Leadership: Overcoming Challenges to Change and Uncertainty

“The only constant in life is change”

Heraclitus (Greek philosopher of Ephesus, 500 BC)

We all face change every day – whether it is a simple change in the weather, a change to our work schedule or changes in our family life.

Change is the only constant in life - the only thing we can be sure will happen.  Change affects everyone and everybody deals with change differently.  If you can create awareness of the way you respond to life events and organisational change and manage your emotional response to the event you're well on your way to effectively managing change and managing people through change.

This course's focus is on Emotional Intelligence for Change. 

Emotional intelligence for change refers to the ability to recognise and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, in order to effectively navigate change.

With emotional intelligence, an individual can be better equipped to lead and influence others during times of change and transition.  They can also recognise their own emotional reactions and adjust them to be more effective in the face of adversity, allowing them to take on a more proactive role in creating positive change.  Ultimately, emotional intelligence for change is a powerful tool for creating a better future.

Emotional intelligence consists of a range of fundamental skills that enable you to confidently respond to people and changing situations.  This type of intelligence allows you, as a leader, to understand better the motivations, feelings, and needs of people around you who will be involved with change, and adapt to evolving situations accordingly.  Emotional intelligence also enables you to handle conflict, deal with stress, and maintain relationships more effectively in challenging times.

Managing the way you respond to events and your ability to communicate effectively is essential for change leadership, for managing people effectively through change and for managing personal change.  It's not what happens that matters but how you and others response to change that really counts.

Being emotionally intelligent is the underlying structure that underpins and supports effective responses to events, people and change.  In the workplace and in our personal lives being emotionally intelligent is an essential component to building resilience for mental health and successfully managing people and change.

The ability to quickly and easily adapt to change is often a competitive advantage for a change leader.  Emotionally intelligent leaders and managers are also able to help others manage difficult change. 

Practically applying emotional intelligence at work and using emotional intelligence well during change will help you drive change leadership positively and effectively.

This course has been designed to explore the role of emotional intelligence in change looking at change at the personal and organisational level.  It explores working with emotional needs through conscious choices fundamental to effective change.

People often talk about positive and negative emotions in change.  This is not that helpful as emotions cannot really be labelled in that way.  The course also covers the myths around positive and negative emotions and why this terminology is not appropriate when working to understand emotions and emotional intelligence in the workplace. 

Changing the way that you work with your emotions is not easy.  This course will give you some insights BUT developing your emotional intelligence will take you time and a lot of effort, and even then you are not going to get it right all the time!!  Emotional intelligence is about improving performance, engagement and well being in a sustainable way, so that it sticks.

The course covers

• The importance of emotional intelligence in managing change

• Why resistance to change occurs and how to overcome this

• The neuroscience of change to explain the psychological reasons people react to changes

• The emotions that people experience and ways to support people positively as they transition through change

• How to utilise change management models practically using emotional intelligence and a focus on the people involved

The course contains narrated videos, activities and some fun material to download. 

Completing this course, you will be able to

• Describe the role of emotional intelligence in change leadership

• Consider what is involved in working with the emotional climate

• Explain why resistance occurs and how to overcome this

• Recognise how people react to events by understanding the neuroscience of change

• Identify the emotions that people experience as they transition through change and identify ways to support people positively

• Determine how to utilise change management models practically using emotional intelligence at work and with a focus on supporting the people involved

• Explore ways to effectively manage change in your current circumstances

The course material makes up part of a one week advanced workshop that has been endorsed by the Institute of Leadership and Management. 

PLEASE NOTE - This course is NOT for you if you are not prepared to work through the practical activities that make up a fundamental part of the course.  Emotional intelligence cannot be developed by learning some techniques through watching a few video lectures.  The course requires you to do some reflective thinking, to get some feedback and to discuss your development with others.  I'm afraid that you won't get the best from the course unless you are prepared to do this.

This course is being continually refined and updated to ensure it remains current and relevant.

There are FIVE Activity Booklets included within the course that are designed to help you to work with your emotional intelligence for change.  The activities require you do some work outside of the course.  The emotional brain learns from doing things and through activity.  Repetition and rehearsal over weeks will embed in changes.

The course has recently been given 1 and 2 star ratings from a number of learners without comments for some reason.  I am not sure why this is.  I have thanked each person and asked for some feedback that will help me to improve the course and offers of help in understanding the material.  I have had no response and so I am unable to address any potential issues within the course that I am unaware of.  Perhaps they find that using their emotional intelligence in times of c hange is too chalenging for them!

The course contains a series of Lightbulb Moments resource cards, which have been created to provide you with handy reminders of key points around topics covered within the course.

All PDFs can be completed online and are Section 508 / ADA Accessibility compliant.

All videos are high definition recorded in 1080p.

All videos have grammatically correct English captions.

Latest update - March 2024