اثرات هوش عاطفی رهبر و پیرو بر عملکرد و نگرش : مطالعه اکتشافی

Recently, increasing numbers of scholars have argued that emotional intelligence (EI) is a core variable that affects the performance of leaders. In this study, we develop a psychometrically sound and practically short EI measure that can be used in leadership and management studies. We also provide exploratory evidence for the effects of the EI of both leaders and followers on job outcomes. Applying Gross' emotion regulation model, we argue that the EI of leaders and followers should have positive effects on job performance and attitudes. We also propose that the emotional labor of the job moderates the EI–job outcome relationship. Our results show that the EI of followers affects job performance and job satisfaction, while the EI of leaders affects their satisfaction and extra-role behavior. For followers, the proposed interaction effects between EI and emotional labor on job performance, organizational commitment, and turnover intention are also supported.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is an emerging topic for psychological, educational, and management researchers and consultants (see, e.g., Shapiro, 1997 and Weisinger, 1998). Many organizations have sent their employees to various EI training courses offered by management consultants. Proponents of the EI concept argue that EI affects one's physical and mental health as well as one's career achievements (e.g., Goleman, 1995). Some emerging leadership theories also imply that emotional and social intelligence are even more important for leaders and managers because cognitive and behavioral complexity and flexibility are important characteristics of competent leaders (Boal & Whitehead, 1992). However, there is little empirical evidence in the literature about the relationship between the EI of both leaders and followers and their job outcomes. One of the reasons for this gap may be the lack of a psychologically sound yet practically short measure of EI that can be used in leadership and management studies. The project reported in this paper was designed to develop such a measure and provide exploratory evidence concerning the effect of the EI of both leaders and followers on job outcomes. The purpose of this multisample, multistudy project is threefold. Firstly, the core concepts of EI and emotional labor are discussed and hypotheses are developed concerning their role in leadership and management research. EI is referred to as a set of interrelated abilities possessed by individuals to deal with emotions, while emotional labor is referred to as emotion-related job requirements imposed by organizations. Thus, EI is a particular set of an individual's abilities, while emotional labor represents a particular type of job demand. Secondly, we develop a short but psychologically sound measure of EI for research on leadership and management in our first empirical study. Finally, in the second and third studies, we test the relationships between the EI of followers and leaders and their job outcomes, and the proposed moderating effects of emotional labor on the EI–job outcome relationship of followers. This article is organized as follows. We first discuss the importance of EI for leaders as suggested in the leadership literature, and review the constructs of EI and emotional labor. Then, the potential moderating effect of emotional labor on the EI–job outcome relationship is discussed within the framework of the emotion regulation model. After proposing our hypotheses, we report Study 1 in which a 16-item EI scale is developed. In Study 2, this EI scale is applied to 149 supervisor–subordinate dyads and the follower EI–job outcome relationship and the moderating effects of emotional labor are tested. In Study 3, the EI scale is applied to another supervisor–subordinate dyad to examine the effect of leader EI on follower job outcomes. The article concludes with a discussion of the general contribution of this study to the management and leadership literature on EI.

Recently, increasing numbers of scholars have argued that EI is a core variable that affects the performance of leaders (see, e.g., Day, 2000 and Sternberg, 1997). Unfortunately, there has been a lack of a psychometrically sound yet practically short EI measure for leadership and management research. There is also little evidence concerning the effects of leader and follower EI on job outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop such a measure and provide evidence concerning the effects of EI on job outcomes to aid future leadership and management research. Our study yielded some interesting results. Firstly, apart from acceptable reliability and validity, the EI measure developed shows good convergence with some of the past EI measures such as the Trait Meta-Mood and the EQ-i. However, our measure appears to perform better in predicting external criterion variables such as life satisfaction. As the EI measure developed is relatively simple, it may be beneficial for future leadership and management research. For the EI of followers, our study has provided preliminary evidence that the EI–job outcome relationship is more complicated than recent proposals (e.g., Abraham, 1999, Ashkanasy & Hooper, 1999 and Goleman, 1998). Specifically, job performance is significantly correlated with EI, and this relationship appears to be moderated by emotional labor, as proposed in Fig. 1. Job satisfaction is significantly correlated with EI, but emotional labor does not moderate the EI–job satisfaction relationship. In contrast, organizational commitment and turnover intention have a low and nonsignificant correlation with EI, but emotional labor strongly moderates the EI–commitment and EI–turnover intention relationship. In other words, EI has a strong positive effect on job satisfaction regardless of the nature of the job. In contrast, EI might only have a desirable effect on organizational commitment and turnover intention in jobs that require high emotional, labor while the effect is undesirable in jobs that require low emotional labor. Perhaps this is because employees with high EI find it difficult to commit to a work place that is not conducive to the emotional impact they consider good. Alternatively, they may feel that their abilities are not appreciated or are utilized in low emotional labor jobs. These results are sensible on a post hoc basis, although they were unexpected then the study was designed. Our study provides some preliminary support for researchers who have proposed the importance of leader EI (e.g., Boal & Hooijberg, 2000, Hooijberg et al., 1997 and Sternberg, 1997). Our results show that the EI of leaders is positively related to the job satisfaction and extra-role behavior of followers, as expected. However, no relationship between the EI of leaders and the job performance of their followers has been found. This may be due to our sample, which consists of government administrators who have a culture of distorting the performance ratings of their subordinates. Future research should use different samples to cross-validate this finding. Despite these unexpected findings and limitations, we believe there are both theoretical and practical implications of this study. Theoretically, we have applied the emotion regulation model to explain the importance of EI in the social interactions in the workplace. As some or most of the social interactions in the workplace may be related to job duties, we hypothesize a positive relationship between EI and job outcomes. As an exploratory effort, we focus on demonstrating these relationships. As the results of this study provide support for these relationships, it is worthwhile to investigate further the role of emotion regulation in the workplace. For example, the emotion regulation model has specified two types of actions to regulate emotions, namely antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation. It is worthwhile to investigate the specific actions taken by both the leaders and the incumbents in the workplace. What are the factors affecting the choices of actions made by leaders and incumbents? Will some actions be more effective under certain circumstances? Will some actions be more effective for some jobs? These are interesting questions that future leadership and management research should address. Furthermore, new studies should be conducted to investigate the role of EI in the workplace. Proponents have argued for the benefit of hiring employees with high levels of EI. However, few empirical studies have been conducted to test this argument. The results of this exploratory study provide evidence that EI tends to be related to important job outcomes that management desires. Results of this study also have certain practical implications. Firstly, it is generally believed that individuals with a high level of EI are better employees. For example, Goleman (1995) contends that IE should become increasingly valued in the workplace in the future. The results of this study suggest that although it may be nice to have leaders and employees with a high level of EI because these employees tend to have higher job satisfaction, it is still important to ensure the match employee levels of EI to job requirements. It may be a waste of resources and time to stress the importance of the level of employee EI when it is not required in the job. Secondly, in contrast to our expectations, strong interaction effects were observed for organizational commitment and turnover intention. That is, the effects of follower EI on organizational commitment and turnover intention is detrimental for low emotional labor jobs. If this finding is further verified by future research, then it will mean that employees with high levels of EI who do not have the opportunity to use these skills in their jobs may be less committed to their organizations and have a higher chance of quitting. This finding is worthy of further research. It is also interesting that this strong interaction effect does not hold for other job outcomes such as job performance. Perhaps employees with a high level of EI are still able to concentrate on performing their jobs although they realize that their skills are underutilized. Thus, having employees with a high level of EI may be advantageous to the organization. To conclude, this study has provided some preliminary evidence for the role of leader and follower EI, and for the interaction effect of employee EI and emotional labor on their job performance and attitudes towards their jobs. As an exploratory effort, we believe that we have provided sufficient evidence for future leadership and management research to investigate the role of emotions in the workplace. Thus, more research on the role of both leader and follower EI in the workplace is called for.