Every order is original, expert-done, and screened for AI — full report on request.See how it works

Assignment questions
NursingDiscussion postNursing leadership

Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry Guide

Two concepts, one situation. Both change what a leader asks rather than what they know, and that shared mechanism is the connection worth making.

Editorial process

Last reviewed · August 16, 2026

01

Two tools that both change what gets asked

Both concepts in this prompt operate on the same thing — what a leader asks and therefore what they find out — and saying so connects them rather than leaving them as two definitions side by side. Emotional intelligence in the standard formulation has four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. In a nurse leader-manager they show up concretely: noticing your own irritation before it reaches the conversation, reading a unit's mood after a sentinel event, recognising that the nurse arguing about the schedule is worried about something else. The evidence is genuinely mixed and worth representing accurately — associations with engagement and retention are reasonably supported, causal claims and commercial training programmes much less so, and a post that treats emotional intelligence as an established lever oversells it. Say which claims you are prepared to defend and which you are only reporting, because that distinction is what a marker reads as judgement.

Appreciative inquiry operates on the same channel from the other direction. The epigraph makes the claim explicitly: shifting attention from a problem focus to productive possibilities. Asking what happens when this unit is at its best surfaces information that asking what is going wrong will not, because staff answer the question they are asked and a problem-focused question produces a list of problems. Note what that costs as well: a purely appreciative approach can leave a genuine safety issue unaddressed, so a leader needs both registers and needs to know which situation calls for which. Then apply both to one concrete situation — a unit with rising turnover, a failed rollout, conflict between two shifts — and show the sequence: emotional intelligence to read what is actually going on and to stay useful in the conversation, appreciative inquiry to change what gets asked, and a stated point at which you would switch back to a direct problem-solving mode.

Likely learning objectives

Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.

  • 01
    Describe the domains of emotional intelligence in leadership terms.
  • 02
    Represent the emotional intelligence evidence base accurately.
  • 03
    Explain how appreciative inquiry changes what information becomes available.
  • 04
    Apply both to one situation with a stated sequence.
Assignment instructionsQuoted verbatim

Read the full question

Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.

Discussion Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry Discussion: Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry Through communication—inquiry and dialogue—every person makes a contribution, and by being involved in the process, people can shift their attention and action away from a problem-oriented focus to dreams that are worthy to them and to productive possibilities for the future. —Watkins & Mohr, 2001 Without a doubt, promoting health care quality and patient safety presents a meaningful aim. To achieve this goal, nurse leader-managers need to be able to evaluate a situation from many different viewpoints and frame questions that elicit valuable insights. They must be able to promote skillful problem solving and interdisciplinary teamwork. In this Discussion, you examine how you can use emotional intelligence and appreciative inquiry to facilitate positive changes that lead to improved quality and safety. To prepare: Review the information on emotional intelligence and appreciative inquiry presented in this week’s Learning Resources. If you have not already done so, follow the instructions in the course text, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 to complete the online assessment. Consider the results of the assessment. Review your strengths and opportunities for growth related to self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. What insights, questions, or concerns arise as you think about these results? Think about how your identified emotional intelligence strengths and opportunities for growth relate to your current role as a leader-manager and to the professional contributions that you hope to make now and in the future. Give focused attention to patient safety and health care quality. How and why is emotional intelligence valuable for promoting optimal patient outcomes and creating systems-level change? As indicated on pages 53–55 of the Bradberry and Greaves text, develop a plan for improving your skills in one area of emotional intelligence. Evaluate strategies for applying your strengths in the workplace. Identify at least two that you can use to add value to a team or workgroup to improve quality and safety. Also review the information on appreciative inquiry in this week’s Learning Resources. Have you used appreciative inquiry before? If so, how? How does the application of appreciative inquiry relate to your role as nurse leader-manager and/or to efforts to promote health care quality? Discussion Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry Reflect on your experiences working in health care and identify an issue or problem that required, or requires, a change. Consider how you could apply emotional intelligence and appreciative inquiry strategies to this situation to facilitate positive results that lead to improved quality. By Day 3 Post a brief description of an issue or problem in a health care setting that required, or requires, a change. Explain how you, as a nurse leader-manager, could apply both emotional intelligence and appreciative inquiry strategies to address this issue and facilitate positive results that lead to improved quality. Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses. Learning Resources Note: To access this week’s required library resources, please click on the link to the Course Readings List, found in the Course Materials section of your Syllabus. Required Readings Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart. Chapter 1, “The Journey” (pp. 1–12) Chapter 2, “The Big Picture” (pp. 13–22) Chapter 3, “What Emotional Intelligence Looks Like: Understanding the Four Skills” (pp. 23–50)The first three chapters of this book introduce foundational concepts related to emotional intelligence, and provide the background for the online assessment that you will take in preparation for this week’s Discussion. In addition to these chapters, you should read the rest of the book once you have completed the assessment. Note: You must purchase a new, unopened copy of this book in order to acquire the access code that you will need to complete the online assessment. Sadeghi, S., Barzi, A., Mikhail, O., & Shabot, M. M. (2013). Integrating quality and strategy in health care organizations, Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Chapter 1, “Understanding the U.S. Healthcare System” (pp. 1–30) This chapter sets the context for understanding quality-related issues within the U.S. health care system (macroenvironment). The authors discuss health care access and costs, which may be viewed as part of a triad with quality. Ingram, J., & Cangemi, J. (2012). Emotions, emotional intelligence and leadership: A brief, pragmatic perspective. Education, 132(4), 771–778. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases. Nel, H., & Pretorius, E. (2012). Applying appreciative inquiry in building capacity in a nongovernmental organization for youths: An example from Soweto, Gauteng, South Africa. Social Development Issues, 34(1), 37–55. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases. This article examines how appreciative inquiry can be used to foster meaningful change in organizations. It outlines the principles of appreciative inquiry and the four phases: discovery, dream, design, and delivery. Sadri, G. (2012). Emotional intelligence and leadership development. Public Personnel Management, 41(3), 535–548. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases. Emotional intelligence has been proposed as a key element of leadership. This article examines that argument, with attention to how and why it has been challenged. Copperrider, D. L., & Godwin, L. N. (2010). Positive organization development: Innovation-inspired change in an economy and ecology of strengths. Retrieved from http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/comment.cfm The authors present a framework for Innovation-Inspired Positive Organization Development (IPOD), which draws from appreciative inquiry.
02

Turn the brief into deliverables

  1. 01
    The domains of emotional intelligence with nursing examples.
  2. 02
    An accurate account of what the evidence supports.
  3. 03
    Appreciative inquiry explained as a change in questioning.
  4. 04
    One concrete situation where both are applied.
  5. 05
    A stated limit to the appreciative approach.
  6. 06
    Citations to the week's resources.
03

Each concept, then the situation where you would use both

01

What both concepts operate on

Establish that both change what a leader asks and hears.

02

Emotional intelligence in a nurse manager

Give the domains with concrete unit-level examples.

03

What the evidence supports

State the associations and the limits honestly.

04

Appreciative inquiry as method

Explain how the question changes the information.

05

One situation, both applied

Work a concrete case with a stated sequence.

06

When to switch registers

Name the point at which direct problem-solving is required.

04

Where emotional intelligence evidence is strongest and weakest

Recommended databases

  • PubMed Central
  • NCBI Bookshelf
  • Appreciative inquiry primary sources
  • Nursing management journals

Search sequence

  1. 1.
    Search for emotional intelligence outcome studies in nursing rather than in business.
  2. 2.
    Look for a critique of emotional intelligence measurement before writing the evidence section.
  3. 3.
    Read an appreciative inquiry primary source for the method rather than the slogan.
  4. 4.
    Find one situation from your own practice to work through.
05

Reference shortlist

These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.

Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.

  1. 01

    Emotional Intelligence in the Professional Development of Nurses: From Training to the Improvement of Healthcare Quality

    Nursing Reports · 2025

    Emotional intelligence in nurses' professional development, from training to outcomes.

  2. 02

    What Is the Impact of Leaders with Emotional Intelligence on Proxy Performance Metrics in 21st Century Healthcare?—A Systematic Literature Review

    International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(11), 1531 · 2024

    Leaders with emotional intelligence measured against performance metrics — the evidence, with its limits.

  3. 03

    Factors Associated with the Emotional Intelligence Levels of Nurse Managers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

    Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing, 31(3) · 2023

    A meta-analysis of factors associated with nurse managers' emotional intelligence levels.

  4. 04

    Mapping Strategies for Strengthening Safety Culture: A Scoping Review

    Healthcare (Basel) · 2024

    Culture-strengthening strategies, which is what the appreciative approach is aiming at.

  5. 05

    AONL Nurse Leader Core Competencies

    American Organization for Nursing Leadership · 2024

    The competency framework both concepts serve.

06

Review before submission

Common mistakes

  • Defining both concepts without connecting them.
  • Overstating the evidence for emotional intelligence as a causal lever.
  • Treating appreciative inquiry as optimism rather than as a method.
  • Applying the approach to no particular situation.

Submission checklist

  • Have you connected the two concepts through a shared mechanism?
  • Is the evidence represented with its limits?
  • Is there one specific situation, described concretely?
  • Did you say when appreciative inquiry would be the wrong approach?

Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.

Written by

Aaron Bishop

MA, Education

assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines

Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.

Reviewed by

Dr. Nathan Cole

PhD, Rhetoric & Composition

Argumentation and thesis development

Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.

Want feedback on your plan before you draft?

Get help interpreting the brief, checking your evidence strategy, and strengthening your outline while keeping the work your own.

Get assignment guidance
Start your order