How does emotional intelligence act on institutional policies? A new set of behaviors to facilitate implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) in local health units in Italy

Abstract

BackgroundThe main contribution of this article is establishing a set of behaviors and successful actions experimenting the Ipacs’ (Insti-tutional & Public Coaching Services) methodology on implementation of the National Recovery Plan (NRP), approved in Italy in 2021 to overcome the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. This research is aimed at pointing out emotional intelligence (EI) behaviors related to the activities of the NRP with respect to the National Health System (NHS).Participants and procedureFifty-six professionals were provided with an integrated pathway with coaching, participative art and mentoring from Janu-ary to June 2022. A “core set” of 5 soft skills – communication, result orientation, teamwork, networking, and emotional intelligence – was measured before and after an integrated coaching pathway. Each soft skill related to the following three systemic objectives through pre-defined, related activities: 1) defining and introducing new roles in the health community houses; 2) implementing a new systemic communication in oncology; 3) facilitating the management of chronicity through a new IT platform. We observed that the Giunti test (Org-EIQ) and Ipacs’ test enlighten the same emotional intelligence indicators of behaviors considered by the investigated coaching integrated pathway.ResultsForty-eight percent of them increased in all 5 core skills. Results were measured at least in one of the two tests. These re-sults were possible thanks to the changes in abilities of self- introspection, in communicating and sharing common goals, to achieve high standard results in conditions of uncertainty, to understand non-verbal feedback and give feedback.ConclusionsEmotional intelligence acted as a meta skill to pursue a “new model of man” with a new self-schema, self-image and set of behaviors.