The Impact of Educators' Emotional Intelligence on Managing Change : A mixed method approach to gain South African insight

This publication investigates the impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on educators' roles as managers of change in South Africa. It also explores their roles as managers of change, to what extent EI contributes to workplace success and how change impacts disadvantaged, mixed and ex-Model C schools. The ultimate purpose of our publication was to develop a possible framework to assist educators in managing the process of change in an emotionally intelligent way. In developing such a framework, the focus was on presenting an overview of the educator as manager of change; delineating EI as important contributor to workplace success; and exploring the change management process in disadvantaged, mixed and ex-Model C secondary schools in two of our eleven provinces. The empirical study consisted of a structured questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The main findings of the empirical investigation revealed that educators and learners lack the tools to deal with change in school and in their everyday lives effectively. An EI competency framework for change is proposed to assist educators to deal with change in an emotionally intelligent way.