The Impact of Managers’ Emotional Intelligence and Employee Performance in Gweru and Kwekwe City Councils in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The relationship between emotional intelligence and performance has increasingly gained popularity with the assertion that managers’ emotional intelligence plays an important role in providing supportive management for employees. The main aim was to establish the relationship between managers’ emotional intelligence and employee performance. The research was purely quantitative descriptive survey of Gweru and Kwekwe City Councils in Zimbabwe. Purposive sampling was used to select 32 line managers and stratified random sampling to select 400 employees. Goleman’s emotional competence inventory was used to measure managers’ emotional intelligence while performance appraisal was used to assess employee performance. It was established that all managers’ emotional intelligence variables significantly impacted on employee performance (all p-values=0.000). A positive correlation supported the hypothesis that managers’ emotional intelligence has a relationship with employee performance. A regression analysis was carried out to establish the effect size of managers’ emotional intelligence on employee performance. It was established that managers’ emotional intelligence had an effect on employee performance ranging from R-square= 0.177 (17.7%) to R-square = 0.836 (83.6 %). The study also concluded that there was a great impact of managers’ emotional intelligence on employee performance.