Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

Leadership is about possessing a combination of personality and skills that prompts others to want to follow their direction. The essence of leadership is to drive others towards achieving common goals though different tactics including motivation (Dabke, 2016). However, the art of leadership has shifted from the transactional or laissez faire ones to transformational concept. Today, more companies are looking for managers who can effect change in an organization by creating a direction for his or her followers without necessarily controlling their behaviour (Mathew and Gupta, 2015). In essence, it is the difference between normal leaders and the kind of leadership exhibited by people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. it appears thus that the transformational leadership qualities possess by the said leaders had a link with emotional intelligence that inspired other people to become devoted followers of their cause (Issah and Zimmerman, 2016). Transformational leadership goes over and above employee motivation to include a leader playing a role model to his or her subordinates to inspire and spark their interest in the organisations objectives.

Wang and Huang (2009) argue that leadership is an emotional process that involves the leader recognizing their follower’s emotional situations tries to evoke their emotions and then manages their emotional conditions. In fact some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence is the foundation of transformational leadership and organization effectiveness hence suggesting that there is a link between emotional intelligence and managerial success (Florescu and Nastase, 2014). It follows that emotional intelligence is a key ingredient in realization of emotional success (Foltin and Keller, 2012). A transformational manager should thus seek to understand the emotional statues of his or her followers so that there is an amiable link between leaders and followers in an organization

Studies have also shown that emotional intelligence aids leaders in understanding the merits and demerits of emotions and this helps them to make decisions and solve organizational problems more effectively(Ghasabeh, Soosay and Reaiche, 2015). Palmer et al (2001) contends that perceptions of leadership has changed from the traditional planning, controlling and inspecting to more proactive roles including inspiring and fostering positive attitudes in the workplace. The authors further explain that an effective leader should be one that effectively deal with his or her own emotions and that of the followers. In a study conducted by Welch (2003), a comparison between teams with similar intelligence quotient revealed that the teams with high levels of emotional intelligence outperformed those with low levels of emotional intelligence (Gardner and Stough, 2002). Therefore, the research suggests that emotional intelligence enhances team performance in an organization.

Transformational leaders have the ability to influence their followers to develop commitment and dedication in their work hence achieving profound organizational results (Niharika, 2007). Aryee, Walumbwa, Zhou and Hartnell (2012) suggest that an effective leader should have the ability to identify employee’s work related desires and use them by aligning the organization’s vision and goals with those desires to achieve required results. Charismatic leadership is an element of transformational leadership has been the subject of some studies which have attempted to establish a link with work engagement (Babcock-Roberson and Strickland, 2010). Equally, studies show that there is also a link between emotional intelligence and employee work engagement (Parimalam & Mahadevan, 2012). It means that the way in which a followed perceives their leader may affect their engagement and commitment to the organization.

However, there are studies that have also ventured into the relationship between a leader’s emotional intelligence and their effectiveness, and found different results. According to Chatterjee and Kulakli (2015) the ability perspective of emotional intelligence does not have any correlation with perceptions of leadership style. This finding means that there is necessarily no relationship between emotional intelligence with neither transactional nor transformational leadership. It goes against other studies conducted before and after it to dispel the existence of the above relationship. However, the authors concedes that further research may be needed before such conclusion is generalised. In light of globalisation and increasing challenges in the world, current and future leaders ought to adopt and inculcate the spirit of emotional intelligence to facilitate transformational leadership for organizational success (Gaubatz and Ensminger, 2017). Leaders should be change catalysts by first changing themselves and then changing their followers. Therefore, transformational leadership is inextricably linked to emotional intelligence and for an organization to realise effective leadership that facilitates its success, the two ought to go together.

Take a deeper dive into Transformational and transactional leadership in organizational change with our additional resources.

References

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