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
Résumé
From 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
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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.
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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
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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).

Fig. 1 Toward new manager patterns (Gendron, 2006)

Old Fashion Manager Pattern: New Manager Pattern: leadership
technocratic style
Transactional Manager Transformational Manager
• Talk
• Listen
• Product oriented
• People oriented
• Departement needs • Client needs
• Competition • Cooperation
• Individual • Groups
• Logical • Intuitive
• Written communication • Verbal Communication
• Saleable or marketable • Quality
• Image • Substance
• Secret • Honesty
• Long Term Relationship
• Short Term Gain
• Process
• Immediate Results
• Motivating
• Critics
• Centrarchical
• Hierarchical
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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”
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.
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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 Social Competencies

(intrapersonal) (interpersonal)

Self-Awareness
- Emotional self- Social Awareness
awareness - Empathy
- Accurate self- - Service orientation
assessment - Organizational awareness
- Self-confidence

Self-Management Social Skills

- Emotional self-control - Developing others
- Trustworthiness - Influence
- Conscientiousness - Communication
- Adaptability - Conflict management
- Achievement drive - Visionary leadership
- Initiative - 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).
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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
Emotional C a p i t a l , P r o f e s i o n n a l C o m p e t e n c i e s a n d L e a d e r s h i p

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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