Emotional intelligence and its correlation with leadership effectiveness

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Literature Review and Feedback Some correlation exists between emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence and leadership effectiveness. According to a study by Adams (2013), emotional intelligence of a leader was found to have a positive effect on the workforce engagement of the employees. The study revealed that the ability of the managers or leaders to understand as well as use their emotions in reasoning correlated strongly with specific types of workgroup engagement. The effects also extended to their perception towards the employees and the quality of their contribution to the organization. Therefore, Adams (2013) concluded that a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness exists. Over the recent past, great focus has been placed on the correlation that exists between social, emotional, and cognitive intelligence and enhanced career and academic achievements. Due to this focus, some scholars have tried to examine whether the same can also be replicated to leadership effectiveness. Studies such as that conducted by Amdurer, et al., (2015) have shown a possible coexistence of such a correlation. In specific, Amdurer, et al., (2015) found that emotional intelligence is associated with higher career satisfaction 5 to 19 years after graduation among students who had pursued an MBA program. They also discovered that the adaptability of these graduates determined their overall satisfaction with their careers. Based on these findings, they extrapolated that the same can be seen in their leadership and managerial abilities in the positions that they hold. The above findings by Amdurer, et al., (2015) and Adams (2013) shares close similarities with those found by Ashkanasy and Humphrey (2011) in their study. Ashkanasy and Humphrey (2011) found that emotional intelligence influence organizational behavior in five levels of analysis that include, within a person, dyadic interactions, between persons, leadership, and teams, and organization-wide levels. The authors found emotions such as positive mood affects task-irrelevant cognitions and self-related tasks, which result in an increase in attention to task demands. Similarly, the positive trait was found to be associated with organizational performance as evidenced by the effectiveness with which tasks are done in the firm. Finally, emotional intelligence was associated with leadership effectiveness in leading team activities, hence, organizational success (Ashkanasy & Humphrey, 2011). Therefore, they concluded that emotional intelligence affects different aspects of organizational behaviors. Bird et al., (2010) adds that this correlation between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness can be seen in other aspects such as relationship management, self-management, and perception management, which prove important in determining organizational success. According to Boyatzis, Gaskin, and Wei (2015), leaders who have mastered emotional and social intelligence have considerable advantages of being able to exploit the emotions of those they work with for the realization of the set individual, team, and organizational goals. This is attributed to the fact that such leaders are aware of the four major dimensions of others’ emotional mind that include self-management, relationship management, social, and self-awareness. Similar findings can be seen in Boyatzis, Good, and Massa (2012) study where the authors assert that social and emotionally intelligent leaders have the abilities to recognize, understand as well as use emotional and social information about others, which leads to or contributes to effective or superior performance. Besides, the authors argue that leaders with enhanced cognitive intelligence can think or analyze their presented information in a manner that leads or contributes to superior or effective performance (Boyatzis, Good, & Massa, 2012). From their study, it can be concluded that a positive correlation exists between emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence with effective leadership abilities. Emotional and cognitive intelligence can be measured with a consideration of personalities such as openness to experience, extraversion, and neuroticism. These personalities have an influence on the effectiveness of a leader or manager in an institution. For example, Caligiuri and Tarique (2012) found in their study that leaders and supervisors who had personality characteristics such as openness to experience, extraversion, and lower neuroticism alongside cross-cultural experiences were associated with global leadership competencies. According to them, the experiences of the leaders across different cultures strengthen their personalities, hence, their ability to handle various situations presented to them in their organizations. Clarke (2010) asserts in his study that emotional, social, and cognitive intelligent leaders employ the use of appropriate collaborative behaviors as well as transformational leadership that aims at empowering their employees. Clarke (2010) also asserts that emotional intelligence influences the competencies of managers in various spheres of their task execution such as teamwork, conflict management, attentiveness, and leadership abilities. For the managers and leaders to be highly effective in their leadership approaches, they have to control their cognitive abilities as well as their personality (Clarke, 2010). The findings from a study by Cote, Lopes, Salovey, and Miners (2010) share close similarities with those reported by Clarke (2010) where the authors found that emotional and cognitive intelligence is associated with the emergence of new leadership styles and abilities in small groups. Two studies conducted by the authors demonstrated that emotional intelligence alongside its dimensions was highly associated with leadership emergence. The influence was higher when compared to the effects seen when other aspects such as cognitive intelligence, gender, and personality traits were used to determine leadership emergence in small groups. A study by Ilies et al., (2013) showed that leaders with emotional intelligence have considerable abilities to influence those they work with, in an organization. Results that were obtained from 198 mid-level managers showed that emotional expressiveness, which is a product or emotional intelligence, was positively linked with extra efforts from the followers and their positive perception towards the effectiveness of their leadership.