NURS 721 Week 3 Emotional Intelligence Paper Example

The Moment I Raised My Voice: A Research-Based and Reflective Paper on Emotional Intelligence in a Nurse Director's Leadership

Introduction

In January, during the worst week of a respiratory virus surge, one of my charge nurses closed four beds on her unit without telling me because she did not have the staff to care for patients in them. I learned about the closure from the emergency department director, who called to ask why twelve admitted patients were boarding in his hallway. I walked to the unit, found the charge nurse at the nurses' station, and asked, loudly enough for three staff nurses and a patient's daughter to hear, why she thought she could close beds without asking me. She answered quietly that she had called my office twice. I had not checked my messages. Her decision had been reasonable and safe; mine, to confront her in public, was neither.

That moment is the reason for this paper. I have led nurses for eleven years, and I believe I usually manage my emotions well. On that afternoon I did not, and the damage to a relationship with one of my most capable charge nurses took months to repair. This paper examines emotional intelligence through research and reflection. It defines the construct, reviews what studies show about its role in nursing and leadership, asks whether it can be developed, reflects on the incident using a structured model, and sets out a plan for growth. Throughout, it draws on the argument in Clawson (2012) that effective leadership works at the level of values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations, because my outburst came from somewhere below the surface.

Defining Emotional Intelligence

Salovey and Mayer (1990) first proposed emotional intelligence as a branch of social intelligence: the capacity to notice feelings in oneself and in other people, tell those feelings apart and let what they reveal inform how one thinks and acts. Their framing is an ability model: emotional intelligence is a set of skills, comparable to other forms of intelligence, that can be measured by how well people perform emotional tasks. Goleman (1995) brought the concept to a wide audience and broadened it to include self-awareness, managing emotions, self-motivation, empathy and handling relationships, presenting emotional intelligence as a set of learnable competencies that matter for success at work as much as conventional intelligence does.

Leadership research has largely adopted a four-domain version of the competency approach. Goleman et al. (2002) sort the competencies into four domains, two concerned with knowing and governing oneself and two concerned with reading and influencing others, and argue that a leader's emotional state spreads to the group, so that leaders set the emotional tone of their teams. The first two domains are personal, concerning how leaders know and govern themselves; the last two are social, concerning how leaders read and influence others. Measures differ with the model: ability tests ask people to solve emotional problems, while self-report scales such as the Wong and Law scale ask people to rate themselves. Self-reports are practical but vulnerable to the same blind spots they are meant to detect, which is a limitation worth keeping in mind when reading the studies below.

What the Research Shows

Emotional Intelligence and Job Performance

Evidence that emotional intelligence matters for nurses' work is growing, though most of it comes from cross-sectional surveys. In a study of 219 nurses at a Ghanaian teaching hospital, using an instrument based on Goleman's competency framework, all four domains correlated positively with job performance; after adjustment for gender, education, experience and nursing category, self-awareness and relationship management remained significant predictors, while self-management and social awareness did not, and the domains together explained about a quarter of the variance in performance (Duncan, 2026). The finding that self-awareness and relationship management stood out is relevant to my incident, which involved a failure of both: I did not recognize how angry I was, and I handled the relationship badly.

Emotional Intelligence and Conflict

Nurse leaders spend much of their time managing disagreement. In a survey of 500 Saudi nurse managers, most had moderate emotional intelligence, collaborating and compromising were the most common conflict management styles, and emotional intelligence was positively related to all of the conflict management styles measured (Alanazy & Alzamil, 2025). The study's design cannot show that emotional intelligence causes better conflict handling, and the self-report scale used is open to the blind spots discussed earlier, but the pattern fits what experienced nurse leaders describe: managers who can tolerate their own frustration have more options than those who cannot. My conflict with the charge nurse illustrates the point. It involved a working relationship, a scarce resource in the form of four staffed beds, and a clash between her duty to safe staffing and my expectation of control. A leader with more options in that moment would have chosen a conversation over a confrontation. Conflict in nursing is rarely avoidable, especially in a surge; what emotional intelligence seems to change is whether the conflict ends in a better decision or a damaged relationship.

Emotional Intelligence, Resilience and Moral Distress

Emotional intelligence also appears to help nurses withstand the strain of their work. In a study of 390 nurses in nine teaching hospitals, emotional intelligence had a moderately strong positive association with resilience, and in a model that included conscientiousness and demographic factors it showed the strongest association with resilience, with the model explaining 47% of the variance (Safi-Keykaleh et al., 2026). Another study of 210 nurses in four hospitals found a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and moral distress, with emotional intelligence components explaining 15.6% of the variance in moral distress (Ghanbari-Afra et al., 2026). The charge nurse who closed beds was acting under exactly the kind of moral pressure that produces distress: she could not provide safe care to more patients, and she was right to say so.

Emotional Intelligence and Keeping Young Nurses

Leaders' emotional intelligence may also influence whether nurses stay. In a study of 132 shift-working nurses under 30 at a newly opened hospital in South Korea, emotional intelligence, work-life balance and emotional leadership together raised the explained variance in job embeddedness from 10.5% to 40.8%, with emotional intelligence the strongest predictor and emotional leadership also significant (Han & Choi, 2026). Three of the nurses who watched my outburst were in their first two years of practice. I do not know what they concluded about our hospital, but the evidence suggests that the emotional climate leaders create shapes whether young nurses feel rooted enough to stay. Every young nurse at that station learned something about what happens when a charge nurse makes a hard call, and none of it was what I would have wanted to teach.

Can Emotional Intelligence Be Developed?

If emotional intelligence were fixed, a reflective paper would be an exercise in acceptance. The evidence suggests otherwise, with qualifications. A 2026 scoping review of educational interventions to enhance nurses' emotional intelligence found programs ranging from single sessions to year-long courses, most often delivered face to face, and identified seven recurring areas of content: emotional intelligence fundamentals, emotional awareness, emotion regulation, empathy, communication, reflection and well-being (Hakalahti et al., 2026). The authors described the evidence on content as limited and fragmented, so it is not yet clear which approaches produce lasting change. Still, the recurrence of reflection and emotional awareness across programs supports the approach of this paper: development begins with examining specific experiences honestly.

Reflection on the Incident

A Structured Approach

Johns (2017) describes reflection as a way of learning through everyday experience toward realizing a vision of desirable practice, and his model for structured reflection guides the practitioner through a sequence of cues: describing the experience, noticing what was significant, examining one's feelings and the feelings of others, considering what influenced one's actions, imagining how one might have responded differently and identifying what has been learned. I use those cues here because they slow down a memory I would rather move past.

Describing the Experience and My Feelings

The facts are brief, and I have tried to record them without softening them. I received a call from a colleague who was frustrated with my service, felt embarrassed and responsible, and walked to the unit already angry. I confronted the charge nurse publicly, she explained calmly that she had tried to reach me, and I realized within seconds that I was wrong. I apologized to her privately an hour later, but I did not apologize in front of the staff who had seen the confrontation. My feelings at the time were embarrassment, anger and, beneath both, fear: fear that the system's leaders would see me as unable to control my units during a crisis. The charge nurse later told me she felt humiliated and, for several weeks, unsure whether to make any decision without asking me first.

What Influenced My Actions

Clawson (2012) argues that behavior grows from values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations that people rarely examine. Reflecting on the incident, I can name three. I value being in control of my service, and I expect to be informed of significant decisions. I assume that when something goes wrong, the most important task is to establish who is responsible. And I believe, more deeply than I like to admit, that my standing with senior leaders depends on never being surprised. None of these is wicked, but together they turned a phone call into a confrontation. In the language of the four-domain model, my self-awareness failed first: I did not recognize the fear driving my anger. Self-management failed next, because I acted on the anger immediately. Social awareness failed when I ignored the staff and the family member watching, and relationship management failed when I questioned a capable colleague's judgment in public.

How I Might Have Responded

Had I recognized my state, I could have done three things differently. I could have checked my messages before walking to the unit, which would have shown that she had tried to reach me. I could have asked to speak with her privately and begun with a question about how the unit was coping rather than an accusation. And when I realized my error, I could have apologized in front of the same staff who heard the confrontation, which would have repaired her standing as well as our relationship. The evidence on conflict management suggests that collaborative approaches are associated with higher emotional intelligence (Alanazy & Alzamil, 2025), and each of these alternatives is a collaborative move.

What I Have Learned

The incident taught me that my emotional intelligence is situational. In ordinary weeks I listen well and stay calm, but under threat to my standing I react before I reflect. It also taught me that the charge nurse's decision was an act of moral courage that I should have protected rather than challenged. The research on moral distress suggests that nurses forced to choose between unsafe care and unpopular decisions need leaders who support them (Ghanbari-Afra et al., 2026). I failed that test, and I want to be the leader who passes it next time.

What the Incident Means Beyond Me

The reflection would be incomplete if it ended with my own feelings. A director's reactions shape what a whole service learns about escalation. If charge nurses conclude that closing beds for safety brings public criticism, some will keep beds open with unsafe staffing rather than face it, and patients will bear the cost. Goleman et al. (2002) describe leaders' moods as contagious, spreading through teams in ways that affect performance, and the research on young nurses' embeddedness suggests that this contagion reaches the newest staff most strongly (Han & Choi, 2026). In the weeks after the incident, I noticed that two other charge nurses began calling me about decisions they would previously have made alone. At the time I took it as conscientiousness; on reflection, it was caution learned from watching what happened to their colleague. Repairing that will take more than an apology to one person. At the next charge nurse meeting, I described the incident, named my error and stated clearly that closing beds when staffing is unsafe is a decision charge nurses are expected to make, with a call to me afterward rather than permission beforehand. That statement is now written into our surge plan, so that the expectation does not depend on my mood on a given day.

A Plan for Development

The plan below addresses each domain with an action that others could observe and a way to judge progress. It draws on the content areas Hakalahti et al. (2026) found most common in development programs: awareness, regulation, empathy, communication and reflection.

I have also asked the charge nurse whose beds I questioned to tell me if she sees the old pattern return. Inviting that feedback is uncomfortable, which is probably a sign that it is necessary. Two further steps support the plan. First, I will ask our organization's leadership development office whether a structured emotional intelligence program is available for directors, since the scoping review suggests that programs combining awareness, regulation and reflection are common and feasible in nursing settings. Second, I will review the plan with my own supervisor at six months, bringing the journal and the charge nurses' feedback, so that someone outside my own perspective judges whether the changes are real. Self-report is exactly the weakness the measurement literature warns about, and the plan should not rely on it alone.

Christian Worldview

Paul lists self-control last among the qualities the Spirit produces in believers, after love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Galatians 5:22-23). James warns that human anger does not bring about the righteousness God desires, and so he counsels listening first and speaking and growing angry only slowly (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, James 1:19-20). These passages describe something close to what researchers call self-management and social awareness, but they root it in character rather than technique. For a Christian leader, emotional intelligence is not only a tool for effectiveness; it is part of how love for neighbor is lived out at work, including toward a charge nurse on her hardest day. The passages also offer grace: the call to grow assumes that we are not yet what we should be.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand and manage one's own emotions and those of others, and research in nursing links it to job performance, constructive conflict management, resilience, moral distress and young nurses' intention to stay. Programs that build awareness, regulation, empathy and reflection suggest it can be developed. My own reflection showed a leader whose emotional intelligence holds in ordinary weeks but gives way when her standing feels threatened, driven by values and expectations I had not examined. The development plan turns that insight into observable actions, and the Christian call to patience and self-control gives it a purpose beyond effectiveness.

References

Alanazy, W., & Alzamil, S. K. S. (2025). The impact of emotional intelligence on conflict management styles used by Saudi nurse managers: A cross sectional, correlational study. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, Article 1630530. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1630530

Clawson, J. G. (2012). Level three leadership: Getting below the surface (5th ed.). Pearson.

Duncan, E. (2026). Emotional intelligence and nurses' job performance: Evidence from a Ghanaian teaching hospital. Journal of Nursing Management, 2026(1), Article e2359356. https://doi.org/10.1155/jonm/2359356

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Ghanbari-Afra, L., Alizadeh, A., Asgari, A., Namdari, S., Mousavi, S. K., Hoshangishayan, M. A., & Akbari, Z. (2026). Emotional intelligence and its relationship with moral distress in nurses: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 25(1), Article 823. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-04944-x

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. Bantam Books.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Harvard Business School Press.

Hakalahti, R., Litendahl, M., Tuomikoski, A. M., Kaihlaniemi, J., Kuivila, H., Mikkonen, K., & Oikarinen, A. (2026). Educational interventions to enhance emotional intelligence among nurses: A scoping review. Nurse Education Today, 168, Article 107439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2026.107439

Han, J. A., & Choi, E. H. (2026). Job embeddedness among young shift-working nurses at a newly established hospital in South Korea: Associations with emotional intelligence, emotional leadership, and work-life balance. Applied Nursing Research, 91, Article 152121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apnr.2026.152121

Johns, C. (2017). Becoming a reflective practitioner (5th ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Safi-Keykaleh, M., Solgi, P., Safarpour, H., Maddineshat, M., Zivari-Nemat, S., & Torabi, M. (2026). Relationships among emotional intelligence, conscientiousness, and resilience in nurses at Hamadan teaching hospitals, Iran: A cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05131-8

Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185-211. https://doi.org/10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG