Case Study

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256296337

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture

Article · September 2013

CITATIONS

3

READS

2,211

2 authors:

Jocelyn Lee

HELP College of Arts and Technology

1 PUBLICATION 3 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Dr. Rashad Yazdanifard

London School of Commerce

271 PUBLICATIONS 206 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Jocelyn Lee on 06 June 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Transformational Leadership and

Organizational Culture

Jocelyn Lee Ker Sin 1

Center of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU)

Of Help College of Arts and Technology,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Email: [email protected]

Rashad Yazdanifard 2

Center of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU)

Of Help College of Arts and Technology,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The importance of emotional intelligence in the organizations has emerged in

recent years. The effectiveness of an organization has been brought into another

level whenever emotional intelligence was considered as an important factor. As

leaders are the main figure in organizations, the leadership styles and the level of

emotional intelligence will surely influence the organizations, especially in the area

of culture. Since transformational leadership is viewed as an effective and positive

leadership behavior in encouraging and motivating the followers towards a common

pursuit of an organization’s goals, transformational leaders with emotional

intelligence would be an added advantage for the organizations to pave the way for

the development of organizational culture that stresses on the importance of

emotional intelligence and transformational qualities. Hence, this paper addresses

this issue and presents a comprehensive literature review in order to solidify and

explain the relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational

leadership and their effect on organizational culture.

Keywords : Emotional Intelligence, Transformational Leadership and Organizational

Culture

1. Introduction

In the business world, many organizations view their people as the greatest

asset. Organizations recognize that technology or tools alone will not enable them to

progress, but it is the employees’ ability and performance that can make a large

impact (Butler & Chinowsky, 2006). In recent years, many workplaces have stressed

on the importance of emotional intelligence (Lindebaum & Cartwright, 2010). Many

authors indicate that emotional skills are needed for the utility of organizations, for

instance, sensitivity towards others, empathy, and emotional regulation (Goleman,

1998; Gabriel and Griffiths, 2002). Leaders’ emotional skills are important due to the

fact that leaders are the main pillars in the organizations that play the role in

communicating the company’s vision to their subordinates and make sure that the

vision is being fulfilled (Alon & Higgins, 2005). This means that the characteristics

of the leaders are important in order to shape a culture that promotes realization of a

company’s goals and objectives. Although there are many leadership theories

available, the transformational leadership theory was chosen in this study because

many researches on the topic have been conducted in the past 20 years (Bass, 1985).

Besides that, extensive research has also shown that transformational leaders who

exhibit positive leadership behaviours accomplish better employee performance,

effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness (Lowe, Kroek, &

Sivasubramaniam, 1996). Transformational leaders help the subordinates to grow

and develop by responding to their individual needs, empowering them and aligning

the objectives and goals of the individual, the leader, the group and the larger

organization (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Both emotional intelligence and

transformational leadership are emotion-laden constructs (George, 2000), and

emotional intelligence has been suggested as the foundational theory for

transformational leadership (Brown and Moshavi, 2005). Emotional intelligence has

been considered to contribute to certain extend to effective leadership on specific

competencies, namely generating and maintaining positive moods in subordinates

and establishing and maintaining a meaningful identity for an organization (George,

2000). Many suggest that emotional Intelligence could be one of the factors that

influence a leader’s behavior and impact the rest of the organization, including the

organizational culture (Harrison & Clough, 2006). Thus, this article explores the

relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership and their

effect on organizational culture.

2. Methodology

In this study, the relationship between emotional intelligence and

transformational leadership and their effect on organizational culture is described

and studied. The method used to conduct this research is descriptive-analytic method.

The research strategy is literature review by using secondary data. To collect the

literature of this research, library and databases was utilized. International journals

were collected through well-recognized international databases such as the Emerald,

Science Direct, Proquest, Ebsco, Springerlink and JSTOR. Besides that, books that

were related to the topic were reviewed. Papers were collected over a two week

period and the topic was discussed with the supervisor in charge in order to

determine the theoretical framework of the research.

3. Emotional Intelligence

In 1990, emotional intelligence was conceptualized as a division of social

intelligence that related to the ability to assess emotions of inner self and others, in

order to differentiate between them, and use the knowledge to direct one’s thinking

and actions (Salovey and Mayer, 1990; Mayer and Salovey, 1993). Since then, there

were three alternative models were proposed such as the ability model ( Mayer and

Salovey 1997), the non-cognitive model (Bar-On,1997), and the competency-based

model (Goleman,2000).

The ability model consisted of four branches of interrelated cognitive abilities

associated with the processing of emotional information. The four branches are: “the

ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access

and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand

emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote

emotional and intellectual growth” ( Mayer and Salovey 1997, p. 10).

The non-cognitive model defined emotional intelligence as “an array of

non-cognitive capabilities, competencies and skills that influence one’s ability to

succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures” (Bar-On,1997, p.

14). This model was generally known as an emotional and social intelligence

model (Bar-On, 2006). Bar-On (2006) proposed the five specific dimensional of

emotional and social intelligence:

1. Intrapersonal emotional intelligence – refers to the abilities, capabilities,

competencies and skills that concern to the inner self.

2. Interpersonal emotional intelligence-refers to the ability to interact with

others or involves relations between individuals.

3. Adaptability emotional intelligence – refers to the ability to deal with

environmental demands by evaluate and cope with problematic situations

effectively.

4. Stress management emotional intelligence – refers to the skills of handling

and dealing with stress effectively.

5. General mood emotional intelligence-refers to the skills of enjoying life and

sustaining a positive temperament.

The components of this model develop overtime, transform all the way through

life, can be enhanced through training and development programs, and it relates to

the underlying potential of the performance rather than the performance itself

(Gardner, & Stough, 2002).

The competency based model is a theory of performance that based on emotional

intelligence that has been designed specifically for workplace applications (Goleman,

2000). Goleman (2000) proposed four general competencies that function

differentiate an individual’s performance in the workplace:

1. Self-awareness- refers to the competency of understanding own feelings and

evaluate self accurately.

2. Self- management- refers to the competency of managing inner state, desires

and resources.

3. Social awareness- refers to the competency of understanding people and

groups accurately.

4. Relationship management- refers to the competency of stimulating people’s

desirable responses.

Basically, Goleman (2000) characterized emotional intelligence as the

competency to identify and regulate the feelings, both in one’s inner self and others’

as well, and this could be cultivated through learning.

4. Transformational Leadership

Bums (1978) found distinctive differences between transformational and

transactional leadership styles when he studied political leaders. In 1985, Bass then

extended this work and conceptualized transformational leadership as a type of

leadership that has feature behaviors such as encouraging and inspiring followers

central to head for shared organizational goals. Bass & Riggio (2006) proposed that

transformational leadership includes five elements (Harms & Credé 2010):

1. Idealized influence (attributed) - represents the socialized charisma,

confidence and high order ideals of the leader.

2. Idealized influence (behavioural)-refers to charismatic actions that based on

values, beliefs, or ideals by the leader

3. Inspirational motivation- refers to the extent to which leaders encourage and

motivate the followers by setting challenging goals and conveying optimism

that related to goal accomplishment.

4. Intellectual stimulation - refers to the degree to which leaders challenge

followers’ assumptions, stimulate them to think creatively, take risks, and

participate intellectually.

5. Individualized consideration – refers to the degree to which the leader attends

to each follower's needs and concerns, acts as a mentor or coach to the

follower and listens to the follower's concerns and needs by providing socio-

emotional support which includes guiding and advising the followers,

keeping a regular contact, motivating them to self-actualize, and empowering

them.

5. Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence And Transformational

Leadership

The positive relationship of emotional intelligence and transformational

leadership is supported by many leadership literatures. A study which aimed to

examine the leadership styles and emotional intelligence of 49 managers by using the

Bar-On’s Emotional Quotient Inventory in order to measure emotional intelligence,

found that there was a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and the

three components of transformational leadership. Emotional intelligence and

inspirational motivation had the highest correlation in this study (Barling, Slater &

Kelloway, 2000).

Palmer, Walls, Burgess and Stough (2001) found a number of significant

correlations between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence by using

a customized edition of the Trait Meta Mood Scale to measure emotional intelligence.

The correlations found in this study defined two effective leadership competencies:

the capability to assess emotions of inner self and others, and the capability to handle

emotions.

The third study reviewed was conducted to examine the relationship between

leadership and emotional intelligence in 110 senior level managers by using the

Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test to measure emotional intelligence.

A strong correlation between transformational leadership and overall emotional

intelligence was found in this study (Gardner, & Stough, 2002).

The fourth study reviewed was conducted to examine the relationship

between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership using 103

participants from a national Hispanic American business organization. There was a

significant positive correlation between emotional intelligence and transformational

leadership in this study (Corona, 2010).

The fifth study reviewed was conducted to examine the relationships between

emotional intelligence and transformational leadership by recruited 80 elected

community leaders and 388 staffers as participants in the Midwest of the United

States. The study showed several correlations that strengthen the function of

emotional intelligence in leadership. Results show that emotional intelligence had

positive relationships with each components of transformational leadership (Barbuto

& Burbach, 2006).

Overall, the studies indicate that leaders with emotional intelligence are able

to recognize follower expectations and therefore are better in responding to follower

requirements (Barling et al. 2000; Gardner, & Stough, 2002). In addition to that,

researchers have discovered that emotional management and empathy are correlated

to idealized influence, and self-management is related to inspirational motivation and

individualized consideration which are elements of transformational leadership

(Barling et al. 2000; Barbuto & Burbach, 2006).

6. Organizational Culture

In 1997, Schein defined organizational culture as a pattern of basic assumptions

which is learned by a group after going through the external adaptation and internal

integration of a problem, where the technique is considered valid and worked good

enough to be taught to new comers in order to perceive, think, and feel the same way

when they encounter those problems (Tolmats and Reino, 2006). Organizational

culture provides basic values, beliefs and principles which function as the foundation

for an organisation’s management system, as well as to the management practices

and behaviours that both demonstrate and strengthen those fundamental principles

which determine both individual and group actions, perceptions, thinking and values

(Martins & Coetzee, 2007; Aydogdu & Asikgil, 2011). An organisation’s culture

generally includes the following four major dimensions (Eskildsen & Dahlgaard,

2000; Martins & Martins, 2002):

1. Policy and strategy – refers to the policies that determine staffs’

understanding of the vision, mission and values of the organisation and the

methods of transforming them into assessable goals of the groups.

2. Management processes – The management processes in an organization

which take account of human resources, administrative, goal setting,

managing and organizing changes, innovations and communication.

3. People - The integration of the employees’ requests and needs with those of

the organisation such as the balancing of work and life, good physical work

environment and interpersonal interaction between managers and employees,

especially in managing the conflict, diversity and interdepartmental relations.

4. Leadership - The perception of employees on strengthening the leadership on

specific areas.

Since the people and leadership aspects are considered as the foundations of an

informal organization that put forth a considerable influence on employee behaviour,

thus the way which an employee prefers to be managed and their experiences of the

main leadership style also leads to the way a culture develops (McMurray, 2003;

Martins & Coetzee, 2007).

7. Relationship Between Transformational Leadership And Organizational

Culture

Leader plays an important role on the development of a culture when an

organization has just formed. At that time, leaders are “definers” and “givers” of

culture as they construct and instil the principles, values, and attitudes that they

consider as essential and important for the organization (Jaskyte, 2004). Bass and

Avolio (1993) have argued that an organizational culture can be characterized with

transformational qualities, as leadership and culture are so well-connected.

Transformational leaders have a high responsibility on forming the organizational

culture as the values that transformational leader adopted will easily be adopted by

the employees (Aydogdu & Asikgil, 2011). Transformational leaders are usually

portrayed as individuals who motivate their followers to take on objectives and

beliefs that are in line with the leader’s mission and to encourage their followers to

give a higher priority for group and the larger organization than their own interest

(Xenikou & Simosi, 2006). According to Bass (1985), a transformational leader

promotes a working environment or an organizational culture which is characterized

by the accomplishment of high goals, self-actualisation, and personal growth. Bass

and Avolio (1993) also proposed that transformational leaders move their

organizations towards organizations that adopt more transformational qualities such

as accomplishment, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration in their

cultures. In addition to that, Block (2003) found in the situations that that employees

view their organizational culture as culture which possess adaptive, involving,

incorporating, and with a comprehensible mission are usually rated their direct

manager as high in transformational leadership.

8. Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence And Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is a social phenomenon which is structured

consequently by the interaction between individual and an organization and cannot

be present without individuals and characteristics such as subjectivity, irrationality

and emotionality which could be used to explain it (Tolmats and Reino, 2006). At

such, the importance of emotional intelligence brought forward to enable the

organization to shape the organizational culture and the activities of all level in the

organization (Langhorn, 2004). Though the studies on the topic of emotional

intelligence in the work-related setting are inadequate, it is agreed that emotional

intelligence has a crucial importance in occupational settings (Matthews, Zeidner, &

Roberts, 2004).

One such study was conducted by Tolmats and Reino to find the

interconnections of emotional intelligence competences and types of organizational

culture which taken from The Competing Values Framework which conceptualized

by Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) in two business sectors in Estonia (Tolmats and

Reino, 2006). The results of the investigation show that participants with a higher

emotional intelligence level gave higher estimates to organizational culture than

participants with lower emotional intelligence. According to the results of the study,

emotional intelligence is usually positively related to Human Relations, Open

System and Rational Goal types of organizational culture, thus forming the

hypothesis that by increasing employees’ emotional intelligence it is possible to

develop the organizational culture of the company (Tolmats and Reino, 2006). In

The Human Relations type of organizational culture, leadership and morale are in the

focus whereas Open System type of organizational culture promotes innovation,

growth, dynamics, imagination, and willingness to transform and the Rational Goal

type of organizational culture concentrates on achieving productivity, efficiency, and

high performance(Parker & Bradley, 2000; Dastmalchian, Lee & Ng, 2000).

Another study conducted by Danaeefard, Salehi, Hasiri and Noruzi (2012) to

which aimed to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence,

organizational culture and organizational learning in the service providing

organizations of Kermanshah, results obtained indicated that emotional intelligence

has a direct impacts on organizational culture. This study shows a direct relation

between of the relationship between the factors of emotional intelligence and

organizational culture where the relationship between self-stimulation and

organizational culture show the strongest value. At such the creation of emotional

intelligence could pave the way for the development of organizational culture in the

organization (Danaeefard, Salehi, Hasiri, & Noruzi, 2012).

9. Discussion

Given the widespread interest surrounding the importance of emotional

intelligence in the workplace and leadership in particular, the relationship between

emotional intelligence and transformational leadership, along with their effect on

organizational culture was examined. As both the emotional intelligence and

transformational leadership are emotion-laden constructs (George, 2000), there are

many leadership literature that supported the positive relationship between emotional

intelligence and transformational leadership (Barling et al. 2000; Gardner, & Stough,

2002; Barbuto & Burbach, 2006; Butler & Chinowsky, 2006; Corona, 2010). As

transformational leaders need to encourage and motivate the followers in heading to

a shared organizational goal, their emotional skills are extremely important.

Transformational leaders need to have the ability to monitor their own emotions,

cope with the demands of the environmental and problematic situations and deal

with daily stress effectively before they could help their subordinates to grow and

develop. Transformational leaders also need to have good interpersonal emotional

skills so as to communicate and interact with the followers to further attend to the

needs and concerns of the followers and provide socio-emotional support. The social

awareness of the transformational leaders is also important in order to be able to read

the followers and the groups accurately and to inspire them to achieve the goals of

the organizations and to provide accurate guidance to let them think creatively about

the situation. Transformational leaders with a high emotional intelligence will surely

encourage and motivate their followers to achieve a high emotional intelligence as

dominant leadership style in an organization will influence the employee behaviour

and the way the organizational culture develops (McMurray, 2003, Martins &

Coetzee, 2007). As leaders have a major impact on an organizational cultures,

transformation leaders with emotional intelligence will promote a working

environment or organizational culture which characterised by the accomplishment of

high goals, self actualisation, personal growth and organization development on

emotional intelligence. Transformational leaders have a high responsibility on

creating an emotional intelligent organizational culture as the values accepted by a

leader will be easily accepted by the followers. Summed up, organizational culture

which is formed by a transformational leader with emotional intelligence will surely

bring the organization to the next level by using the competencies and skills they

acquire in order to encourage and motivate the followers to achieve the visions,

objectives and goals of the organizations.

10. Conclusion

This paper is a conceptual research that utilizes literature survey and

descriptive-analysis approach to review and interpret the relationship between

emotional intelligence and transformational leadership and their effect on

organizational culture. Given the positive relationship between emotional

intelligence and transformational leadership and their effect on organizational culture,

this will eventually boost the organization capability to change and thus improve the

prospects for the organization to remain competitive. Current leaders should evaluate

their personal leadership behaviors to find out if transformational leadership

components and emotional intelligence are being adopted. Transformational leader

who has a high emotional intelligence would create an organizational culture with

high emotional intelligence and transformational qualities by making it firm until a

point where each and every one of the organization share the common norms and

values, thus enhancing the achievement, endurance and competing power of the

organization.

References

Alon, I., Higgins, J.M. (2005). Global leadership success through emotional and

cultural intelligences. Business Horizons, 48 (6), 501 – 512.

Aydogdu, S., & Asikgil, B. (2011). The Effect of Transformational Leadership

Behavior on Organizational Culture: An Application in Pharmaceutical

Industry. International Review of Management and Marketing , 1 (4), 65-73.

Barbuto, J. E., & Burbach, M. E. (2006). The emotional intelligence of

transformational leaders: A field study of elected officials. The Journal of

Social Psychology , 146 (1), 51-64.

Barling, J., Slater, F., & Kelloway, E. K. (2000). Transformational leadership

and emotional intelligence: An exploratory study. Leadership &

Organization Development Journal, 21(3), 157.

Bar-On, R. (1997). Bar- On Emotional Quotient Inventory: User’s Manual,

Multi- Health Systems, New York, NY.

Bar-On, R. (2006). The Bar-On model of emotional-social intelligence (ESI).

Psicothema, 18, 13-25.

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New

York, NY: Free Press.

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006).Transformational Leadership (2nd

Ed.).Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Bass, B.M. & Avolio, B.J. (1993). Transformational leadership and

organizational culture. Public Administration Quarterly, 17 (1), 112-21.

Block, L. (2003). The leadership-culture connection: an exploratory investigation.

Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 24 (6), 318-34.

Brown, F. W. and Moshavi, D. (2005). Transformational leadership and

emotional intelligence: a potential pathway for an increased understanding

of interpersonal influence. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26 (7), 867–

71.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Butler, C. J., & Chinowsky, P. S. (2006). Emotional intelligence and leadership

behavior in construction executives. Journal of Management in Engneering ,

22 (3), 119-125.

Corona, M. A. (2010). The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and

Transformational Leadership: A Hispanic American Examination. The

Business Journal of Hispanic Research , 4 (1), 22-34.

Danaeefard, H., Salehi, A., Hasiri, A., & Noruzi, M. R. (2012). How emotional

intelligence and organizational culture contribute to shaping learning

organization in public service organizations. African Journal of Business

Management , 6 (5), 1921-1931.

Dastmalchian, A., Lee, S., & Ng, I. (2000). The interplay between organizational

and national cultures: a comparison of organizational practices in Canada

and South Korea using the Competing Values Framework. International

Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(2), 388−410.

Eskildsen, J.K. & Dahlgaard, J.J. (2000). A causal model for employee

satisfaction. Total Quality Management, 11(8), 1081-1094.

Gabriel, Y. and Griffiths, D. S. (2002). Emotion, learning and organizing. The

Learning Organization, 9 (5), 214–21.

Gardner, L., & Stough, C. (2002). Examining the relationship between leadership

and emotional intelligence in senior level managers. Leadership and

Organization Development Journal , 23 (2), 68-78.

George, J.M. (2000), Emotions and leadership: The role of emotional intelligence.

Human Relations, 53 (8), 1027-1055.

Goleman, D. (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury

Publishing.

Goleman, D. (2000). An EI-based theory of performance. In D. Goleman, & C.

Cherniss (eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select for,

Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups, and

Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Harms, P. D., & Credé, M. (2010). Emotional intelligence and transformational

and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership &

Organizational Studies , 17 (5), 5-17.

Harrison, J.K., Clough, M.W. (2006), Characteristics of “state of the art” leaders:

Productive narcissism versus emotional intelligence and level 5 capabilities.

The social science Journal, 43 (2), 287-292.

Jaskyte, K. (2004). Transformational leadership,organizational culture, and

innovativeness in nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management &

Leadership , 15 (2), 153-168.

Langhorn, S. (2004). How emotional intelligence can improve management

performance. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality

Management, 16 (4), 220−230.

Lindebaum, D., & Cartwright, S. (2010). A critical examination of the

relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership.

Journal of Management Studies , 47 (7), 1317-1342.

Lowe, K. B., Kroek, K. G., & Sivasubramaniam, N. (1996). Transformational

leadership: A meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature. Leadership

Quarterly 7 (5), 385-425.

Martins, E. & Martins, N. (2002). An organisational culture model to promote

creativity and innovation. South African Journal of Industrial Psychology,

28(4), 54-65.

Martins, N., & Coetzee, M. (2007). Organisational culture, employee satisfaction,

perceived leader emotional competency and personality type: An

exploratory study in a South African engineering company. South African

Journal of Human Resource Management , 5 (2), 20-32.

Matthews, G., Zeidner, M., & Roberts, R. (2004). Emotional Intelligence:

Science and Myth. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1993). The intelligence of emotional

intelligence. Intelligence, 17 (4), 433-442.

Mayer, J. D. & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey

& D. Sluyter (Eds).Emotional development and emotional intelligence:

Implications for educators (3-31). New York: Basic Books.

McMurray, A.J. (2003). The relationship between organizational climate and

organizational culture. The Journal of American Academy of Business, 3(1),

1-8.

Palmer, B., Walls, M., Burgess, Z., & Stough, C. (2001). Emotional intelligence

and effective leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal ,

22 (1), 5-10.

Parker, R., & Bradley, L. (2000). Organizational culture in the public sector:

evidence from six organizations. The International Journal of Public Sector

Management, 13 (2), 125−141.

Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination,

Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185-211.

Tolmats, E., & Reino, A. (2006). Interconnections of emotional intelligence and

organizational culture: based on the example of two business sectors in

Estonia. University of Tartu (Estonia) - Faculty of Economics and Business

Administration, in: National and international aspects of organizational

culture, 24, chapter 5, 121-146.

Xenikou, A., & Simosi, M. (2006). Organizational culture and transformational

leadership as predictors of business unit performance. Journal of

Managerial Psychology , 21 (6), 566-579.

View publication statsView publication stats