Leadership & Organization Development Journal

Emotional intelligence and authentic leadership: a meta-analysis

Chao Miao, Ronald H. Humphrey, Shanshan Qian,
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EI and
Emotional intelligence and authentic
authentic leadership: a leadership

meta-analysis
Chao Miao
Department of Management and Marketing, Franklin P. Perdue School of Business,
Received 2 February 2018
Salisbury University, Salisbury, Maryland, USA Revised 7 May 2018
Ronald H. Humphrey Accepted 9 May 2018

Department of Leadership and Management,

Lancaster University Management School,
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK, and
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Shanshan Qian
Department of Management, College of Business and Economics,
Towson University, Towson, Maryland, USA

Abstract
Purpose – Authentic leadership is a popular leadership construct that stimulates considerable scholarly interest
and has received substantial attention from practitioners. Among different individual difference variables, there
has been a growing interest in studying the connection between emotional intelligence (EI) and authentic
leadership; nevertheless, most of the existing literature on this relation was atheoretical and the results for this
relation were mixed. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the relation between EI and authentic leadership.
Design/methodology/approach – A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the relation between EI and
authentic leadership and the moderators that affect this relation.
Findings – The results of the present study indicated that: EI is significantly and positively related to authentic
leadership (overall EI: r^ ¼ 0:49; ability EI: r^ ¼ 0:08; self-report EI: r^ ¼ 0:52; mixed EI: r^ ¼ 0:49); self-report EI
and mixed EI have larger associations with authentic leadership than ability EI has; and the relation between EI
and authentic leadership does not differ between male-dominated and female-dominated studies.
Originality/value – The present study couches the relation between EI and authentic leadership in theories
and identifies important moderators for this relation which explain the heterogeneity in effect sizes for this
relation across studies.
Keywords Authentic leadership, Emotional intelligence, Meta-analysis
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Authentic leadership is a construct that has garnered considerable attention from scholars
and practitioners; due to this growing interest, noticeable theoretical and empirical
developments of this construct were made (e.g. Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Banks et al., 2016;
Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Shamir and Eilam, 2005; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Since the
construct of authentic leadership ignited enormous scholarly interest, there has been a surge
in studies that were targeted at refining the theory of authentic leadership. Banks et al.
(2016) indicated that the most generally accepted definition of authentic leadership was
proposed by Walumbwa et al. (2008). Walumbwa et al. argued that the multidimensional
model of authentic leadership construct comprises of four components: self-awareness,
relational transparency, internalized moral perspective and balanced processing.
The components of authentic leadership suggest a close relationship with emotional
intelligence (EI). For example, Goleman and his co-authors’ model of EI emphasizes four
dimensions: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social/relationship Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
management (Boyatzis and Goleman, 2001; Goleman, 1995; Goleman et al., 2013). Their © Emerald Publishing Limited
0143-7739
model also has various subdimensions, called competencies, such as empathy, confidence, DOI 10.1108/LODJ-02-2018-0066
 LODJ self-regulation, transparency, emotional expression and influence. The self-awareness
component of authentic leadership should be highly related to the self-awareness of one’s
emotions that is a key to EI. Likewise, Boyatzis et al. (2011) have argued that the
transparency competency is closely linked to being authentic. Because authentic leaders are
leaders, i.e. those who lead and influence others, the social/relationship management
dimension and the EI competencies of confidence, emotional expression and influence
should also be related to authentic leadership. Empathy should be related to the moral
perspective aspects of authentic leadership.
Among various individual difference variables, EI is the one that has been known to
noticeably influence authentic leadership (Ilies et al., 2005). Ilies et al. argued that authentic
leaders should be aware of their strengths and weaknesses and understand their emotions,
all of which are affected by EI. EI is known to lead to leader emergence, leader performance
and effective leadership styles (e.g. authentic leadership) (Walter et al., 2011). For example,
emotionally intelligent individuals can use their EI to decipher the emotional requirements
of a situation, empathize with others, and modulate their emotional displays to meet others’
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expectations, all of which are related to authentic leadership; moreover, emotionally savvy
leaders are more likely to have higher perceived authenticity in the eyes of their followers
because they can use their EI to apply effective emotional labor strategies, such as genuine
emotional labor or deep acting, to gain favorable impression from their followers
(Gardner et al., 2009).
Despite the plausible association between EI and authentic leadership, the reported effect
sizes for this relationship exhibited a wide range, from weak to very strong. In addition,
most of the studies that addressed this relationship lacked a strong theoretical basis.
Hence, the purposes of this meta-analysis are to couch the relation between EI and authentic
leadership in a theoretical framework, clarify the empirical landscape by providing an
overall estimate, and search for moderators that may condition the relation between EI and
authentic leadership.

Theory and hypotheses

Emotional intelligence
EI is an individual difference construct that is a key to effective leadership (e.g. Goleman,
1995; Goleman et al., 2013). Ashkanasy and Daus (2005) reviewed the various methods of
measuring EI and categorized EI scales into three types: ability EI, self-report EI and mixed
EI (Miao et al., 2017a, b; O’Boyle et al., 2011). Ability EI measures are based on the theory
that EI is a type of intelligence, and in order to meet the criteria for intelligence tests they use
items with objective right and wrong answers. The main ability EI measure is the MSCEIT
V2.0, which Mayer et al. (2003) defined as a “141-item scale designed to measure the
following four branches (specific skills) of EI: (1) perceiving emotions, (2) using emotions to
facilitate thought, (3) understanding emotions, and (4) managing emotions” (p. 99). Other
researchers view EI more as a type of personality trait and believe that EI should be
assessed via self-report measures the way other personality traits are measured. For
example, Petrides et al. (2007) examined the inter-relationships among the TEIQue and
various personality traits. Their results back the “conceptualization of trait EI as a
lower-order construct that comprehensively encompasses the emotion-related facets of
personality” (Petrides et al., 2007, p. 287). According to Ashkanasy and Daus, self-report EI
measures that are based on the Mayer and Salovey four-branch theoretical model constitute
the second category of EI measures. Scales in this second classification include the
Assessing Emotions Scales (Schutte et al., 1998), the Workgroup Emotional Intelligence
Profile ( Jordan et al., 2002) and the Wong & Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (Wong and
Law, 2002). Mixed EI scales also measure EI by including self-report measurement items
but they incorporate a broader set of variables (e.g. a combination of behaviors, skills
 and/or competencies). Inventories in this classification include the Bar-On Emotional EI and
Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) (Bar-On, 2004) and the Emotional and Social Competency authentic
Inventory (Boyatzis et al., 2011). leadership
A qualitative review of empirical evidence found that all three types of EI are associated
with leader emergence, leadership effectiveness and use of effective leadership styles
(Walter et al., 2011). Walter et al. (2011) also argued that research on EI needs to demonstrate
that EI has an influence on leader performance after controlling for other predictors of
leader performance; in particular, cognitive intelligence and the Big Five personality traits
(conscientiousness, openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness and extroversion).
Recent meta-analytic findings demonstrated that all three types of EI predicted
subordinates’ job satisfaction, task performance and organizational citizenship behavior
after the effects of cognitive intelligence and the Big Five personality traits have been
accounted for Miao et al. (2016, 2018).

Authentic leadership
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According to a recent review of authentic leadership literature (Banks et al., 2016), it was
argued that Walumbwa et al.’s (2008) study provided the most generally accepted definition
of authentic leadership, which was defined in their article as “a pattern of leader behavior
that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical
climate, to foster greater self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced
processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with
followers, fostering positive self-development (p. 94).” Walumbwa et al. proposed four major
components of authentic leadership: self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized
moral perspective, and balanced processing.
Self-awareness refers to one’s understanding of his/her values, goals, emotions, and
abilities; it also refers to one’s cognizance of his/her strengths and weaknesses and impact
on others (Banks et al., 2016; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Relational transparency refers to
showing one’s authentic self to others via self-disclosures, open informational sharing, and
candid expression of true thoughts and feelings (Banks et al., 2016; Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Authentic leaders are, therefore, self-concordant and self-expressive and they do not fake
leadership (Shamir and Eilam, 2005). An internalized moral perspective builds upon one’s
self-regulation, which is anchored by one’s deep-seeded values and aspiration to make a
difference (Banks et al., 2016; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Balanced processing refers to the
leaders who objectively evaluate all available information before making a decision and
these leaders are also receptive to the perspectives that are different from their deeply held
positions (Banks et al., 2016; Walumbwa et al., 2008).

The connection between EI and authentic leadership

EI, in general, consists of four branches of abilities: emotional perception; using emotions to
facilitate thought; understanding emotions; and managing emotions (Mayer et al., 2016). All of
these four branches of capacities should be positively associated with authentic leadership.
Leaders who are high on the emotional perception branch of EI are good at reading
others’ emotions (Mayer et al., 2016). This ability to understand others helps them create
empathic bonds with their followers and perceptions of leader authenticity (Gardner et al.,
2009; Humphrey, 2002; Humphrey et al., 2008). For example, a subordinate might feel
anxious about a work task. A leader high on emotional perception might detect the anxiety
and provide appropriate emotional and task-oriented support.
Using emotions to facilitate thought should positively affect the balanced processing
component of authentic leadership. For example, emotionally intelligent leaders can use their
EI to leverage their emotional states to produce different cognitive perspectives, to enlarge
their cognitive bandwidth and to facilitate reasoning and creativity (Mayer et al., 2016).
 LODJ They can use their EI to broaden their view and thinking so that they are open to different
opinions and perspectives that may challenge their deeply held position.
Emotionally savvy leaders can use their EI to comprehend complex feelings and
understand the antecedents, meanings and consequences of emotions expressed by others
(Mayer et al., 2016). Since emotionally intelligent leaders can accurately interpret their followers’
feelings and know the causes and meanings of their emotions, they are able to cultivate
effective social exchanges and intimate relationship building with their followers so that they
can project their values and vision onto their followers (Miao et al., 2017c; Walumbwa et al.,
2008). Hence, the leaders who can build high-quality relationships with subordinates based on
the principles of social exchange and can project their values and visions onto their
subordinates are more likely to be perceived as authentic leaders (Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Emotionally intelligent leaders can also use their EI to monitor and control their emotions
and manage others’ and own emotions to achieve desirable outcomes (Mayer et al., 2016).
They can use their EI to experience more positive affective states and circumvent negative
affective states (Miao et al., 2017a). Those who experience more positive affective states are
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more likely to be authentic leaders (Ilies et al., 2005). In addition, emotionally intelligent leaders
can manage their followers’ emotions to create warm, positive feelings and these positive
feelings can lead to perceptions of leader authenticity (Gardner et al., 2009; Humphrey et al.,
2008). Therefore, we provide the following hypothesis:
H1. EI is positively related to authentic leadership.

Moderators
Types of EI. Based on authentic leadership theory and the factor structure of authentic
leadership, it appears that authentic leadership is less influenced by cognitive ability (Shamir
and Eilam, 2005). For example, according to Walumbwa et al. (2008) four component model of
authentic leadership, at least three of them are minimally influenced by cognitive ability, such
as self-awareness, internalized moral perspective and relational transparency. These
components are likely to be influenced by dispositional tendencies, such as personality traits.
For instance, neurotic leaders who have poor emotional adjustments and experience more
negative feelings (e.g. hostility and anxiety) should be less willing to admit their mistakes
(poor relational transparency) and seek feedback from others to improve their interactions
with others (poor self-awareness) ( Judge et al., 2002).
According to prior EI research (e.g. Miao et al., 2017a; O’Boyle et al., 2011), self-report EI
and mixed EI have higher correlations with personality traits than ability EI does, whereas
ability EI has a higher correlation with cognitive ability than do self-report EI and mixed EI.
Thus, self-report EI and mixed EI may predict authentic leadership similar to the way
personality traits predict authentic leadership. Likewise, ability EI may predict authentic
leadership similar to the way cognitive ability predicts authentic leadership. Because
personality traits may influence authentic leadership more than cognitive ability does, and
because self-report EI and mixed EI have higher associations with personality traits than
ability EI, these two types of EI may demonstrate stronger relationships with authentic
leadership than ability EI. Hence, we offer the following hypotheses:
H2(a). The relation between EI and authentic leadership is stronger when self-report EI
was used than when ability EI was used.
H2(b). The relation between EI and authentic leadership is stronger when mixed EI was
used than when ability EI was used.
Gender. The research findings on affect and gender are mixed, with some studies finding
support for a female advantage in emotion-related abilities, but others finding no support
 (Taylor and Hood, 2011). A recent meta-analysis found that gender did not moderate the EI and
relationship between EI and job satisfaction (Miao et al., 2017c). Displaying authentic leadership authentic
styles requires leaders to use their EI to increase the authenticity of their emotional displays and leadership
to foster empathic bonds with their followers. If females have a greater EI capacity, then the
relationship between EI and authentic leadership should be stronger in female-dominated
studies and gender should be a moderator variable. We provide the following hypothesis:
H3. The relation between EI and authentic leadership is stronger in female-dominated
studies than in male-dominated studies.

Method
Article search and inclusion criteria
We conducted the computerized search of the usual plethora of article databases to capture
relevant studies (e.g. ABI/INFORM, EBSCO Host, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations
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and Theses, PsycNET and Social Sciences Citation Index). A list of keywords (and several
variations in them) was specified in the search, such as authentic leadership, emotional
intelligence, and emotional competency. We searched relevant leadership, management and
psychology journals. We conducted Google search and also searched relevant leadership,
management and psychology conferences in order to capture unpublished papers.
Two inclusion criteria were set to filter the identified studies in the initial search: the
eligible studies had to be quantitative and empirical; and the eligible studies had to provide
at least one correlation coefficient between EI and authentic leadership, or had to provide
statistics that could be converted into effect sizes based on Lipsey and Wilson’s (2001) and/
or Peterson and Brown’s (2005) methods. After these two inclusion criteria were applied, we
found 11 studies that were eligible for inclusion in the current meta-analysis (k ¼ 11,
n ¼ 3,507). The references for these included studies are displayed in the section of Studies
Included in the Meta-Analysis.

Coding procedures and meta-analytic methods

We coded the correlation coefficient for the relation between EI and authentic leadership for
each eligible study. We used the Ashkanasy and Daus (2005) classification system to code
the EI measures as ability EI, self-report EI or mixed EI. This categorization of EI is
consistent with prior meta-analyses (e.g. Miao et al., 2017a; O’Boyle et al., 2011). Percentage
of male subjects for each eligible study was coded. We then performed a median split on the
percentage of male subjects to allocate studies into male-dominated and female-dominated
subgroups (Bae et al., 2014).
We followed Schmidt and Hunter’s (2015) methods to perform meta-analyses. We corrected
measurement errors in both independent and dependent variables. Corrected 95 percent
confidence intervals were calculated to evaluate the statistical significance of effect sizes. An
effect size is determined to be statistically significant at 0.05 level when a corrected 95 percent
confidence interval does not contain zero. Both Varart% statistic and corrected 80 percent
credibility interval were calculated to examine the potential presence of moderators. We
considered that moderators are present when less than 75 percent of the variance in the meta-
analytic effect sizes is accounted for by statistical artifacts. A wide corrected 80 percent
credibility interval also suggests the potential existence of moderators. We conducted z-tests to
investigate moderator effects in accordance with prior research (e.g. Garrett et al., 2017).

Publication bias assessment

Publication bias refers to the possibility that not all finished studies on a topic are published
and that these completed yet unpublished studies may be systematically different from
 LODJ published ones; hence, published studies may be unrepresentative of the population of all
finished studies (Kepes et al., 2012). The completed studies that are based on small samples,
exhibit small effect sizes and/or show statistically non-significant results may not be
published and may be missing from the literature in a typical case of publication bias (Kepes
et al., 2012). To assess the degree of influence of publication bias on our meta-analytic results,
both trim-and-fill analysis and Egger’s test of the intercept (Egger et al., 1997) were performed.
With respect to trim-and-fill analysis, it uses the symmetry of the distribution of effect
sizes in the funnel plot as an indicator of the presence of publication bias. When publication
bias is present, trim-and-fill analysis follows an iterative process to “trim” extreme effect
sizes from the funnel plot until the distribution of effect sizes is symmetrical; then, the
trimmed effect sizes are “filled” back to the funnel plot with the imputed effect sizes (i.e.
missing effect sizes or missing samples) on the opposite side to make the distribution of
effect sizes symmetrical (Kepes et al., 2012). This method will also compute the adjusted
effect size due to the possible impact of publication bias. When the difference between
observed mean correlation and adjusted observed mean correlation is less than 20 percent,
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the impact of publication bias can be considered as negligible or absent (Kepes et al., 2012).
A second publication bias analysis, Egger’s test of the intercept, demonstrates the absence
of publication bias when the intercept is statistically non-significant.
With respect to the EI—authentic leadership distribution, one sample was imputed on
the right side of the funnel plot to correct the asymmetry (see Figure 1). The difference
between observed mean correlation and adjusted observed mean correlation is 0.03, which is
less than 20 percent. According to the recommendation made by Kepes et al. (2012), the
impact of publication bias is negligible or absent given such a small effect size adjustment.
Hence, trim-and-fill analysis demonstrates that the influence of publication bias on our meta-
analytic results is negligible or absent. Similarly, Egger’s test of the intercept yielded an
intercept of 0.16 that is statistically non-significant at 0.05 level. This still suggests the
absence of publication bias.
In conclusion, the results of these two publication bias analyses converged that the
influence of publication bias on our meta-analytic results is negligible or absent and our
meta-analytic results are thus robust.

Funnel Plot of Precision by Fisher’s Z

40

30
Precision (1/SE)

20

10

0
–2.0 –1.5 –1.0 –0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Fisher’s Z
Figure 1. Notes: SE = standard error. This figure refers to the funnel plot for the EI – authentic
Funnel plot based on
trim-and-fill analysis leadership relation. The imputed sample is indicated in black in the funnel plot. x-axis
shows Fisher’s Z and y-axis shows precision (1/SE)
 Results EI and
The meta-analytic findings of the present study are shown in Table I. We found that EI is authentic
significantly and positively related to authentic leadership (ρ̂̅ ¼ 0.49) because the corrected leadership
95 percent confidence interval ranges from 0.35 to 0.64 and this does not include zero. H1 is
thus supported. With regards to specific types of EI, we found that self-report EI and mixed
EI are significantly and positively related to authentic leadership (self-report EI: ρ̂̅ ¼ 0.52;
mixed EI: ρ̂̅ ¼ 0.49). However, the association between ability EI and authentic leadership is
non-significant at 0.05 level (ability EI: ρ̂̅ ¼ 0.08). The Varart% statistic of the EI—authentic
leadership meta-analytic distribution is 5 percent that is far less than 75 percent. In
accordance with Schmidt and Hunter’s (2015) suggestions, one should test moderators in
this scenario due to substantial heterogeneity in effect size distributions.
The first moderator under investigation is EI types/streams. We found that the relation
between self-report EI and authentic leadership is significantly larger than the
relation between ability EI and authentic leadership (Δρ̂̅ ¼ 0.44, po 0.05). Similarly,
the relation between mixed EI and authentic leadership is also significantly larger than that
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between ability EI and authentic leadership (Δρ̂̅ ¼ 0.41, p o0.05). H2a and H2b are thereby
supported. The second moderator under examination is gender. We found that the relation
between EI and authentic leadership does not differ between male-dominated studies and
female-dominated studies (Δρ̂̅ ¼ 0.05, p ¼ n.s.). H3 is not supported. The results of
moderator analyses were displayed in the last column of Table I.

Discussion
Theoretical implications
EI of leaders has been increasingly studied as a critical topic in the leadership research;
some studies pointed out that EI is the sine qua non of leadership (Walter et al., 2011).
Research evidence has also demonstrated that EI enables leaders to use effective leadership
styles, and one effective leadership style that emotionally intelligent leaders may exhibit is
authentic leadership. In spite of the plausible relation between EI and authentic leadership,
the theoretical rationales used in prior studies were unclear and most of these studies were
atheoretical; further, the reported effect sizes for the relation between EI and authentic
leadership were mixed. To elucidate this mudded collection of empirical findings, the
purposes of the present study are to couch this line of literature in a theoretical framework,
to sort out the mixed empirical findings by providing an overall estimate, and to identify the
moderators that cause the heterogeneity in effect size distribution. The present study made
a set of noteworthy theoretical contributions.
First, the meta-analytic results support our hypothesis that EI is positively related to
authentic leadership (ρ̂̅ ¼ 0.49). As previously mentioned, there is a close conceptual linkage
between models of EI and authentic leadership. The four dimensions of self-awareness, self-
management, social awareness, and social/relationship management in Goleman and his co-
authors’ measures (Boyatzis and Goleman, 2001; Goleman, 1995; Goleman et al., 2013)
correspond closely with the dimensions of authentic leadership (self-awareness, relational
transparency, internalized moral perspective, and balanced processing; Walumbwa et al., 2008).
Second, we found that the types of EI moderate the relation between EI and authentic
leadership. Self-report EI and mixed EI exhibited higher relations with authentic leadership
than ability EI did. These findings support the trait perspective of EI (Petrides et al., 2007) and
the use of self-ratings to measure EI ( Jordan et al., 2002). Our results also imply that authentic
leadership may be a construct that is less cognitively-loaded because ability EI, which is the
most cognitively-loaded type of EI, has the lowest association with authentic leadership.
Future research may perform more fine-grained analyses to decompose affective, behavioral
and cognitive processes that are involved in authentic leadership style and to compare which
one is the most dominant in authentic leadership. This is an important area of inquiry that
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LODJ

Table I.

of the relation
between EI and
authentic leadership
Meta-analytic results
k n r̅ SDr ρ̂̅ SDρ CI LL CI UL CV LL CV UL Varart% Sig. diff.

EI—authentic leadership 11 3,507 0.42 0.22 0.49 0.24 0.35 0.64 0.19 0.80 %
EI type
a. Ability EI 1 168 0.07 0.00 0.08 0.00 −0.07 0.23 0.08 0.08 – b, c
b. Self-report EI 7 2,549 0.45 0.20 0.52 0.22 0.36 0.68 0.24 0.80 % a
c. Mixed EI 3 790 0.39 0.22 0.49 0.25 0.20 0.79 0.17 0.82 % a
Gender
a. Male-dominated 5 1,127 0.37 0.29 0.45 0.30 0.18 0.72 0.06 0.84 % –
b. Female-dominated 5 2,222 0.43 0.16 0.50 0.19 0.32 0.67 0.25 0.75 % –
Notes: k ¼ number of independent samples; n ¼ sample size; r̅ ¼ uncorrected sample-size-weighted mean correlation; SDr ¼ sample-size-weighted standard deviation of
observed mean correlations; ρ̂̅ ¼ corrected sample-size-weighted mean correlation; SDρ ¼ sample-size-weighted standard deviation of corrected mean correlations; CI LL
and CI UL ¼ lower and upper bounds of corrected 95 percent confidence interval; CV LL and CV UL ¼ lower and upper bounds of corrected 80 percent credibility interval;
Varart% ¼ percent of variance in ρ̂̅ explained by statistical artifacts; EI ¼ emotional intelligence; Sig. Diff. ¼ significant difference. Letters in this column correspond to
the letters in rows. They denote whether effect sizes are significantly different from one another at 0.05 level. The sign “–” shows the statistically non-significant
between-group difference (i.e. non-significant moderator effect)
 may advance the understanding of authentic leadership. In addition, it may also help EI and
managers maximize the effectiveness of authentic leadership training. authentic
Third, we did not identify any gender differences for the relationship between EI and leadership
authentic leadership. This finding is consistent with prior meta-analytic findings (e.g. Miao
et al., 2017c), which found that males and females equally benefit from EI.

Practical implications
Our study has important practical values to managers and policy makers. EI enables leaders
to use effective leadership styles, such as authentic leadership. Since authentic leadership
influences a series of workplace outcomes that are of importance to organizations (e.g. group
or organization performance, employees’ job satisfaction, commitment, performance,
creativity, and trust in leader, etc.), organizations should recruit and/or promote
emotionally intelligent individuals as leaders because these individuals are capable of using
effective leadership styles, such as authentic leadership, to influence their followers and
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achieve desirable outcomes across individual, group, and organization levels. Prior research
findings demonstrated that EI can be trained and improved (Boyatzis et al., 2002). Research
has also demonstrated that authentic leadership skills can be developed as well (van
Droffelaar and Jacobs, 2017). Because of the close conceptual overlap between EI and
authentic leadership, simultaneously training employees in both EI and authentic leadership
may be especially useful.

Limitations and future directions

There are three limitations in this study. First, the Varart% values are still small across the
meta-analytic distributions in the current study even if we tested two moderators. This
means that there are still more unidentified moderators that have not yet been covered by
the present study. We encourage future studies to use the results of our study as a roadmap
to find more moderators that may account for the heterogeneity across effect sizes. For
example, recent studies have shown the importance of cross-cultural implications of EI
because cultural norms influence emotional expression, appraisal and regulation
(Emmerling and Boyatzis, 2012; Miao et al., 2018). Future studies may get more insights
into the relation between EI and authentic leadership via cross-cultural studies.
Second, our meta-analysis is dominated by the studies using cross-sectional research
design; thus, we cannot rule out the possibility of reversed causation or reciprocal causation.
Future studies should use longitudinal designs so that robust causal inferences can be drawn.
Third, additional moderators need to be examined, such as age, race, culture, years of work
experience, years of leadership experience, personality type, or EI/ALQ assessment scores.

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Corresponding author
Chao Miao can be contacted at: cxmiao@salisbury.edu

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