Leadership styles of undergraduates: The impact of emotional intelligence

Abstract

Leadership effectiveness has become a focal point of many employers in an ultra competitive global environment. The quest for leadership development has become demanding and the possession of leadership initiatives is an effective way of securing preferred jobs, and career development for the fresh graduates. Objectives of the study were to empirically assess the Emotional Intelligence (EI) level of undergraduates, and to analyse the relationship between their EI and leadership style performances. The impact of leadership styles on academic performances of undergraduates was also examined. Sixty six undergraduates (33 boys, and 33 girls) of the second year of study, in the Commerce and Management Faculty of a Sri Lankan university were randomly selected. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass and Avolio, 1997) was employed to assess the leadership style performances, and the Genos EI Inventory was used to measure the EI level of the respondents. Descriptive and inferential analyses of data were conducted using SPSS software. There was a notable difference of leadership styles between boys and girls. Respondents' EI scores and leadership style scores reflected a difference with regard to their gender. Undergraduates have scored slightly higher scores for the EI sub-constructs in comparison to the normative figures for Asia in Genos EI. The fluctuation of Mean values of respondents indicates the volatility of the reasoning ability of university students of their emotional encounters in competitive environments. Girls possessed slightly superior scores for Emotional Intelligence and Transformational leadership style. The fact that undergraduates depicted higher scores for progressive leadership styles and lower scores for passive leadership styles augurs well for their future. There was a significant relationship between the Transformational leadership style and academic performances of undergraduate girls. Study concludes that there is a positive relationship between the Emotional Intelligence and Transformational leadership in a collectivist and non-for profit context. This would facilitate the grooming of graduates into their future managerial positions. The nature of relationship between EI sub-constructs and Transformational Leadership (girls), may lead to a breakthrough. Further research is recommended for greater generalisation of the findings.