Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Styles: A Study of Educational Leaders in Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

The role of leaders in education is very important as they are the in a large way responsible for the success or failure of educational institutions. The leaders in education must be capable to lead effectively and to manage conflicts continuously in order to build good relationships and ensure the success of their institutions. As emotional intelligence has positive influence on the work attitudes, behaviors and performance therefore, the ability to relate with emotional intelligence becomes very important in order to facilitate workers to achieve the goals successfully. The purpose of the study is to explore the impact of demographic variables: educational qualification and job experience on emotional intelligence and leadership styles with respect to 198 educational managers in government and private educational institutions in Himachal Pradesh. The relationship of emotional intelligence and leadership styles is also explored. Significant differences have been found with respect to the educational qualification and job experience. Also, emotional intelligence has been found to be positively related to transactional and transformational leadership styles and negatively related to laissez faire leadership style. High correlation was found with all the components of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style. The importance of developing emotional intelligence in leadership selection and improving leadership skills has been discussed.