| TITLE |
An examination of the relationship between emotional intelligence,
leadership style and perceived leadership effectiveness |
| AUTHOR |
Weinberger, Lisa Ann |
| SCHOOL |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA |
| DEGREE |
| Ph.D. |
| DATE |
| 2003 |
| PAGES |
| 209 |
| ADVISOR |
Swanson, Richard A. |
| ABSTRACT |
Emotionally intelligent leaders are believed by many to be critically
important for organizational success. There is however, little scholarly
support behind this notion. Significant research on leadership exists (see
Stogdill, 1974; Yukl, 1998; Yukl & Vanfleet, 1992), but the research on
emotional intelligence is comparatively thin and the relationship between
the two is smaller yet. This study investigated the relationship between
emotional intelligence, leadership style and leadership effectiveness. A
correlational research design was used. A single international manufacturing
organization headquartered in the Midwest was selected for this study,
referred to as CSW. CSW employs approximately 2000 people in North America.
The total population of 151 managers participated. These managers (consisted
of 124 males and 27 females) included all levels of management across multiple functions at CSW. Two commercially available survey instruments
were administered. One instrument, the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional
Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) was
administered to all the top managers (N = 151) of CSW. The MSCEIT measured
the variable of emotional intelligence. 138 completed surveys were received
with a response rate of 93.3%. The second instrument, the Multifactor
Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ5x) (Bass & Avolio, 2000) was administered
to the subordinates of those 151 managers to gain their perceptions of their
manager's leadership style and leadership effectiveness. A total of 1165
subordinates were asked to participate. 791 completed surveys were returned
with a total response rate of 68.9%. Through the testing of 24 research
hypotheses, this study found no relationships between the perceptions of a
leaders leadership style and that leaders emotional intelligence and a
leaders perceived leadership effectiveness and their emotional intelligence.
The lack of significant relationships between the various components of
leadership style and emotional intelligence suggests that the practice of
measuring managers emotional intelligence relative to
organizational and individual performance is not based on sound data. The
results of this study are contrary to what has been suggested by advocates
of emotional intelligence and provides additional information to the body of
knowledge in the area of emotional intelligence, leadership, and the field
of HRD.
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