Emotions at Work: Leader Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities to Enhance Soldier Performance

Abstract

Every context and situation has the potential to evoke an emotional response in a Soldier; such emotions may include happiness, boredom, anxiety, and fear. Success in dealing with these situations requires that Army leaders leverage the emotional properties of a situation to exert influence on one or more Soldiers in order to attain a desired outcome. Army leaders, however, receive little training in this area. Neither the Army Leadership Field Manual (U.S. Department of the Army FM 6-22, 2006) nor the psychology research literature provides detailed guidance regarding the trainable attributes needed to manage emotions in self and others. The purpose of this Phase I STTR work was to compile and synthesize research from various domains in order to better understand the nature of emotional management and the attributes that predict it. This report outlines specific knowledge, skills, abilities, and other capabilities that predict leaders? success in executing eight categories (i.e., dimensions) of emotion management behaviors, which are posited to impact "proximal' outcomes and, in turn, "ultimate" outcomes. Implications for the U.S. Army are discussed.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA559313

Entities

People

  • Gregory A. Ruark
  • Jose Cortina
  • Kara Orvis
  • Katie Engel
  • Krista Langkamer
  • Seth Kaplan

Organizations

  • George Mason University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Applied Psychology
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Cognition
  • Group Dynamics
  • Happiness
  • Human Behavior
  • Human Emotions
  • Information Processing
  • Leadership
  • Management Personnel
  • Motor Skills
  • New York
  • Personality
  • Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Social Sciences
  • Training

Readers

  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Psychological Intervention/Treatment for Stress, Anxiety, PTSD, and Related Emotional and Cognitive Health Symptoms.