Leading with Emotional Intelligence

How Leaders in a Diverse-Based Urban College in New York Successfully Responded to the COVID-19 Crisis of 2020

Abstract

Strategically inclined organizations recognize the role of emergency management in their plans to address "worst case scenarios”. The world has been impacted with unprecedented challenges permeating all kinds of civil structures. The COVID-19 disease, a simple micro-organic form of life, has destroyed global markets and people. In the United States, approximately 881,000 Americans have lost their jobs in the month of April 2020 alone (USDL, 2020). In terms of American education, the higher learning community has been forced to spin on its axis when public health measures have forced traditional colleges and universities to suspend residential learning, faculty staff have been laid-off and/or furloughed, and institutions continue to see their doors closed to their residential student body (Rosowsky, 2020). In response to the previous, this article describes how a small educational institution serving a diverse group of urban, under-represented, and international adult students managed to successfully operate amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion provides insights on leadership initiatives that rely on emotional intelligence to maintain student retention, enrollment, and motivation, and to protect its human capital. The findings seek to provide new and enlightened perspectives that may aid challenged leaders among comparable institutions to better formulate operational responses that will help them to successfully address current and future operational crises.