Please read the attached article on emotional intelligence, leadership style and organizational climate. Briefly, summarise the key findings and conclusions the authors come to and if / how you could make use of these in respect of your own company with regards to management and leadership style, employee satisfaction and the organisational climate? What limitations, if any, are there in this research and its application in other contexts?
Short report of around 800 to 1000 words. Please include the 3 points as per below:
1) Key findings and conclusion
2) Application to an Human Resource Manager in a IT Company
3) Limitations of the research
International Journal of Organizational Analysis Emotional intelligence, leadership style and organizational climate Bassem E. Maamari, Joelle F. Majdalani,
Article information: To cite this document: Bassem E. Maamari, Joelle F. Majdalani, (2017) “Emotional intelligence, leadership style and organizational climate”, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 25 Issue: 2, pp.327-345, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-04-2016-1010 Permanent link to this document: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-04-2016-1010
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Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: (2016),”Combinative aspects of leadership style and emotional intelligence”, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 37 Iss 1 pp. 107-125 <a href=”https://doi.org/10.1108/ LODJ-04-2014-0082″>https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-04-2014-0082</a> (2014),”Emotional intelligence and leadership: A review of the progress, controversy, and criticism”, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 22 Iss 1 pp. 76-93 <a href=”https:// doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2012-0568″>https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2012-0568</a>
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Emotional intelligence, leadership style and organizational climate
Bassem E. Maamari Department of Management Studies, Lebanese American University,
Beirut, Lebanon, and
Joelle F. Majdalani Department of Management and Marketing, Grenoble Ecole de Management,
Grenoble, France
Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on the leader’s applied leadership style (mediator) and the effect of this style on the employees’ organizational citizenship (responsibility, reward and warmth and support). Design/methodology/approach – The researchers are proposing a model that highlights the mediating role of leadership style on the relationship between leaders’ EI and employees’ feeling of organizational climate. The study follows the quantitative process. A survey is prepared for data collection and for statistically testing the proposed model. Findings – The results show that the leaders’ EI does affect his/her leadership style. Moreover, the leaders’ style affects directly the respective employees’ feeling of organizational climate to varying levels. The variance between different styles is found to be small. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of this study include the minimal cross-check interviews. The sample size’s limitation resulted in the researchers’ inability to compare the different sub-sectors of the economy (labelled as the type of work of the firm) to derive deeper conclusions by economic/ business sector. Practical implications – The study reveals a number of practical implications affecting communication, performance, stability and tenure, and thereby lower turnover. Social implications – The social implications of this study include the social relationships within the work-setting, higher empathy and higher levels of norming as a direct result of improving the leader’s EI level. Originality/value – The paper is based on a sample of respondents with a new model suggested and tested scientifically, following a rigorous process. It assesses the impact of both EI and organizational climate with leadership style.
Keywords Responsibility, Leadership style, Emotional intelligence, Organizational climate, Reward, Warmth and support
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction The corporate world at present is full of challenges and competition, and most organizations are facing a lot of threats and hurdles. These organizations are finding it difficult to maintain their competitive edge and sustaining their well-being (Anand and Udaya-Suriyan, 2010). Companies are striving to recruit and retain good quality leaders capable to create a positive organizational climate (OC). These leaders are expected to have emotional intelligence (EI)
The authors would like to thank all the colleagues who contributed through their reviews and opinions in making this research project successful. Moreover, the support of the many friends made it possible to complete this field study with no external funding.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1934-8835.htm
Emotional intelligence
327
Received 12 April 2016 Revised 22 July 2016
21 November 2016 Accepted 24 December 2016
International Journal of Organizational Analysis
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2017 pp. 327-345
© Emerald Publishing Limited 1934-8835
DOI 10.1108/IJOA-04-2016-1010
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traits that allow them to better handle themselves and their team members. In a positive OC, individuals are motivated, satisfied, have high expectations and are committed towards their company and its mission. OC is about how employees perceive their work environment and how the latter makes them feel (Randhawa and Kaur, 2015; Litwin and Stringer, 1968). A good OC has a positive effect on financial results such as revenue growth, profits and return on sales of the organization (Goleman, 2000).
As OC has such an important role in organizational success and effectiveness, it is important that we explore the factors that influence it, with the aim of identifying those that can create added value for managerial decision maker. Momeni (2009) reports that it is mostly the leader’s emotional behaviour and style that affects the OC. In Goleman et al. (2002) postulated that the emotional state of the leader is a significant factor in creating a positive OC. This is why it is important to study the effect of EI on leadership style and OC. The concept of EI is becoming very important and popular, especially in the present corporate world (Majdalani and Maamari, 2016; Goleman, 1995). EI is about how people understand, express and manage their own and other people’s emotions (Cherniss, 2004). Moreover, many studies link EI to leadership effectiveness (Boyatzis et al., 2009; Kerr et al., 2006; Goleman, 2004), with differences reported among age-groups of respondents.
This research paper examines whether leadership style mediates the relationship between EI and OC. It looks at whether OC in turn leads to better financial results for the company due to the better performance of its employees. In this context, the demographic variables of age and gender are used in this study due to their reported meaningfulness in other studies as along with leadership variants.
2. Review of literature 2.1 Emotional intelligence EI’s historical roots go back to Binet and Charles Darwin who noticed a second type of intelligence, “Social Intelligence” or “Practical Intelligence” (Sternberg, 1985). However, Edward Thorndike was the first to define social intelligence in 1920 (McCleskey, 2014). Then, in 1983, Gardner discussed the presence of multiple intelligences, two of which are the intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences.
The term “Emotional Intelligence”, as introduced by Salovey and Mayer in 1990, revolves around the capacity to reason about emotions and that emotions enhance thinking (Sadri, 2012). For them, EI is a cognitive ability which is the ability to understand, recognize and evaluate the meaning of emotions in order to reason and solve problems (Mayer et al., 1999). The concept of EI postulates that the two different mental processes, which are thinking and feeling, actually work together (Kerr et al., 2006). Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) model is considered as the ability model. It is well-accepted by the academic community. It includes four different abilities, namely, the ability to perceive emotions, use emotions to facilitate thoughts, understand emotions and manage emotions. EI however became popular when Goleman (1995) published his book “EI why it can matter more than IQ”. Goleman (1998, p. 4) defined emotional competence as “a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work”. His model is a performance-based one, based on five skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. The first three skills relate to personal competences and the last two to social ones. Another model very similar to Goleman’s is Bar-On’s model, known as the non-cognitive or emotional–social intelligence model. It covers five broad areas of competencies: the intrapersonal skills, the interpersonal skills, stress management, adaptability and general mood (Bar-On, 1997). Both models (Goleman’s and Bar-On’s) are known as the mixed models, as they include a combination of mental abilities, personality and character skills. Another important EI
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model is the trait approach by Petrides. It is an emotion-related disposition and self-knowledge method that focuses on self-efficacy and self-perception (Petrides et al., 2007). These different stages of our understanding of EI are known as its three streams. The first defined EI as a set of interrelated abilities that are measured through ability-based tests (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). The second a stream suggested measuring EI through self-assessments and reports on abilities and EI behaviour (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). The third stream defined EI as an array of predispositions, competencies and perceptions on managing emotions (Bar-On, 2003; Goleman, 2000), and these are measured through the Emotional Competence Inventory and the Emotional Quotient Inventory (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005). Despite the attention and criticisms it is receiving from scholarly sources, many scholars are calling for the death of EI (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2005). However, according to many scholars, we need to study EI because it improves the performance of individuals (Berkovich and Eyal, 2016) and their commitment (Bhalerao and Kumar, 2016). People that have high EI perform better in life than people with less EI (Bar-On, 1997). They can better understand themselves and other people, socialize and communicate more and cope with any difficult changing situation (Bar-On and Parker, 2000). When EI is high, it improves the physical and psychological health of people, leading to better academic and work performance (Bar-On and Parker, 2000). Moreover, EI correlates negatively with work and occupational stress (Nikolaou and Tsaousis, 2002). Therefore, many scholars argue that EI is a key component of effective leadership (Sadri, 2012) as “it represents a critically important competency for effective leadership and team performance in organizations today” (Melita Prati et al., 2003, p. 21).
2.2 Leadership The study of leadership has evolved over time. Zaccaro (2007) noted that the analysis of leadership dates back to Galton’s (1869) Hereditary Genius. He emphasized two basic concepts that became very popular (McCleskey, 2014). The first is that “leadership is a characteristic ability of extraordinary individuals whose decisions, therefore, are capable of altering the course of our history” (Zaccaro, 2007, p. 7). The second concept, called the Great Many theories, ties the special attributes of the individuals to their genetic make-up. According to this concept, “The qualities that define effective leadership were naturally endowed and passed from generation to generation” (Zaccaro, 2007, p. 7). Leadership is also defined as a process of social interaction, where the leader has a high influence on the behaviour of his/her followers, strongly influencing their performance (Humphrey, 2002; Pirola-Merlo et al., 2002; McCleskey, 2014). Moreover, Humphrey (2002) describes leadership as an emotional process where the leader recognizes, manages and evokes emotions in his/ her followers. Goleman defined leadership as “the art of persuading people to work towards a common goal” (Goleman, 1998, p. 12). Thus, leadership refers to the ability to motivate, influence and enable other people to contribute to the success and effectiveness of the organization (Anand and Udaya-Suriyan, 2010).
In addition, Burns (1978) was the first scholar to distinguish between a transactional and a transformational leadership style. According to him, transactional leaders motivate their followers by appealing to their self-interest, whereas transformational “leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation” (Burns, 1978, p. 20). Moreover, Bass (1985) described transactional leadership as an exchange of reward for compliances, whereas the transformational leader lets followers feel admiration, trust and loyalty, and are thus motivated to do more than what is expected from them (Vrba, 2007). The transformational leadership style is based more on emotional than transactional leadership (Palmer et al., 2001). This is why in most organizations, transformational leadership style is
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desirable because it leads to higher employee satisfaction, trust and commitments (Vrba, 2007; Cavazotte et al., 2012). Therefore, many scholars discuss the fact that transformational leadership promotes better and greater organizational performance (Lowe et al., 1996; Harms, 2010; Foster and Roche, 2014).
2.3 Organization climate Several definitions are proposed for OC. It is viewed as:
“[…] a set of measurable properties of the work environment, perceived directly or indirectly by people who live and work in this environment and assumed to influence their motivation and behavior” (Litwin and Stringer, 1968, p. 1).
It is how people perceive their surroundings and how it makes them feel and perform (Litwin and Stringer, 1968). It is theorized as a psychological tool that focuses on individuals and that tries to understand their cognitive development and behaviour. Therefore, it could be used as a management technique that helps understand the way employees view their working environment (Maamari and Messarra, 2012). This could be done through various diffusion and reception processes that rely on social cognitive frameworks (Chanlat, 2014). OC is a perception of how things are in an organizational environment (Yoder, 2004). It is the members of the organization who perceive and interpret the organizational characteristics and therefore create the climate (Field and Abelson, 1982). It is also defined as a set of characteristics that are enduring over time, describe an organization, distinguish it from other organizations and influence the behaviour of people within it (Momeni, 2009). These characteristics also include the notions of voice and freedom (Kulkarni, 2010). Therefore, OC is how employees perceive their organization, and the kind of attitude they have towards their organization. Researchers think that the attitude and behaviour of a manager and the way the organization is managed have a major effect on employees’ attitudes and perceptions that create OC (Momeni, 2009). OC is about feelings, perceptions and values shared by employees in the workplace, including trust (Christie et al., 2015), sense of belonging to the organization, as well as confidence and loyalty (Hamidianpour et al., 2015).
OC is positively linked to job satisfaction and commitment (Bhaesajsanguan, 2010; Castro and Martins, 2010), employees’ behaviour and outcomes (Ferris et al., 1998), productivity, job performance and leadership behaviour (Goleman, 2000) and managerial effectiveness (Kumar-Bamel et al., 2013). A good OC improves the organization’s efficiency, lowers the costs of turnover and decreases problems with staff (Momeni, 2009). A positive OC has a positive effect on financial results such as revenue growth, profits and return on sales (Goleman, 2000). Studies have shown that OC significantly affects employees’ mood, attitude and behaviour, regarding their work environment (Abdulkarim, 2013).
Lewin et al. (1939) suggested that certain leadership styles created certain social climates that affect productivity (Abdulkarim, 2013). More than three decades of research by the Six Second Consulting Group demonstrate that 70 per cent of employees’ perceptions of OC are directly shaped by the style of leadership and behaviour of managers. More particularly, they are shaped by how managers work to improve the performance of employees and reward them (Momeni, 2009).
Seven main OCs are identified in the literature. These are namely structure (having clearly defined responsibilities and roles and being well organized; responsibility (the degree to which employees feel responsible for accomplishing their job, encouragement of discretion and individual judgment whereby employees are made to feel that they are “their own boss”); risk (willingness to take risk and chance on the ideas of employees); reward (employees believe that rewards are given fairly and justly, depending on the quality of work and that rewarding positive performance is more significant than punishment in the organization);
