| 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. |
