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By Kevin Kruse, Contributor. Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Kevin Kruse covers leadership development & emotional intelligence. Published Aug 10, 2026, 07:00am EDT.
In the field of leadership, emotional intelligence is a critical capability when organizations face change. During times of transition, teams often feel uncertain, anxious, and resistant to new directions. Leaders who can recognize and regulate their own emotions, and who can respond to the emotions of others, are better prepared to build trust, communicate with empathy, and guide their teams through the challenges of change.
Public health leaders face constant, unpredictable crises, making emotional intelligence (EI) a critical, foundational skill, not a "soft extra." Latoya Sahadeo, Director of Leadership Development Programs at ASTHO, highlights that EI must be cultivated before crises emerge. ASTHO's DELPH program addresses this by developing "middle leaders" through a 10-month curriculum. This program integrates EI, self-awareness, and empathy into practical leadership topics like resilience and conflict navigation. DELPH ensures learning sticks via coaching, mentorship, peer accountability, and real-time feedback, making it responsive to leaders' evolving needs. The core message is to build EI early, provide continuous support, and keep development programs relevant to real-world pressures.
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A small group of medical professionals gather around a table as they meet together to discuss patient cases. They are each dressed professionally and have files scattered between them for reference.getty
When a public health leader learns over the weekend that her agency's funding has been cut in half, Monday morning leaves little time to process the news. She must move through her own shock quickly and show up ready to lead her team through a difficult, unexpected, and frustrating time. Her staff need direction, and health department employees will need answers about how the community will be affected. The leader must balance thoughtfulness with urgency, empathy with practicality, and vulnerability with confidence.
Latoya Sahadeo, Director of Leadership Development Programs at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), recognizes this as a genuine challenge facing program participants. “These kinds of situations are exactly why emotional intelligence cannot be treated as a soft leadership extra. That foundation of emotional intelligence has to be built before the crisis arrives,” Sahadeo said.
In the public health sector, unexpected and complicated change is the norm. From COVID and hantavirus to budget cuts, leaders must be ready for whatever comes next. As Latoya Sahadeo, Director of Leadership Development Programs at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), says, "You have to be quick on your feet, and you have to be ready. That strength and confidence come from within, and I truly believe that it's a matter of emotional intelligence."
Sahadeo's observation points to a deeper truth about emotional intelligence (EI) and change management. Across more than sixty interviews with talent development professionals, the ability to navigate change is consistently cited as one of the top reasons organizations invest in EI training and assessment.
ASTHO is a non-profit membership organization that supports chief health officials from states, Washington, D.C., five U.S. territories, and three Freely Associated States, along with the staff who work in public health departments. The organization is dedicated to helping state and territorial public health agencies and to strengthening public health policy nationwide.
According to Sahadeo, "DELPH scholars come from various disciplines across public health. But technical expertise isn't really what helps propel teams forward. It's their people and leadership skills. People are people first."
That statement captures a central leadership reality in public health. Public health leaders manage policy, grants, programs, and viral outbreaks, but they also manage fear, uncertainty, misinformation, and fatigue.
To help leaders build the emotional intelligence skills needed at senior levels, Sahadeo and her team introduced ASTHO’s Developing Executive Leaders in Public Health program, known as DELPH. This 10-month program is designed for a wide range of leaders: supervisors, managers, program leaders, section chiefs, unit supervisors, bureau chiefs, and others responsible for people, policies, or programs.
“We’re trying to grow that middle leader,” Sahadeo said. She described the ideal participant as someone who has not “yet broken over into the C-suite” but is performing well in their current position and wants to build leadership skills for future executive roles.
Each DELPH cohort typically includes about 15 to 30 participants, called “Scholars.” Over the 10-month program, Scholars take part in monthly three-hour sessions, coaching, intersession assignments, personal assessments, accountability partner meetings, and additional leadership work. Sahadeo advises Scholars to expect roughly 20 hours of leadership work per month.
The curriculum is designed to help leaders “develop their own personal leadership identity.” According to Sahadeo, exploring leadership identity naturally leads to emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, self-management, and empathy. “All of those pieces are the building blocks of an effective leader.”
Emotional intelligence is embedded throughout DELPH rather than treated as a separate topic. The program covers executive presence, professional branding, influence, resilience, conflict navigation, storytelling, disability and accessibility awareness, and allyship. Sahadeo noted that each monthly workshop incorporates emotional intelligence in meaningful ways, giving Scholars a foundation they can carry throughout their leadership journey.
What sets the DELPH program apart in the talent development space is the intentional way it builds pull-through into every layer of the experience.
Scholars do not learn in isolation. For interpersonal support, they are connected to:
This structure creates social learning across several different groups, with each relationship offering a distinct perspective on the Scholar’s growth.
The program turns learning into behavior change through reflection, practice, feedback, and on-the-job application. For example, Scholars keep self-awareness journals to examine their emotions, triggers, situations, and responses. They also record themselves on video and exchange structured feedback with peers.
“You and your accountability partner go back and look through your video recording and talk through your executive presence,” Sahadeo said.
The time allocation reinforces this approach. Monthly workshops account for only 15% of a Scholar’s hours, while the remaining 85% is devoted to social learning, practice, and application.
DELPH is built to respond to leaders’ evolving needs. Sahadeo describes the program as “more of an iterative program,” explaining that Scholars share midway through the cohort what new programming, timely skills, or workplace challenges they want to address. Those insights help shape the rest of their experience.
The curriculum follows a clear structure. The first six months are largely set in advance and focused on foundational skills such as emotional intelligence. The final four months are deliberately more flexible. “During the final four months, we truly allow Scholars to identify where and how they want to develop,” Sahadeo said.
Feedback from Scholars directly influences the programming, including the in-person conference and a leadership micro-conference held near the end. The DELPH team responds to what participants ask for. If Scholars want more help with budgeting, Sahadeo may bring in someone to speak on budgets and contract agreements. If they want more support with navigating conflict, she can add a session. If they raise questions about career transitions or exit strategies, she develops exercises, workshops, and coaching around those needs.
For organizations developing their leaders, the lesson from Sahadeo’s team is clear: build self-awareness early, surround leaders with feedback, make learning iterative, and keep the program close to the real pressures leaders face.
As Sahadeo put it in her closing reflection, emotional intelligence has “no days off.” It’s something leaders have to practice every day.
Kevin Kruse is the Founder + CEO of LEADx, an emotional intelligence training company. Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author. You can take his free EI Assessment here. It’s psychologically validated and gives you a score breakdown across each of the four core skills.
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