, organizational identities and external identities and the perception of emotional support.