VFAST Transactions on Education and Social Sciences

http://vfast.org/index.php/VTESS@ 2013 ISSN XXXX-XXXX

Volume 1, Number 1, May-June 2013 pp. 13–-17

DOES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AFFECT LEADERSHIP

SUCCESS?
MUHAMMAD ASADULLAH
Riphah International University, Islamabad
asadmpa@gmail.com

Revised June, 2013

ABSTRACT. Emotional intelligence has been a subject of long debate for

researchers and practitioners. The current review is aimed at investigating the
impacts of emotional intelligence on leadership success. Previous literature on the
subject revealed that success of leaders and organizational managers largely
depends on the level of emotional intelligence. People with higher level of
emotional intelligence were found more successful as compared to those who were
low at emotional intelligence scale. Implications for practionners and future
research have been discussed.
Keywords: Emotional Intelligence; leadership Success.

1. Introduction. Studies on emotional intelligence are not free from criticism. Researchers are debating over
its models, measurement tools, and pedagogy. However this controversial debate has motivated the
researchers to study the construct in more details [38]. This controversy gives contrasting views about the
study of construct of emotional intelligence. Some are of the view that it is a “myth” [43] while [38] are of
the view that study of emotional intelligence is scientific in nature.
Same like the controversies about the study of Emotional intelligence, its relationship with leadership success
has also been a subject of debate among researchers. For researchers and practionners it is important to know
about the nature of leadership, the ways leaders make decisions and role of emotions in decision making [14].
She advised to study emotional intelligence and leadership relation in more depth. Similarly for better
understanding of the concept of emotional intelligence, [1] suggested to study its role in leadership. Leban
et.al., [24] are of the view that success of a project depends on the emotional intelligence ability of the leader.
But contrary to it, Brown et al., [5] found no significant relationship between leadership success and
emotional intelligence ability of the leaders. This study is aimed at investigating the previous literature that
does emotional intelligence really affect leadership success or it is a buzzword as claimed by Zeidner et.al.,
[43]. This will help HR practioners in career development decisions which can improve the performance of
the employees as well as of the organizations. It will also be helpful for future researchers to empirically test
these relations.

2. Emotional Intelligence: Emotional Intelligence has been a subject of debate since long. For better
understanding of the concept of emotional intelligence, in [1] Antonakis et. al., suggested to study its role in
leadership. Goleman [16] is of the view that to be the most successful and effective leader one must be
Emotionally Intelligent along with strong IQ level and analytical ability. He identified five components of
Emotional Intelligence which are self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Also
it was Goleman’s child brain that came with the idea of Emotional Intelligence. In the words of Salovey and
Mayer [33] “Emotional Intelligence is 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 own thinking and actions”. According to

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them major utilizations of emotional intelligence include “flexible planning, creative thinking, mood
redirected attention and motivating emotions”. In [14] George, identified four aspects of emotional
intelligence which can affect the effectiveness of leadership. These are the appraisal and expression of
emotion, the use of emotion to enhance cognitive processes and decision making, knowledge about emotions,
and management of emotions (p. 189). Carmeli [7] suggested to empirically test the impact of Emotional
Intelligence on leadership success. Gardner et. al.,[13] found that success of leadership largely depends on
emotional intelligence of the leader. Downey et.al., [10] asserted that major reason for the success of
managers was their level of emotional intelligence. Further to this Higgs et. al., [18] found that leadership
potential depends upon emotional intelligence. Similarly Transformational leadership was associated
emotional intelligence [2]. Also Palmer et.al., [28] identified Emotional Intelligence as an important indicator
of effective leadership. And effectiveness of leadership was found to be higher due to higher level of
Emotional Intelligence [32]. Similar to this Brown et.al., [5] are of the view that EI influences the leadership
success and ultimately the organizational outcomes. Sivanathan et.al., [35] found that perception of the
followers about the effectiveness of a leader was his/her emotional intelligence. Humphrey, [19] is of the
view that emotionally intelligent leaders were found as good performer at work.
As discussed earlier that Goleman in [16] identified five components of emotional intelligence, let us see the
relationship between leadership effectiveness and each component of emotional intelligence.

Self-Regulation & Leadership Effectiveness:

An emotionally intelligent person is always monitoring his/her actions and also the acts of others according to
the norms and values of the organizations, so that he/she could get better outcomes. Salovey et.al., [33] are of
the view that regulating own-self leads to get desired results from subordinates. Later Tsui & Ashford [40]
found that one of the major reasons of leaders’ effectiveness was self regulation. Earlier in 1991 [39] both of
them found that self regulation through feed-back was positively related to effectiveness of the managers.
Sosik et.al., [34] found a positive relation between self regulation and leadership success. So it can be
proposed from the support of previous findings that a leader who is self regulated can be an effective leader at
work.

Self awareness & Leadership Effectiveness: Self awareness is one of the components of emotional
intelligence and found that it has a significant positive impact on the effectiveness of a leader [41]. Further to
this Fleenor et.al., [12] found that people who were well aware of their abilities were found more effective as
compared to those who were unaware about themselves. Then McCarthy et. al., [26] found self awareness as a
reason for effectiveness of a leader. Later Moshavi et.al., [27] found that a person who is more aware of
his/her self can get better results from the followers. Prati et. al., [29] studied that emotionally intelligent
leaders always remain in search of feedback from their followers to mend their behaviors accordingly to get
the support of their followers. Further to this Fletcher et.al., [11] suggested that performance of a leader
depends on his/her self-awareness and both are positively linked. Sosik et.al., [37] concluded that relationship
between emotional intelligence and performance of a leader depend on the level of self awareness, the more
the leader is self aware, the more strong relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership
effectiveness is. Hence it can be said that a manager/leader that is aware of his/her strengths and weaknesses
can tackle the situation at work accordingly and can be an effective leader.

Motivation & Leadership Effectiveness: The passion to achieve the objectives i.e. motivation and its
appropriate use is one of the component of emotional intelligence. Motivation and leadership were positively
related to each other [25]. Barbuto, [4] found a positive relationship between motivation level and
effectiveness of a leader. It has a positive and significant impact on the success of a leader as found in [3].
Earlier, Prati et. al., [29] found that an emotionally intelligent leader has the ability to boost the morale of the
employees by motivating them and can get the work done more effectively. Choi, J. [8] is of the view that a
leader who is able to understand the emotions of his followers has the passion to work with more zeal and can
effectively persuade the followers to produce the desired results. Similarly Iordanoglou [20] found that an
ambitious and motivated leader not only can produce better outcomes but also motivates his/her subordinated.
Recently Gilley et. al., [15] found that a talented and effective leader has the ability to motivate his/her
followers to achieve specific desired goals.
So it is concluded in the support of previous literature that an emotionally intelligent leader is motivated,
motivate his/her followers and can get the desired results.
Empathy and Leadership Effectiveness: Goleman, [16] defined empathy as, “The ability to understand the
emotional make-up of other people”. It is proposed that a leader who is well aware of the emotions of
followers is an effective leader as George, [14] is of the view that effectiveness of a leader depends on his
empathetic ability i.e. how he/she treats people according to their emotions. Wolf et. al., [42] concluded that
empathy a component of emotional intelligence has positive impact on the success of a leader. Skinner et.
al., [36] concluded that empathic concern makes an organizational leader effective. Choi, J. [8] is of the view
that empathetic ability of a leader influences the behavior of the employees makes them committed to the
organization. Almost same results were found by Butler et. al., [6]. However Gunther et. al., [17] found a
weak positive relationship between empathy and success of a leader. Kellett et. al., [22] are of the view that to
influence the followers, leaders get help from empathy. Later in Kellett et. al., [23] found the same results.
So from the above evidences from the previous literature, it can be said that empathy, a component of
emotional intelligent can positively influence the success of leadership.

Social Skills & Leadership Effectiveness: Social networking and strong interpersonal and intrapersonal
skills make a person successful in the today’s organizational environment. Riggior et.al., [31] have defined
social skills as, “Social expressiveness is ability to communicate verbally and skill in engaging others in
social interaction”. They are also of the view that social skills and effectiveness of leadership are significantly
and positively related with each other. Pratch et.al., [30] find that leaders with an ability to express themselves
make relationships with others were found more effective in the organizations irrespective of the gender. Prati
et. al., [29] are of the view that an emotionally intelligent leader develops social networks and builds relations
with others to influence them and hence can produce desired results effectively. Similarly Butler et. al., [6] are
of the view that besides empathy, while studying the relationship between emotional intelligence and
leadership effectiveness, another important component of emotional intelligence is social skill. They said that
leadership success is strongly associated social skills of a leader. Cummings et al (2008)[9] found that
extended social networking shows the effectiveness of a leader.

Conclusion: A lot of arguments have been given for and against the subject of emotional intelligence and its
impacts on leadership effectiveness. Researchers like Judge et. al., [21] are of the view that there is no such
stronger relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership success as was previously found. Hence
contrasting views and results have been found among the researchers. However on the whole it is concluded
that most of the researchers found positive relations between the two.

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