Emotional intelligence, gender and transformational leadership among nurses in emerging economies

Purpose In spite of the observation that nurse managers' style of authority in sub-Saharan Africa is one of antagonistic vibe and lordship, there is not much information on the kind of leadership provided in the hospitals by nurse managers. Following the notion that transformational leadership is a solution to many leadership problems and often creates valuable positive change in followers, this study aims to examine the level of transformational leadership behavior of nurse leaders; determining the effects of the sub-constructs of emotional intelligence (EI) on the transformational leadership behavior of leaders; and determining whether there is a difference in the exhibition of transformational leadership behavior due to the gender of leaders. Design/methodology/approach The study uses five of the major public hospitals in the Greater Accra Region (the capital) of Ghana. Evidence of such links would be considerable for Ghanaian healthcare providers in their quest to find potential nurse leaders to train, so as not to dwell highly on the seniority criterion in the selection of leaders. Using a quantitative approach, the Wong Law EI Scale (2002) and leadership items adapted from Rafferty and Griffin (2004) were used to collect the data. A descriptive statistics (mean) revealed that nurse leaders from the selected hospitals exhibited a high level (M= 3.90, SD = 0.14) of transformational leadership behavior. Findings A multiple regression analysis revealed that three of the sub-constructs of EI significantly affected transformational leadership with the "self-emotion appraisal" construct having the strongest effect on transformational leadership behavior (beta = 0.508, p = 0.000). However, the others' emotion appraisal sub-construct did not significantly affect transformational leadership. Furthermore, the results from the independent sample t-test revealed no significant difference in the exhibition of transformational leadership due to gender. Practical implications - Based on the findings, when leaders are trained to be emotionally intelligent and their skills are fostered, they are more likely to exhibit transformational leadership behaviors, which will further result in organizational effectiveness and follower satisfaction. Hospitals must focus on the control of one's emotions at work, and subsequently, understanding others' emotions. In developing transformational leaders, there is the need to identify some tools that will increase EI level, more specifically, traits related to the understanding of others' emotion. The findings from this study indicate that one of the factors to check when selecting nurse leaders should be their EI and not necessarily a matter of seniority in many cases in emerging economies. Originality/value The originality of this study is in the fact that it focuses on an emerging economy, which is under researched. In Ghana, the criteria for promotion of nurse leaders' is based strictly on seniority and age and not on factors such as the leaders EI. The profession of nursing is such that leaders need to understand that certain soft skills such as EI are considered necessary to transform the hospitals and staff they lead. This study, therefore, sheds light on these key areas from the perspective of an emerging economy, which are usually not in the domain of literature in the area of healthcare leadership.