Principals are constantly challenged in their schools to serve as emotional anchors, provide professional guidance and be responsible for the effectiveness and improvement of their schools. This study therefore explored the need for emotional intelligence (EI) to be an integral part of the work-integrated learning competencies (WILCs) for principals in the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) with specialisation in School Leadership (SL) programme offered by higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop their social skills. The qualitative research approach was used to conduct this investigation. Five focus group (FG) interviews comprising ten principals in each group as well as ten single in-depth interviews were conducted. The findings of this study suggest that the ACE (SL) programme has been relatively successful thus far in developing the social WILCs of school principals. They admitted that it was crucial for them to have a better understanding of the interconnectedness between WILCs and the EI construct in their leadership positions. They concurred that this professional development programme empowered them to use their EI in addition to their cognitive abilities. Evidently, this exploratory study indicates that it is imperative for EI to be an integral part of the ACE (SL) programme for principals since cognition alone would not be sufficient to cater for their professional training needs.