Emotional Intelligence and Strategic Thinking Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Advanced Certificate on completion
Who attends Senior Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-PE-024

Before you join: Participants should have several years of professional experience and regular responsibility for decisions, stakeholder relationships, projects, teams or specialist advice.

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

Senior professionals are expected to make sound choices under pressure, influence stakeholders with competing interests, and maintain constructive working relationships when emotions run high. Yet many decisions are weakened by untested assumptions, defensive communication, status concerns, groupthink or an inability to separate facts from interpretations. Emotional intelligence and strategic thinking provide complementary disciplines: one improves awareness and response; the other improves the quality, timing and consequences of decisions.

This advanced course develops the ability to recognise emotional patterns, regulate responses, read stakeholder concerns and conduct difficult conversations with greater precision. Participants apply strategic frameworks to define complex problems, assess external forces, challenge assumptions, compare options and anticipate second-order effects. The course connects interpersonal judgement with business reasoning, helping participants make decisions that are both analytically sound and workable with the people who must support them.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with cases, group analysis, simulations and structured reflection on real professional situations. Participants work with scenarios such as responding to a regulatory incident, resolving cross-functional conflict over resource allocation, gaining support for a contested transformation initiative and making decisions amid incomplete information. They leave with a personal trigger and regulation plan, a strategic issue brief, a decision journal and practical conversation-preparation tools. A certificate of completion is issued to participants who complete the five-day course.

The course is particularly suited to managers, senior specialists, project leaders and emerging executives whose work requires sound judgement, influence and composure in complex organisational settings.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess emotional triggers, assumptions and behavioural patterns using structured self-awareness methods
  • Apply cognitive reappraisal and implementation intentions to regulate responses under pressure
  • Conduct difficult conversations using the Crucial Conversations framework, DESC script and active listening
  • Analyse strategic issues using PESTLE, Porter's Five Forces and stakeholder salience mapping
  • Frame decisions using explicit criteria, alternatives, evidence, risks and second-order effects
  • Challenge cognitive bias through premortem analysis, red-team review and base-rate thinking
  • Build stakeholder communication strategies using SCARF, message maps and coalition planning
  • Produce a strategic issue brief and thirty-day personal application plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater composure during conflict, challenge and high-stakes decision meetings
  • Clearer separation of evidence, assumptions, emotions and personal interpretations
  • Stronger credibility when presenting difficult messages or contested recommendations
  • More disciplined strategic judgement under uncertainty and time pressure
  • A practical development system for monitoring triggers, decisions and behavioural progress

For your organisation

  • Better-quality decisions through explicit assumptions, alternatives and risk criteria
  • Reduced escalation from avoidable conflict, defensiveness and unclear expectations
  • More productive challenge in leadership, project and cross-functional meetings
  • Stronger stakeholder support for difficult decisions and change initiatives
  • Improved accountability through clearer commitments, decision rights and follow-through

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can identify emotional data, behavioural patterns and self-awareness priorities in consequential professional situations.

  • Four-branch Mayer-Salovey model distinguishes perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotion
  • Johari Window identifies blind spots affecting credibility and working relationships
  • Emotional data separated from assumptions, judgments and behavioural responses
  • Trigger mapping links situations, appraisals, body signals and habitual reactions
  • Baseline self-assessment sets development priorities against critical leadership situations
  • Ethical boundaries separate emotional insight from diagnosis and personal intrusion

Participants can select and apply practical regulation techniques before responding to pressure, conflict or uncertainty.

  • ABC model tests activating events, beliefs and consequential emotions
  • Name emotions precisely using a granularity vocabulary and intensity scale
  • STOP technique interrupts impulsive responses before consequential conversations
  • Cognitive reappraisal reframes threat interpretations without denying material risks
  • Implementation intentions specify if-then responses for recurring pressure triggers
  • Recovery routines manage attention, sleep boundaries and post-conflict rumination

Participants can interpret stakeholder concerns accurately and establish shared meaning without making unsupported assumptions.

  • Active listening distinguishes content, emotion, interest and unstated concern
  • Open questions test interpretations before offering advice or solutions
  • Non-verbal cues assessed cautiously across culture, hierarchy and communication preferences
  • Empathic statements acknowledge impact without conceding disputed facts or accountability
  • Perspective-taking separates intent, impact and stakeholder constraints during disagreement
  • Feedback loops confirm shared meaning, commitments and next actions

Participants can prepare and lead difficult conversations using evidence, mutual purpose and clear behavioural requests.

  • Crucial Conversations framework prepares dialogue around safety, facts and mutual purpose
  • Facts-to-story ladder separates observable evidence from assumptions and conclusions
  • DESC script structures assertive requests, boundaries and consequence statements
  • Interest-based negotiation identifies positions, interests, options and objective criteria
  • De-escalation language lowers defensiveness during blame, resistance and status threats
  • Repair conversations address broken commitments through acknowledgement, ownership and restitution

Participants can define strategic issues, identify critical choices and examine system-wide implications of decisions.

  • Strategic thinking distinguishes operational optimisation from choices about direction and trade-offs
  • Systems maps trace feedback loops, delays and unintended consequences
  • Three Horizons frames core performance, emerging opportunities and future options
  • Assumption logs expose beliefs requiring evidence, monitoring or revision
  • Second-order thinking tests downstream effects beyond immediate gains or losses
  • Decision framing defines the question, boundaries, stakeholders and success measures

Participants can assess external forces and develop plausible scenarios for strategic planning and decision-making.

  • PESTLE analysis assesses political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental drivers
  • Porter's Five Forces tests industry attractiveness, bargaining power and substitution risk
  • Stakeholder salience maps power, legitimacy and urgency around strategic issues
  • Signal scanning distinguishes weak signals from noise and familiar trends
  • Scenario axes build plausible futures from critical uncertainties
  • Implications tables convert external shifts into threats, opportunities and strategic questions

Participants can make more defensible decisions by testing evidence, bias, risk and alternative courses of action.

  • Decision quality separates useful information, values, alternatives, reasoning and commitment
  • Base-rate thinking corrects vivid anecdotes and availability bias
  • Premortem analysis identifies failure modes before committing resources or reputation
  • Red-team challenge tests assumptions, evidence gaps and unintended incentives
  • Weighted decision matrices compare options against explicit criteria and weights
  • Risk registers assign owners, indicators, mitigations and contingency thresholds

Participants can build support for strategic choices through audience analysis, credible framing and planned engagement.

  • SCARF model anticipates status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness concerns
  • Stakeholder maps identify supporters, blockers, decision-makers and informal influencers
  • Message maps connect strategic choices to audience interests and evidence
  • Framing techniques present trade-offs without false certainty or emotional manipulation
  • Coalition building sequences consultation, sponsorship and commitment before formal decisions
  • Meeting design separates divergence, convergence, decision rights and follow-through

Participants can maintain emotional discipline and strategic focus when groups face conflict, disruption or uncertainty.

  • Emotional contagion assessed through mood, language, pace and group behaviour
  • Psychological safety supports dissent, error reporting and candid strategic challenge
  • Conflict response modes compared using the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument under pressure
  • Sensemaking routines stabilise attention during ambiguity, disruption and competing demands
  • After-action reviews examine results, assumptions, emotions and decision process
  • Boundary-setting scripts protect priorities while preserving professional relationships

Participants can convert course methods into a focused plan for improving judgement, influence and emotional discipline.

  • Personal trigger plan links early signals, regulation choices and recovery actions
  • Strategic issue brief states context, stakeholders, options, risks and recommendation
  • Decision journal records assumptions, confidence levels, evidence and review dates
  • Conversation preparation canvas aligns purpose, facts, questions, requests and boundaries
  • Thirty-day application plan schedules experiments, feedback sources and progress measures
  • Peer accountability agreements establish check-ins, evidence and adjustment points

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

What you take back to work

  1. Personal trigger and self-regulation plan
  2. Strategic issue brief template
  3. Decision journal template
  4. Difficult conversation preparation canvas
  5. Stakeholder influence map
  6. Thirty-day application plan

Who should attend

  • Senior Managers — make high-consequence decisions while maintaining trust and constructive challenge
  • Department Heads — align teams around priorities, trade-offs and difficult organisational choices
  • Project and Programme Managers — manage stakeholder tension, uncertainty and cross-functional dependencies
  • Emerging Leaders — build the judgement and interpersonal discipline required for broader responsibility
  • Senior Specialists — influence decisions without relying on formal authority
  • Change and Transformation Leaders — address resistance, uncertainty and emotional responses to change

Skills and tools covered

Emotional self-regulationStrategic decision-makingDifficult conversationsStakeholder influenceSystems thinkingBias mitigation

Tools and standards

Mayer-Salovey Emotional Intelligence Model, PESTLE Analysis, Porter's Five Forces, SCARF Model

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce models, followed by case analysis, group exercises, simulations and individual application planning. Participants examine realistic situations involving stakeholder conflict, strategic uncertainty, resource trade-offs and difficult feedback. Simulated conversations develop listening, assertion, de-escalation and influence techniques. Strategic cases apply external analysis, scenario thinking, decision-quality methods and risk assessment. Facilitated peer feedback helps participants test their reasoning and convert course methods into actions for current workplace priorities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have several years of professional experience and regular responsibility for decisions, stakeholder relationships, projects, teams or specialist advice. They should be prepared to examine their own responses to pressure and bring examples of real workplace situations involving competing priorities or difficult conversations. No psychology qualification, formal management degree, financial background or prior study of emotional intelligence is required. The course does not provide clinical mental health training, counselling skills or diagnostic assessment.

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 professional experience involving decisions, projects, stakeholders or team responsibilities. No prior emotional intelligence qualification or formal strategy training is required.

Bring examples of current professional situations involving a difficult conversation, a contested decision or stakeholder resistance. Personal devices are useful for recording notes and completing application-planning materials.

It is designed for experienced managers, project leaders, senior specialists and emerging leaders. Participants benefit most when their role requires influence, judgement and composure without complete control over decisions or resources.

The course combines emotional intelligence methods with formal strategic thinking and decision-quality techniques. It focuses on how emotional responses, stakeholder dynamics and cognitive bias affect consequential choices, not only on presentation or people-management skills.

Participants use their own workplace situations to create a trigger plan, strategic issue brief and conversation preparation canvas. These tools can be used for meetings, negotiations, change initiatives, project decisions and performance discussions.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily. The five days progress from emotional awareness and regulation to difficult conversations, strategic analysis, decision quality, stakeholder influence and application planning.

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

More courses in Personal Effectiveness

Personal Effectiveness Effective Meeting Management Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Emotional Agility at Work Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Emotional Intelligence and Negotiation Skills Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Emotional Intelligence and Resilience Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Emotional Resilience and Performance Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Energy and Peak Performance Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov Personal Effectiveness Executive Presence and Personal Branding Training Course 5 days · from USD 1,100 · next 16 Nov