Effects of Measures of Emotional Intelligence on the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership

The major purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between two measures of emotional intelligence: performance-based ability test, self-reported measure of ability emotional intelligence, and transformational leadership. Base on a sample of 177 middle-level and low-level leaders, in 16 organizations, the study tries to explain the role of emotional intelligence in the variance of transformational leadership style, after controlling for cognitive ability and five factors of personality. Vocabulary Emotion Test (VET-3), representing performance-based ability test of emotional intelligence, and Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire (ESCQ-45), representing self-report measure of emotional intelligence, TN-10 test of fluid intelligence and BFI - inventory of personality traits were administered to all supervisors in identifying their emotional intelligence, cognitive ability and personality traits. To evaluate the transformational leadership style, the short version of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ X5) was used for 177 self-ratings. The results show that VET-3 as the measure of ability EI has no relationship with transformational style. The results obtained in hierarchical regression analysis of self-ratings transformational leadership show that the personality traits were significant predictors but that self-report measure of EI incrementally explained 5% of the variance of transformational leadership.