Emotional intelligence in leadership: Its role in fostering employee engagement in Palestine’s ICT sector

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the nexus between leadership emotional intelligence and employee engagement within Palestine’s information and communication technology sector. It seeks to fill a research gap by highlighting the impact of leaders’ emotional intelligence on fostering a committed workforce. The study used a quantitative approach and a descriptive research design. Its target population was 5,281 full-time employees in Palestine’s ICT sector, and 328 employees were sampled through probability multistage random sampling. The sample was split into groups based on job types and companies with more than 50 employees. The study’s findings corroborate the hypothesized positive effect, with statistical analysis revealing that emotional intelligence directly influences employee engagement levels within the ICT context (Beta = 0.302; P-value = 0.000). Although highlighted as a crucial element, emotional intelligence is designated as only part of a complex engagement equation that requires further investigation into additional contributing factors, such as different dimensions of emotional processing. AcknowledgmentThe authors express their gratitude to Gulf University for the significant financial resources that facilitated the publication of this work.