A Leadership and Demographic View of the Nexus Between Emotional Intelligence and Job Satisfaction in Ghana’s Banking Sector

Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction levels of employees in the Ghanaian banking sector and whether the relationship is moderated by the transformational and transactional leadership styles. It also examines the influence of some demographic variables (age and educational levels) on the relationship. A cross-sectional design was used with standardized questionnaires to collect data. Both the simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to select respondents. 208 bankers was engaged in the study. The results indicated a positive relationship between bankers’ emotional intelligence and their job satisfaction (β = .02, p = .38) although not statistically significant. However, transactional leadership (β = .18, p = .04) and transformational leadership (β = .17, p = .02) significantly moderated the relationship. The study shows the importance of leadership styles in facilitating job satisfaction among bankers and also reveals that age and high educational qualifications are not yardsticks for one’s level of emotional intelligence.