The Relationship Between Leader Emotional Intelligence And Leadership Effectiveness:A Meta-analysis

In recent years,the leader's emotional intelligence has attracted more and more attention,and the number of related research is also increasing.However,the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness is still debated.Therefore,it is necessary to further verify the relationship between the leader's emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness.Based on the rich empirical research results,meta-analysis was used to assess the influence of leaders' emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness and explore the moderating effects of situational and methodological factors.The studies evaluated were written in English and Chinese and were conducted from 2000 to 2017.Ninety-eight studies,which included a total of 110 independent samples and 27330 participants,met the criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis.This overall sample was also separated into subgroups for moderator analysis,including situational factors(leader level,organizational type,cultural differences)and methodological factors(predictive scales,data attributes,effectiveness indicators,effectiveness levels).Data was analyzed utilizing the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis(CMA)2.0 program.Results indicated that:(1)The overall correlation between leaders' emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness was moderately strong(r=0.39).In addition,the emotional intelligence of leaders and the psychological,behavioral and performance dimensions of leadership effectiveness were positively related.(2)Further moderating analysis of contextual factors revealed that the impact of senior leaders' emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness was significantly higher than that of the middle and grass-roots leaders,the impact of emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness in nonprofit organizations was stronger than that in profit organization,the impact of emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness in the oriental culture was stronger than that in the Western culture.(3)The moderating analysis of the methodological factors revealed that the influence of the leaders' emotional intelligence measured by mixed models on leadership effectiveness was higher than that measured by the ability model,the correlation coefficient of the objective measurement was greater than that of the subjective measurement,the influence of the leaders' emotional intelligence on work attitude was weaker than that on job performance,and the influence of the leaders' emotional intelligence on the group level was stronger than that on the individual level.The above studies tease out and refine the relevant research on the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness from different organizational contexts and research methods,which also provide the direction and ideas for further research.