The problem of quality education and sustainable development, especially in Nigeria has attracted much attention in all academic discussion, whereby scholars have blamed it on several factors, without recourse to the emotional state of the school principals. Self-management is an important construct of emotional intelligence that has impacted positively on other disciplines such as psychology, medicine, business and others, other than education as seen from the review. This has created a gap in knowledge which necessitated this discussion. This paper therefore addressed capacity building needs of emotional intelligence of self-management, towards highly innovative principals for Nigerian secondary schools. The paper considered only three of its characteristics of conscientiousness, achievement orientation and trustworthiness. It is concluded that, emotional intelligence of self-management be included in educational management and teacher training programmes, to equip this group of learners with the skill, to become highly innovative and creative in managing Nigerian secondary schools, which will certainly lead to quality education
Keywords: Capacity building, Education System, Innovation, Principal, School, Skill
