Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Department Managers, Team Leaders and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-118

Before you join: This intermediate course assumes participants already supervise people, lead projects, manage client relationships or influence colleagues without formal authority.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Leadership performance often breaks down at moments of pressure: a manager reacts defensively to challenge, avoids difficult feedback, misreads resistance during change, or allows conflict to become personal. These behaviours affect trust, decision quality, retention and delivery. Emotional intelligence gives leaders practical ways to recognise their own emotional patterns, read the concerns of others and choose responses that protect both relationships and standards.

This course develops the leadership capabilities associated with Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence model: self-awareness, self-management, motivation, empathy and relationship management. Participants examine triggers, stress responses, assumptions, listening habits, feedback conversations, conflict behaviour and change communication. They learn to use emotional information without becoming controlled by it, handle difficult conversations directly, build psychological safety and adapt their communication to different stakeholders.

Delivered over five instructor-led days, the course is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online. Training days run from 08:30 to 16:30 and provide approximately 6.5 contact hours each. Short briefings are combined with realistic leadership cases, peer discussion, feedback practice, role simulations and structured reflection. Participants leave with a personal emotional intelligence development plan, trigger-management routines, stakeholder conversation plans and reusable feedback and conflict tools. A certificate of completion is awarded.

The course suits experienced supervisors, managers, project leaders and professionals whose results depend on influencing people, leading teams and maintaining productive working relationships under pressure.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess personal emotional triggers using Goleman’s five-component emotional intelligence model
  • Apply self-management techniques to regulate reactions during pressure, conflict and feedback
  • Use active listening and empathy methods to identify stakeholder concerns and interests
  • Deliver behaviour-based feedback using the Situation-Behaviour-Impact feedback structure
  • Select conflict responses using the Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode framework
  • Plan emotionally intelligent change communications for affected teams and stakeholders
  • Conduct coaching conversations that combine accountability, curiosity and emotional awareness
  • Create a 30-day emotional intelligence development plan with measurable behavioural commitments

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater control over emotional reactions during high-pressure leadership situations
  • Clearer understanding of personal triggers, assumptions and behavioural patterns
  • More confident delivery of feedback, accountability conversations and difficult messages
  • Stronger ability to build trust with colleagues, direct reports and senior stakeholders
  • A practical development plan for sustained emotional intelligence practice

For your organisation

  • Better quality management conversations before performance issues escalate
  • Reduced interpersonal friction affecting team delivery and stakeholder relationships
  • More credible leadership communication during organisational change
  • Improved psychological safety for reporting concerns, mistakes and emerging risks
  • Stronger manager capability to retain, develop and engage team members

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain emotional intelligence components and identify their leadership relevance.

  • Daniel Goleman’s five-component model and its leadership implications
  • Distinguishing emotional intelligence from personality, mood, temperament and technical competence
  • Leadership triggers identified through incidents, patterns and stakeholder consequences
  • Emotional data separated from assumptions, interpretations and behavioural choices
  • Baseline leadership situations selected for repeated self-assessment during the course
  • Ethical boundaries between emotional awareness, influence and manipulation

Participants can recognise emotional patterns and test their self-perception against feedback.

  • Emotion vocabulary expanded beyond anger, stress, frustration and satisfaction
  • Body signals tracked before escalation using a personal trigger log
  • Johari Window used to compare self-perception with colleague feedback
  • Values conflicts diagnosed as sources of recurring emotional reactions
  • Attribution errors tested against observable evidence and alternative explanations
  • Reflective pause protocol applied before consequential leadership conversations

Participants can regulate emotional reactions and maintain sound judgement under pressure.

  • Threat responses explained through amygdala activation, stress chemistry and attention narrowing
  • Name-it-to-tame-it labelling technique used to reduce emotional intensity
  • STOP pause technique applied before email, meetings and performance decisions
  • Cognitive reappraisal reframes setbacks without denying operational facts
  • Implementation intentions prepared for predictable triggers and pressure points
  • Recovery routines protect judgement after conflict, fatigue and demanding deadlines

Participants can sustain purposeful motivation while managing setbacks and demanding goals.

  • Intrinsic and extrinsic motives distinguished when assigning stretch objectives
  • Personal purpose statement linked to leadership responsibilities and organisational priorities
  • Progress goals translated into controllable weekly behavioural commitments
  • Learned optimism separates temporary setbacks from permanent self-judgements
  • Achievement drive balanced against burnout, perfectionism and excessive control
  • Recognition conversations connect effort, impact and meaningful contribution

Participants can listen for emotional and practical concerns behind stakeholder positions.

  • Empathy separates emotional contagion, perspective-taking and compassionate action
  • Active listening uses paraphrase, labelling, summarising and purposeful silence
  • Open questions uncover interests, concerns and unspoken constraints
  • Observation distinguishes words, tone, pace and nonverbal incongruence
  • Assumptions about intent tested through curiosity rather than mind-reading
  • Stakeholder empathy maps identify differing needs during change communications

Participants can build trust and deliver clear feedback without damaging working relationships.

  • Rapport built through attention, credibility, inclusion and conversational pacing
  • SBI feedback structure separates situation, behaviour and impact
  • Feedforward requests convert criticism into specific future-oriented commitments
  • Influence messages match stakeholder concerns, evidence and decision rights
  • Psychological safety supported by invitation, acknowledgement and productive dissent
  • Meeting interventions address withdrawal, dominance and escalating tension

Participants can respond to conflict constructively while maintaining accountability and respect.

  • Conflict signals classified before disagreements become personal or positional
  • Thomas-Kilmann modes selected according to stakes, relationships and time
  • Interest-based negotiation distinguishes positions, needs and workable options
  • De-escalation language lowers defensiveness without avoiding accountability
  • Repair conversations address impact, intent, apology and future agreements
  • Boundary statements protect standards while preserving respect and connection

Participants can communicate change in ways that address uncertainty, resistance and trust.

  • Emotional responses to uncertainty mapped across a change stakeholder group
  • Change messages acknowledge loss, ambiguity, progress and practical next steps
  • Resistance explored as data about risk, identity and unresolved concerns
  • Leader visibility plans match communication channels to stakeholder needs
  • Decision communication separates non-negotiables, consultation areas and local discretion
  • Team check-ins surface morale, workload and emerging conflict early

Participants can lead development and performance conversations with empathy and clear standards.

  • Coaching conversations distinguish coaching, mentoring, directing and performance management
  • Contracting establishes purpose, confidentiality, boundaries and desired outcomes
  • Emotionally intelligent questions invite reflection without rescuing or interrogating
  • Listening for values, assumptions and emotions beneath stated problems
  • SBI feedback delivered with evidence, empathy and clear standards
  • Follow-up agreements specify ownership, support, review dates and success signals

Participants can create a focused plan for applying emotional intelligence in their leadership role.

  • Personal EI development priorities selected from feedback, triggers and role demands
  • Thirty-day practice plan assigns behaviours, cues, measures and accountability partners
  • Stakeholder conversation plans prepare empathy, messages, questions and boundaries
  • Weekly reflection review captures outcomes, emotions, learning and adjustments
  • Peer feedback requests establish observable behaviours for continued development
  • Manager check-in agenda links EI practice to team performance measures

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Personal emotional trigger log template
  2. Self-management implementation intentions plan
  3. Johari Window feedback analysis
  4. SBI feedback conversation checklist
  5. Conflict response selection guide
  6. Thirty-day emotional intelligence development plan

Who should attend

  • Department Managers — need to improve team trust, performance conversations and decision quality
  • Team Leaders — need practical methods for handling pressure, conflict and varied personalities
  • Project Managers — need to influence stakeholders and resolve tensions without formal authority
  • Senior Supervisors — need to move from operational control towards people-centred leadership
  • Programme and Change Managers — need to address emotional responses to uncertainty and change
  • High-Potential Professionals — need to prepare for broader leadership and stakeholder responsibilities

Skills and tools covered

Self-awarenessEmotional self-managementEmpathic listeningFeedback deliveryConflict managementChange communication

Tools and standards

Goleman Emotional Intelligence Framework, Johari Window, Situation-Behaviour-Impact feedback model, Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course combines short instructor briefings with leadership cases drawn from operational, project, public-sector and client-facing settings. Participants analyse emotional triggers, practise listening and feedback structures, and work through conflict and change simulations. Facilitated group discussion compares different leadership responses and their consequences. Individual reflection converts course concepts into personal observations, while application planning focuses on current workplace conversations, stakeholder relationships and team challenges. Trainers adapt examples, cases and discussion depth to the experience and sector of each cohort.

Requirements and prerequisites

This intermediate course assumes participants already supervise people, lead projects, manage client relationships or influence colleagues without formal authority. They should be familiar with routine workplace conversations, performance expectations and team goals, and be willing to examine feedback on their own behaviour. Prior leadership theory or psychology study is not required. No psychometric certification, clinical training, counselling experience or formal assessment is required. Participants should bring two current leadership situations involving pressure, feedback, conflict, change or stakeholder relationships.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have experience leading people, projects, clients or stakeholders. You do not need prior psychology study, psychometric certification or formal leadership training.

Bring examples of two current situations involving feedback, conflict, pressure, change or a difficult stakeholder relationship. These examples will support your personal reflection and application planning.

The course is designed for managers, supervisors, project leaders, change leaders and professionals moving into broader leadership responsibilities. It is particularly useful for people whose work depends on trust, influence and difficult conversations.

General leadership courses may cover delegation, strategy, performance management and decision-making more broadly. This course concentrates on emotional awareness, self-control, empathy, feedback, conflict and relationship management.

Participants use current workplace situations to identify triggers, plan conversations and choose better responses. The final 30-day plan sets specific behaviours, cues, measures and accountability arrangements for use after the course.

The five days progress from self-awareness and self-management to empathy, feedback, conflict, change and coaching. Each day combines instructor input, case analysis, discussion, simulations and structured application planning during approximately 6.5 contact hours.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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