EMOTIONAL CAPITAL AND EMOTIONAL WORK:

EMOTIONAL COMPETENCIES AS TEACHER PROFESSIONAL

COMPETENCIES

TO TEACH FOR LEARNING

Prof. Dr. Bénédicte Gendron1

1 Lirdef, Université of Montpellier, South of France, France

RésuméFrom the field of emotional intelligence and management sciences combined with an economics, sociological and psychological approaches, I will present in this talk an essay on a conceptual model named Emotional Capital (EC) which won the 2006 Louis Cros Prize of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. EC, referring to a set of emotional competencies (social and personal skills), is essential to enable human capital formation, and crucial for individuals for its accumulation and, its optimal exploitation and people well-being at work as well. Those emotional competencies are essential in the new contexts and changes in teaching as students attitudes and the environment has changed. This set of emotional competencies constituting their Emotional Capital© become professional competencies to face these new challenges of teaching and training jobs.

Mots-clés :Emotional capital, Emotional Competencies, professional competencies, leadership, pedagogical style.

I INTRODUCTION

The contexts of teaching have changed since the last decades. New tensions, new requirements, new pressures and changes in the environment… modify teaching jobs. Students are more difficult, less motivated, more requiring, more inclined to defend their rights than to fulfill their duty. The administration or the educational authorities are making more pressure….Less and less social recognition of the teaching job… Are teachers prepared for these changes and pressures? The traditional picture of the teacher as the “Master of the knowledge” with an institutional power is disappearing. A new style of teachers : leadership style seems

ECER 2008 CONFERENCE,VETNET, Goteborg, Sueden, September.

more appropriate to respond to those challenges. This implies new competencies: the emotional competencies. Those changes remind us that the teaching act is not only a cognitive action but also and first a social and affective action where emotions interfere in the class and work atmosphere. Precisely, in this article, I will question those emotional competencies as professional competencies for emotional work as teaching job : toward an ethical leadership style of teaching. For that, I will gather research from education, HRD and Human resource management science and psychology (Gendron, 2007d) raising the question: to which extent the teacher style can be approach or compare with a manager and what could we learn from the management sciences research ?

II FROM « THE TRADITIONAL TEACHER TO THE « LEADERSHIP » STYLE

II.1 The traditional style

For a while, teacher power was based on his or her knowledge and his or her insititutional power given by the school responsible. What I named the “institutionalized authority” of the teacher (Gendron, 2007a, e) coming from the latin origin of authority “potestas”. Since then, this authority has changed and has been questioned. His or her power is not any longer based only on knowledge but also on his or her competencies to negociate his authority and to manage his or her classroom by gaining the classmate adhesion and attention.This form of authority in its latin origin and meaning are related with “allowing” (allow the others to grow) and gaining authority via his or her competence and habilities (Obin, 2001) relying on legitimacy. In pedagogy, this authority refere to the medium competencies described in Barnabé et Dupont (2001), called in management science, the leadership style. A authority based on authenticity and engagement.

II.2 Pedagogical styles

Barnabé et Dupont (2001) described the teacher « mediator » as the teacher able to make easier the link between knowledge and students learning process and motivation: its « rapport avec le savoir ». The topic is not a purpose in its end but a mean to develop the person where the learner become autonomous and actor of his or her own learning process. This authority is based on trust, a good climate of work, and fairness. This teacher profile looks like the « democratic leadership » of Lewin, K. et ali.. (1939). Those researchers show that such a style has an positive impact on students performance and the atmosphere of the group.

Emotional Capi ta l , Profes ionnal Competencies and Leadership

II.3 Leadershi style: from the manager to the teacher

Transactional and transformational Managers: technocrate versus leadership

In the management models, the leader (Gendron, 2007d, e) is different from the « manager » or « technocrat » whom has the abilities to administrate but not leading the group toward a new phase of development. The term « leadership » is borrowed from the English language which defined the capacity of a person to lead or drive people or organizations in such a way that they reach the objectives planned. A leader is able to guide, influence, inspire, and initiate changes and engagement of his or her followers, collaborators, people he or she has in charge. This style is different from the technocrat which characterizes the “transactional manager” (see Fig. 1). For the former, the relationship is focus on the accomplishment of the tasks and the check-up of the results or outcomes. It can be done a comparison with the traditional teacher focus on his or her curriculum, on the task and the outcome. The leadership style is related with the transformational manager responding to the actual needs in teaching job. The transformational manager, the leadership motivates his or her collaborators in a way that those later sounds united. This behavior induces a process of transformation among the collaborators or students or learners. Le leader is able to transform the situation by suggesting his or her vision and modifying the behaviors of the others to make those later, real changes agents. His or her authority is neither institutional nor charismatic but he or she “serves” the people around him or her.

The ethical leadership of the teacher

If the management models help at clearing up the different style of managements and allow some comparison with teachers style, it differs on its purpose and ends. In education, the teacher with a leadership is different from the transformational manager. Without the respect and the recognition of the person dignity, we cannot talked about “leadership”. The teacher with a leadership style must be qualified of ethical leadership. Beyond the transformation of the organization and its members by the leader, the ethical leader works actively at helping each person to grow which this personal growth also benefit to the organization in its all.

The ethical leadership is focus on equity dimension, human values and life meaningful, and human respect. Beyond those functions or prescribed tasks, he or she is serving the person and try to make the person around him happy. He or she is caring of the well-being of the persons constituting the community. The ethical

ECER 2008 CONFERENCE,VETNET, Goteborg, Sueden, September.

leadership is less susceptible to abuse or to be far from ethic values compared with the transformational manager which this later don’t base his or her action on the notion of service. The ethical leader doesn’t look for to be served by others but at the opposite, to serve the others (Greenleaf, 1970).

III EMOTIONAL CAPITAL: EMOTIONAL COMPETENCIES AS PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES

III.1 The competencies model of the « 3S » of the leader

Beyond general knowledge, and technical knowledge or know-how, the most important of the characteristics of the leadership corresponds to the “savoir-être”

Emotional Capi ta l , Profes ionnal Competencies and Leadership

referring to behavioral competencies as the personal and social emotional competencies. A competent teacher must have developed the three dimensions to perform his or her job. I define the Competence through a model of 3S : « 3S : Savoirs, Savoir-faire et Savoir-être» » (Gendron, 2006, 2009). To face the changes and challenges teacher or trainers with a leadership style must respond to those three dimension of the knowledge or the plural knowledge. The genesis of the leadership relies on a complex and personal combination of knowledges: « savoirs, savoir-faire et savoir-être » which doesn’t come with the position but the candidate competence. The leader is able to guide and influence a group to reach the objectives. This ability rest on his or her competencies: he or she likes to dynamic the group, to suggest methods, advice, define the great lines of the work, analyze, feel, regulate intern tensions in the group, generate a smooth climate at work and represent the group and the organization. He or she is described as a high energy potential, and engagement in the action, commitment (perseverant, implied, takes initiatives and risks, confident, flexible regarding adaptation and learning process, ethic, sense of the responsibility, values oriented toward collaboration and the service to the others. Those characteristics refers to professional competencies: the emotional competencies.

ECER 2008 CONFERENCE,VETNET, Goteborg, Sueden, September.

III.2 Emotional Competencies: professional competencies

Among the emotional intelligence (EI) models, the Goleman and Cherniss model (2001) declines the EI through four set of emotional competencies divided up themselves into two categories (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Compétences émotionnelles (traduit de Cherniss & Goleman, 2001)

Personal Competencies (intrapersonal)

Social Competencies (interpersonal)

Self-Awareness  - Emotional self-awareness  - Accurate self-assessment  - Self-confidence

Social Awareness  - Empathy  - Service orientation  - Organizational awareness

Self-Management  - Emotional self-control  - Trustworthiness  - Conscientiousness  - Adaptability - Achievement drive  - Initiative

Social Skills  - Developing others  - Influence  - Communication - Conflict management  - Visionary leadership  - Catalyzing change  - Building bonds  - Teamwork and collaboration

III.3 The essential emotional capital of the teacher or trainer

«The Emotional Capital© is the set of resources (emotional competencies) that inhere to the person, useful for personal, professional and organizational development which participates to social cohesion and personal, economic and social successes (Gendron, 2004/2008). It belongs to the human capital defined in a broader sense than the one in the human capital theory of Becker (1964).

Emotional Capi ta l , Profes ionnal Competencies and Leadership

Those competencies related with psychosocial competencies are useful at work. Nevertheless, they are not taken into account in the traditional economic model of the Human capital. Escaping from the measure, their impact are therefore under-estimated et remain undervalued even if very important for emotional work as teaching. The changes in education and teaching contextes have underlined their importance. For instance, because of the massification of the universities, the heterogeneity of the public, teachers need more and more to deal with conflicts, violence, and negotiations which implies to have developed those emotional competencies : know how to listen, to deal with conflict, to work collaboratively… Number of research show that people who have developed such competencies manage better interpersonal relationships which participate to a better atmosphere at work and a better resilience and maintain the health (Durlak, 2003, Masserey, 2006).In sociology if emotional work deal with the conditions and context of work (Hochschild,1983) and in psychology to the person endowment, in economics of HRD, those two approaches have to be combined and enrich each other. Because the concept of « competence » combines the two dimensions. The competence is recognised through the action and the context and its nature (Gendron, 2004). And teaching job, because of its emotional dimension suppose those competencies (Gendron, 2008). They are part of the job despite their invisibility. They influence the personal development and the people and class performance. Their return are plural: personal and collectives on performance, well-being, resilience, personal development, social cohesion, the learning process…make them a real capital : an emotional capital © (Gendron, 2008). Beyond the personal benefit of the teacher, those competencies benefit to their activity and their students. The teacher leadership through his or her examplarity will stimulate and develop student emotional capital. Inscribed to the social capital sphere, the building of the EC (balance one) allows a democratic socialization and participate to the human capital constitution (Gendron, 2004). Those emotional competencies are the one described in the leadership style above and which must be developed in all person in charge of other persons (educators, trainers, teachers, nurse, team manager…) to face the new social requirements. If missing, those workers in emotional work will be less efficient and at the contrary Den Brok, Fisher, et Scott (2005) show that when present, they increase the motivation, the order and the students performance and success.

V CONCLUSION

Emotional competencies belong to the key competencies of the Ocde-Deelsa (2002) report « allowing people to participate efficiently in multiples contextes or social domains and contribute to the global success of their life and to the good run of the society». Research in neurosciences, in psychology, in educational sciences either in

ECER 2008 CONFERENCE,VETNET, Goteborg, Sueden, September.

economic demonstrate their importance. Because of their impact and plural return, personal, social and professional, the set of those competencies constitute a real capital which it is important to invest in it ; as professional competences for teachers and as key competencies for students.

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