The impact of managers’ emotional intelligence on transformational leadership styles in firms

Abstract

The effectiveness of an organization is significantly influenced by the leadership styles used (Almahasneh et al., 2023). This study aims to investigate how the emotional intelligence (EI) of managers affects transformational leadership styles in North Central Vietnamese enterprises. With data from 632 samples — managers — exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to define the study problem using the quantitative approach. The findings demonstrate that through the intermediary components of employee knowledge sharing at work and corporate social responsibility, managers’ EI has both direct and indirect impacts on transformational leadership style. Furthermore, information sharing has been shown to have a positive impact on corporate social responsibility toward employees and a negative impact on opportunistic behavior. Based on the findings, several recommendations are proposed to enhance and promote the effectiveness of transformational leadership styles for managers. Considering the social implications and the practicality of the research, stakeholders should push for solutions that would ensure transformational leadership styles for managers. The study’s findings contribute to our understanding of leadership and are particularly useful for teams working in Vietnamese and other Asian firms.