| In the past decade, emotional intelligence has become a focus of training and developing professionals in organizations and it may be a primary factor in predicting leadership success (Sadri, 2012). The United States Air Force includes over 260,000 enlisted Airmen, and at least 150,000 have attended Airmen Leadership School, the first level of enlisted professional military education (Total Human Resource Management Information System, 2014). Although the Air Force focuses on transformational leadership competencies in first-line supervisors' leadership development, emotional intelligence training is not a component of the Airmen Leadership School's curriculum (Air University, 2014). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact, if any, of participation in an emotional intelligence training program on Staff Sergeant first line supervisors' emotional intelligence and transformational leadership competencies. The participants of this mixed methods study were Air Force Staff Sergeant first-line supervisors that directly supervise at least one junior Airman. Participants completed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire 5x Short as pre-test and post-test measures. Participants completed an online asynchronous emotional intelligence course as the introduced independent variable. Participants then engaged in in-depth semi-structured interviews to gain qualitative data on the perceived impact of completed the emotional intelligence training program on their emotional intelligence, transformational leadership competencies, and the value of implementing emotional intelligence training to the Airman Leadership School curriculum. The results of this study suggest that Air Force Staff Sergeant Supervisors' measurable transformational leadership competencies, and perceived emotional intelligence competencies were significantly impacted resulting from completion of an emotional intelligence training program. |
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