Emotional intelligence, leadership style and coping mechanisms of executives

Leaders frequently use emotions to influence the affective states of others, a significant part of charisma when considering organizational leaders (Kelly & Barsade, 2001). The emotional component of leadership requires the ability to perceive emotions, facilitate emotions in thought, and understand and manage emotions. Leaders possessing these abilities are considered emotionally intelligent (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Ciarrochi et al. (2001) connected coping with emotional intelligence arguing that the ability to cope with aversive affect and stressful situations is related to one's ability to manage emotions.; The purposes of this exploratory study were to determine the ways leadership practices and coping mechanisms reported by executives differed as level of emotional intelligence differed and whether men and women executives differed in their emotional intelligence, leadership practices and coping mechanisms. Fifty government contracting executives were evaluated on their emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, MSCEIT), leadership practices (Leadership Practices. Inventory, LPI), and coping mechanisms (Coping Response Index, CRI).; The overall MSCEIT scores were positively correlated with the leadership practice of leading the way for others and negatively correlated with emotional discharge. Significant relationships emerged when the MSCEIT subscores, leadership practices, and coping mechanisms were compared. Subscore 4, regulation of emotion in self and others for emotional and intellectual growth, was positively correlated with the leadership practices leading the way for others and encouraging others, and with the coping mechanisms problem analysis and problem solving. Subscores 2 and 3, emotional facilitation of thinking and understanding and analyzing emotions respectively, were negatively correlated with the coping mechanism emotional discharge indicating that the more able executives are to use emotions to assist thought and understand emotions, the less likely they are to act out in order to cope. Subscore 3 was positively correlated with cognitive avoidance coping indicating that executives distancing themselves for a time from a problem more creatively solve the problem. These results indicate that more emotionally intelligent executives lead by example and use emotional information to analyze, cope with and solve problems. Men and women did not differ on any of the three measures.