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The Role of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Effectiveness

Conference Paper · October 2010

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Shanthakumary Milroy Christy Mahenthiran Aloysius

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 Arc 148

THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN LEADERSHIP

EFFECTIVENESS.

Mrs. Shanthakumary Milroy Christy Mahenthiran Aloysius MBA (PIM, Sri J)

Head/. Human Resource Management, University of Jaffna

shanthamahenthiran@yahoo.com

Abstract

Leadership is described as the heart of every organization and it is a process of leading followers/team.
To get better outcome from the employees and to achieve the organizational goals, the leader should be
able to understand the pulse of the employees and his or her own. This research study analyzed the role
of emotional intelligence in leadership effectiveness. The main objective of the study was to find out the
relationship between emotional intelligence and the leadership effectiveness. For this purpose 50
principals who have minimum 5 years working experience in the position, selected from various schools
in Valigamam and Jaffna zones.. Interviews and questionnaires were used to collect relevant data. This
study set out two hypotheses. The first hypothesis was the higher the emotional intelligence the higher
leadership effectiveness It was accepted (r= 0.68). The second hypothesis was the female leaders are
high in emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. It was rejected (r=0.23). The research found
that there is no significant difference between emotional intelligence and the demographic factors.

Key words: Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Self awareness

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is the heart of every organization. It is a process of leading followers. It gives right direction to
the organization and induces employees to work smarter and prepare themselves to scarify personal
interest to large extent for the sake of the organizational wellbeing. To get better outcome from the
employees and to achieve the organizational goals, the leader should be able to understand the pulse of the
employees and his or her own as well. Generally people in the organizations expect that others should
understand their own feelings and respect them. Therefore the leader should be very careful in dealing
with employees’ emotions. Through a greater understanding of one’s own emotions as well as the
emotions of others, emotional intelligence allows leaders to positively affect their situation by creating an
environment of open communication, enhanced trust and greater empathy. As organizations become
increasingly aware of the importance of these vital skills that allow for a higher level of communication
within teams, with customers and suppliers and all stakeholders, emotional intelligence is coming into
focus as an important characteristic for leaders to possess. Emotional intelligence (E.I.) refers to the ability
to recognize and regulate emotions in ourselves and others (Goleman, 2001). Peter Salovey and John
Mayer, who originally used the term "emotional intelligence" in published writing, initially defined
emotional intelligence as: A form of intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others'
feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and
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actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Later, these authors revised their definition of emotional intelligence,
the current characterization now being the most widely accepted. Emotional intelligence is thus defined
as: The ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and to
regulate emotions to promote personal growth (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Another prominent researcher of
the emotional intelligence construct is Reuven Bar-On, the originator of the term "emotion quotient".
Possessing a slightly different outlook, he defines emotional intelligence as being concerned with
understanding oneself and others, relating to people, and adapting to and coping with the immediate
surroundings to be more successful in dealing with environmental demands (Bar-On, 1997).
According to many authours (Goleman, 1995, 1998a,b, 2000; Palmer et al.,2001; George, 2000; Barling et
al., 2000; Sosick and Megerian, 1999; Watkin, 2000; Dulewicz,2000; Miller, 1999) Emotionally
intelligent leaders are thought to be happier and more committed to their organization achieve greater
success, perform better in the workplace, take advantage of and use positive emotions to envision major
improvements in organizational functioning and use emotions to improve their decision making and instill
a sense of enthusiasm, trust and co-operation in other employees through interpersonal relationships.(
Rosete and Ciarrochi,2005 )

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Goleman (1995; 1998a; 1998b; 2000) has made the case through his many writings that the key to a
leader’s effectiveness and success in an organization is his/her emotional intelligence. His premise also
challenged conventional thinking, in that the emotions are important to consider in relation to one’s
effectiveness. Emotions and emotional intelligence are no longer considered taboo in the workplace today.
And it is that, that provides the foundations for performance(Weinberger, 2003).Schools are most important
places decide well being of every community. Children describe as the future of every country and spend a
significant amount of their valuable life time with schools. Therefore activities of teachers and principals
influence the behaviour of students. On the other hand education is the most important sector in Sri
Lankan economy, employed large number of human resource. Every school is established with the vision
of upgrading and maintaining physical, mental and social wellbeing of the students. For the purpose of
this government of Sri Lanka spends number of thousand rupees on free books, uniforms and
infrastructure. Due to these important reasons, an effective operation of education sector is considered as
vital aspect. Effective operations and goal achievement of schools depends on the relationship among
principals, teachers, students and community. Schools principals have the obligation to maintain good
relationship with all these parties. Principals should be emotional intelligence to build up good
relationship with various parties. But in the real life world people do not understand negative effect of
their emotions (anger and jealousy) If the leader is not emotional intelligence, he/she will face many
problems in the organization. In this context the study will help various parties who are responsible for
educational policy making in the region to know the importance of the emotional intelligence in creating
healthy working environment and also the study will be useful in deciding contents of the leadership
training and staff development programmes.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study was designed to achieve the following objectives:
1) To identify EI factor levels among the subjects, which included self-awareness, self regulation,
self-motivation, empathy, and social skills, and level of leadership effectiveness;
2) To assess the relationship between EI and leadership effectiveness.
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 3) To find out whether varying demographic factors have distinctive EI and leadership effectiveness.

RESEARCH QUESTION

It is wonderful that even though there are schools with intelligent principals and teachers they failed to be
successful in producing student pass rate and reputation. Due to the failures faced by the school some of
the schools are over crowed while others are running with limited number of student population. Jaffna
schools are not exceptional from this story. Why do intelligent principals fail? One reason may be that
they emphasize their intelligence at the cost of their emotional intelligence (EI). EI is in fact a major factor
that determines the difference between highly successful managers and those who are less successful. In
“Working with Emotional Intelligence,” Goleman(1998) suggests that the most important factor that
distinguishes effective leaders is not their IQ but their Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ) This
recognition of the importance of Emotional Quotient(EQ) has grown as relationships and communication
have come to be seen a score components of organizations, along with intelligence and technical skills.
This has also led to an investigation of the nature of EQ. For Mayer, emotional intelligence is the ability to
understand how others’ emotions work and to control one’s own emotions. (Viriyavidhayavongs and
Satita)
Is there any relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness?

SAMPLE DESIGN

The target population of the study were those in Sri Lankan principal service with minimum five years
work experience in all type of schools such as Type 1 ,Type 2 , 1C, 1AB and National Schools,functioning
in the Valigamam and Jaffna zones.
Simple random sampling technique used to select the sample respondents. About 50 respondents were
selected from the population.

INSTRUMENTATION
The study used a self-administered questionnaire as its instrument and has three parts. Part I measured
demographic variables of the sample employees. Part II has the five scale questions ranging from almost
always to almost never to measure emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness.

REALIABILITY OF THE SCALES AND VALIDITY OF THE DATA.

According to a sample investigated by Farzam Memar to determine validity and reliability for TEIQue,
internal consistency and test-retest both indicated scale reliabilities of 0.71 and 0.76. High correlations
between the TEIQue with Shrink’s Emotional Intelligence Scale showed validity in measuring emotional
intelligences TEIQue is also positively correlated with the EI

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 DATA ANALYSIS
Data were analyzed through the SPSS program using Pearson correlation coefficient. Pearson Correlation
Coefficient was used to assess the relationship between EI (and factors of EI) and leadership
effectiveness..

CONCEPTUAL MODEL

EI

- Self-awareness Leadership
Effectiveness
- Self-regulation

- Self-motivation

- Empathy

- Social skills

The terms used in the model have the following meaning

Self awareness means knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.

Self Regulation means Managing one’s internal states, impulses, and resources.
Emotional Quotient
Self Motivation means emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals.

Empathy means Awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns.

Social skills means Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others

HYPOTHESES

H1- The higher the emotional intelligence the higher leadership effectiveness

H2- Female leaders are high in emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness.

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DATA ANALYSIS

Table 1 Classification of Sample based on their sex

Sex Number Percentage

Male 32 64
Female 18 36
Source: Survey data

According to the above table 64% of sample are male remaining 36% are female.
Participants’ mean tenure within the organisation was approximately 8 years. The level of qualifications
amongst the sample was quite impressive with approximately 22% reported to have completed a masters
degree or higher; 32% reported to have completed a postgraduate diploma or certificate; 30% reported to
have completed an undergraduate degree and 16% reported to have completed teachers’ training college.

Table 2: Level of Emotional Intelligence among sample

Factors Number %
Self awareness 39 72
Self regulation 41 82
Self motivation 44 88
Empathy 43 86
Social motivation 41 82
Source: Survey Data

Most of the respondents have high level of EI factor. Among those 88% of the principles are self
motivated employees. 86% of the principals have awareness of others’ feelings, needs, and concerns. In
comparing other EI factors self awareness seemed in lower level. Through the interview it was understood
that self confident was in moderate level among the sample respondents. At the same time 74% of the
respondents have leadership effectiveness.
Table 3 Classification based on sex and emotional intelligence.

Sex Number Percentage

Male 21 68.75
Female 12 66.6
Source: Survey data

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 The above table shows 68.75% of male and 66.6% female are emotional intelligence in their work place.
Therefore among the sample respondents, male principals are more emotional intelligence than their
female counterparts.
On the other hand leadership effectiveness of the respondents based on their sex shows the male principals
are more effective leaders(71.87%) in motivating individuals to accomplish goals than female(44.44%).
The second objective was to assess the relationship between EI and leadership effectiveness. The results
demonstrated that self-awareness, self regulation, self-motivation, empathy, social skills, and Overall EI
are associated with leadership effectiveness at statistically significant levels, as outlined in the following
table:
Table 4 Pearson Correlation

SA SR SM Emp SS EI
athy
Significant 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Value

Pearson 0.61 0.52 0.57 0.62 0.59 0.68

Correlation

Source: Survey Data

SA- Self awareness SR- Self Regulation

SM- Self Motivation SS-Social skill
EI- Emotional Intelligence
LE- Leadership Effectiveness

Among all the attributes of the EI, Self awareness is highly associated with leadership effectiveness.
According to the table given above the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership
effectiveness strong positive. Therefore H1 is accepted.
Table 5 Pearson Correlation

Sex EI &LE
Male 0.81
Female 0.23
Source: Survey Data

The above table 5 shows that the male respondents possess high emotional intelligence characteristics and
leadership effectiveness than female. Therefore H2 is rejected.

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FINDINGS
 Studies in gender differences are inconclusive. Although some research has found that women are
more emotionally intelligent than men, the study have found no significant differences between
genders..
 Principals who are emotional intelligence create happy working environment. They said their teachers
are willing to take additional responsibilities and working hard for the school.
 Emotional intelligent principals have good relationship with community. Specially with OBA/OGA
and school development societies
 Principals who have low emotional intelligence scores experience problems with interpersonal
relationship
 Higher levels of emotional intelligence of the principals are associated with better performance in the
following areas:
Participative Management
Putting People at Ease
Self-Awareness
Balance between Personal Life and work

CONCLUSIONS
The results outlined above suggest that EI and its various factors are significantly correlated with
leadership effectiveness and that more successful principals have higher levels of EI and further leadership
abilities vary according to perspective of principals and level of emotional intelligence. In general,
teachers seem to appreciate principals’ abilities to control their impulses and anger, to with stand adverse
events and stressful situations, to be happy with life, and to be a cooperative member of the group.

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