Unleashing the power of emotional competency development program on leaders’ self-motivation

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the effects of the emotional competency development program on leaders’ self-motivation. Eighty leaders at a non-profit agency in Malaysia were involved in an experimental/control group research design where the experimental group was given a nine-week emotional competency development program. Pre- and post-test were conducted to assess participants’ self-motivation using the Motivation Sources Inventory. The findings indicate that the emotional competency development program does have an effect on increasing leaders’ self-motivation. However, positive effects were only seen on intrinsic process, self-concept internal and goal internalization. Whereas, the instrumental and self-concept external does not produce any significant changes after the training. As a conclusion, this study has provided some empirical proof on the effectiveness of the EI training program on developing leaders’ emotional intelligence and intrinsic motivation, which might contribute to the theoretical and methodological aspect of leadership development.