| The present study explored the relationship between emotional competence and leadership performance in corporate managers. The participants were 169 managers from a large global organization, who completed a multi-rater leadership assessment process. The organization's multi-rater leadership assessment instrument was reconstructed to closely resemble the emotional competencies included in Goleman's (1998, 2001) emotional intelligence (EI) model. The organization grouped the instrument's items into Goleman's four EI clusters: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Social Skills. The four EI cluster scores were used to measure emotional competence as reported by five rater sources: Self, Manager, Direct Reports, Peers, and Combined. A participant's actual performance ratings for two consecutive years, as assigned by his or her manager, served as the measure of job performance. It was hypothesized that the EI cluster scores, as rated by the Manager, Direct Report, Peer, and Combined sources, would be good predictors of performance. It was also hypothesized that the Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Social Skills Clusters would offer a unique contribution to performance for specific rater sources. Results indicated that cluster scores provided by the Manager, Peer and Combined rater sources account for significant variance in performance ratings, as indicated by significant multiple R2 values from separate analyses for each rater source. The cluster scores from the Self and Direct Report rater sources did not account for significant variance in performance ratings. Self-Management and Social Awareness Clusters as rated by Peer and Combined sources also made significant unique contributions to performance, as indicated by significant semi-partial correlations from separate multiple regression analyses for each rater source. Across all rater sources, Self-Awareness and Social Skills did not make unique contributions to the prediction of performance. It is suggested that future research focus on the role of the rater source and performance measures, instrumentation and EI cluster differentiation, and emotional competencies related to expertise in managing change. |
