Emotional leadership and learning

Recent approaches to teaching emphasize that the teacher should be a facilitator, not a scholar in a preaching posture. As a result, the distance between learner and trainer is shrinking.

As emotions come together, their management becomes a key factor in the learning process. In this sense, emotional leadership becomes a key factor in the learning process.

Is it a manipulation of the mind? How can it be dispelled? Let's take a look at the different facets of this type of leadership in the field of teaching.

The teacher leader: beyond Maxwell

" Beyond knowledge and know-how, the most important personal characteristics of leadership correspond to behavioural skills (emotional, personal and social)".

We fully agree with this observation. Indeed, the teacher who used to have the power to impose himself in the classroom through his right of "repression", which enabled him to establish his authority, is gradually disappearing in favor of a teacher who facilitates knowledge, increasingly facing an audience with more rights than duties. To do this, he ceases to be this boss, this leader of troops, to become a leader. But what kind of leader are we talking about? To find out, we need to go back to the definition of a leader.

Adnane Chader in 2019, in his thesis on emotional competencies and leadership, notes that it's quite complicated to define this term. This observation is shared by several researchers. Despite this observation, and following her survey of over sixty leaders, she concludes that the leader is that person who has the "ability to transmit a vision to others with a view to federating around an objective, a project by giving it meaning." (2019 :380).

This definition is certainly interesting, but it raises the question of whether, in contemporary schools, visions are transmitted, channeled or elicited. In other words, hasn't the now outdated, more goal-oriented approach made it possible to move on to more creativity-oriented approaches?

By way of illustration, the competency-based approach allows students to draw up their own visions. The teacher thus becomes a coach and not necessarily the one to transmit the vision. In this sense, we can conclude that a teacher's leadership is not that of a company director or a doctor, to name but a few. To further situate the teacher in this diversity of leadership, we draw on the work of John Maxwell. He distinguishes 5 levels of leadership.

• The first level is position. People follow the leader because they have to.
  
  
• The second is permission. Leadership is built on relationships, and people follow because they want to.
  
  
• The third level is production: the leader achieves visible results and influence through performance. They are followed for what they achieve.
  
  
• The fourth level is people development: the leader trains and develops other leaders, multiplying his effect. People follow him because of what they become.
  
  
• The final level is the pinnacle (respect). This is the highest level. It is achieved through a lasting reputation and profound influence. The leader is followed for what he represents and inspires.

These five levels suggest that the teacher passes through all of them without necessarily following the same evolution. While we have shown that the teacher loses authority, this does not prevent us from recognizing that it takes authority to run a classroom. He therefore fits in perfectly with level 1. He must also facilitate exchanges with his learners so that they want to come to his classes (level 2).

A good teacher is also one who is praised by his future learners, who have heard good things about him from their predecessors. Having succeeded thanks to his or her pedagogy, they talk about him or her and draw people to the teacher who serves as an example: this is level three. Teachers also transform their learners, hence level 4, and end up inspiring vocations through a well-rounded career (level 5).

A near-accomplished teacher is one who embodies all five of these levels, but to these skills must be added the management of emotions, say level zero. For this is the skill that must guide all relationships with people.

Learning and emotions

According to Laurent Barthélemy (2025) "Emotional leadership refers to a leader's ability to recognize, understand, express and use his or her emotions - and those of others - to unite, inspire and motivate. It rests on two pillars: emotional intelligence and empathy".

In addition to the values embodied in the 5 levels, today's teacher needs to be able to analyze and control his or her own feelings and emotions, and those of others (Goleman, 2014), especially as the sheer number of learners means a diversity of profiles and, by extension, emotions.

The trainer, as the bearer of personal emotions and feelings, encounters other emotions and feelings on a daily basis and must be able to channel them: this is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is complemented by empathy.

A key sensitivity

Empathy is essential for a teacher: it enables them to understand students' difficulties, emotions and points of view, to adapt explanations and the pace of learning, and to create a caring and reassuring classroom climate.

By putting themselves in their students' shoes, teachers can build trust, motivate learners and prevent conflicts, while identifying specific needs requiring assistance or adaptation at an early stage. Empathy thus enhances pedagogical effectiveness and makes a lasting contribution to students' academic and personal development.

Indeed, Adnane Chader and Hayat Sbai, echoing the thinking of (Brief and Weiss, 2002), assert that "emotions are now seen as essential to work experiences and are being studied as relevant predictors of performance".

These two pillars are essential, but can create difficulties for the teacher-leader. Emotions, if negative, can weaken a teacher. Avoiding absorbing learners' negative emotions is another challenge facing the trainer in managing emotional intelligence. A student for whom we have developed deep empathy, for example, may transmit his sadness to us.

Beyond this risk, emotional intelligence is not without its virtues. On this subject, Alexandre Roberge (2014) states that "Emotional intelligence is [therefore] not a magical power that will lead himains to work better together. On the contrary, it can be a spectacular lever for manipulation." So, one might legitimately ask to what extent it can be used by a teacher.

Illustration: 2603324993

References

Chader, Adnane, Sbai, Hayat, "Chapter 7. Le leadership émotionnel: une approche émergente du leadership dans les organisations", in Natacha Pijoan and Jean-Michel Plane (coord.) Approches critiques des organisations Mélanges en l'honneur du Professeur Alain Briole, 2020, EMS Éditions.

Chader, Adnane, "Le leadership émotionnel: les compétences émotionnelles au service du leadership. Gestion et management. Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier III, 2019. French. ⟨NNT: 2019MON30025⟩. ⟨tel02517432⟩

Barthélemy, Laurent "Emotional leadership: why it makes a difference today", 2025, https://laurentbarthelemy.fr/leadership-emotionnel/

Gendron, Bénédicte LES COMPÉTENCES EMOTIONNELLES COMME COMPÉTENCES PROFESSIONNELLES DE L'ENSEIGNANT : La figure de leadership en pédagogie. Questions de pédagogie dans l'enseignement supérieur, Jun 2008, BREST, France.

Gendron, Bénédicte, " Quelles compétences émotionnelles du leadership éthique, de l'enseignant au manager, pour une dynamique de réussite et de socialisation professionnelle ? ", Éducation et socialisation, 24 | 2008, 141-155.

Goleman, Daniel, L'INTELLIGENCE ÉMOTIONNELLE Comment transformer ses émotions en intelligence, translated from English into French by Thierry Piélat,1997, Editions Robert Laffont, S.A.

Roberge, Alexandre, "De l'intelligence émotionnelle à la manipulation", 2014, https://cursus.edu/fr/9701/de-lintelligence-emotionnelle-a-la-manipulation