EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND LEADERSHIP STYLE

Kamal M.Y¹⁺--- Lukman Z.M ²----Zulaikha M.Z³--- Nurunsa’adah S.⁴--- Bukhari W.M.Y.⁵---Nurul I.Y.⁶

^1,2,3,4,5,6Faculty of Applied Social Science, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia

Keywords:Emotional intelligence Management Higher education Faculty Dean Transformational leadership Transactional leadership.

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:28 December 2017 Revised: 8 January 2018, Accepted:12 January 2018, Published:18 January 2018.

Contribution/ Originality:This study contributes in filling the gap of existing literature in Malaysia’s higher education. By focusing the new sample, it will give a new significant result to the body of knowledge. In addition, the paper’s primary contribution is finding the dean leadership style and emotional intelligence in which help the researcher to have an overview concept of higher education management.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Malaysian higher education system had changed since 1957 (Kamal and Lukman, 2017). Since then, Malaysian government looked forward to improving the facilities in its higher education institution. This growth, which was multi-dimensional-physical infrastructure and diversity of curricula, had improved Malaysian, especially in human capital development. At that time, the government had focused to uplift incomes, employment, and education opportunities. As times passed, the aims were changed in order to fulfill the industry needs which focused more on science and technology.

Välimaa and Hoffman (2008) has suggested the idea that globalization era is focusing on education specifically in Malaysia. These countries will be having huge experience of tremendously changes from higher education in few decades. Based on the report of Ministry of Education Malaysia (MoE) (2015) the Malaysian Government has outlined various kinds of policies to strengthen the context of higher education. The government arrangement was to guarantee the presence of a striking biological system which prompted information brilliance. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen the policies in order to attract talented people to work in the educational sector and achieve their job satisfaction that will ensure the mission and visions are accomplished (Kamal and Lukman, 2017) According to Daniel Goleman in his book, “Emotional Intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ”, people who act as a leader or manager will be recognized as a star within their organization.

This is due to their achievement and the ability to work with other people. According to Heyward and Newman (2014) the changes in workforce background where the new generations are expected to acknowledge and understand their leaders. In addition, a survey was done by the Bass (1996) regarding leadership shown that 26 percent of the armies left the battalion due to poor leadership. Kiruhi (2013) argued that reckless leadership of ruling an organization will lead to corruption and weakened the value of maturity and professionalism. The major purposes of this study were to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style among deans in UiTM Shah Alam. The objectives of this research are to examine the level of emotional intelligence among deans in UiTM, to identify the most preferred leadership style by the deans in UiTM and to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style among deans in UiTM.

Students, lecturers, and administrators will be affected by the practiced of emotional intelligence in leadership styles of deans (Chesnut and Tran-Johnson, 2013). According to Palmer et al. (2001) people who had higher levels of emotional intelligence coped better with organizational stress, had less absenteeism and higher satisfaction. In this context, the influence of emotional intelligence towards leadership styles is actually to develop their skills and techniques in order to manage an organization. Experiences also one of the aspects of being a good leader, but the added value of emotional intelligence will help the deans to well organize the faculty especially management and teaching and learning. Emotional intelligence’s implementation in faculty actually will affect everyone in the faculty and directly they will be inspired and motivated by the leadership shown by the deans. So that, with all the positive elements applied in an organization, it leads to a better ambiance, highly responsible towards job task and lastly the quality of work will be increased tremendously. Applying emotional intelligence skills in daily basis working will help everyone in the organization to become emotionally self-aware, knowing about the emotional wake, considerate about the emotions change express genuine feelings of pride, appreciation, and gratitude and lastly will develop an ability to stay calm in every situation (Green and McCann, 2011).

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Emotional Intelligence

According to Caruso et al. (2011) emotional intelligence leads to capacity to perceive the significance of feelings and their connections and to reason and issue tackle on the premise of these capacities. It's included the limit of seeing feelings and osmoses feeling related emotions comprehend the data of those feelings and oversee them. Meanwhile, Goleman et al. (2009) contends emphatically that passionate discernment is an essential for fruitful administration attest that there is a few motivation behind why singular's high enthusiastic insights would be less averse to utilize transformational practices. George (2000) indicates that emotional intelligence is an imperative methodology of heading and ought to be considered as one of the components in powerful leadership. He also added that leaders with high emotional intelligence will be better at developing an organizational vision and mission. In addition, the combination research done by Goleman et al. (2002) has come up with person’s basic underlying capability to recognize and use emotion. Most people are fully capable of recognizing and using emotion. Some people seem to be able to demonstrate excellence in this regard, and the result is high-level of performance on the job. Emotional competence describes the individual and social attitudes that prompt unrivaled execution in the realm of work.

2.2. Leadership Style

Begins with a small unit like family then from family it moves to firm then it moves to organization and others. It shows that every single unit presented with people. Example, in family units, it consists of mother father son and daughter and within this small units, a leader must be selected. Normally, in the family, the father without any doubt is a leader. As a leader, he has to feed, control, plan or even nurture his family with very valuable morale and ethics. Literally, leadership means the act of heading a gathering of individuals or an association. Meanwhile, from Kruse (2013) perspectives, in his websites and also based on his writing, leaderships have a key elements that uphold the definition of leadership itself which are originates from social impact not power or force, administration obliges others and that infers they don't have to be coordinate report, no notice of identity characteristics, properties or even a title in addition to it has a ton of styles, numerous way to be a successful leadership and finally leadership is incorporate with an objective not impact with no expected result. So, it concludes that being a leader is not simple as it looks but the responsibility towards everything especially followers must be taken with high priority in order to have respected, courage, and confidence in return.

3. METHODOLOGY

This study was a combination of quantitative research. In quantitative research, a descriptive survey was conducted to allow the researcher to obtain an accurate result on the leadership style of deans in UiTM. According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2013) descriptive survey was used to enable the researcher to summarize the statistic data and the obtained results will be correlated with two variables and any variables. Meanwhile, in open-ended questions used to substantiate the data obtained from the survey conducted. According to Cohen et al. (2007) descriptive statistics are also used to allow a quantitative description of the relevant features of the data collected. Meanwhile, statistical analyses of the relationships between different variables were investigated. Fraenkel and Wallen (2013) defined instrument as any means used to collect data such as test, questionnaire, and an interview.

The questionnaire consists of three parts; part A, part B, and part C. Part A was demographic section. In this part, the respondent is required to answer basic questions relating to his or her background. Part B consists of the method adapted and adopted from Leadership Multifactor Questionnaire or MLQ formulated by Avolio et al. (1991). Lastly, part C relates to emotional intelligence adapted and adopted from Furnham and Petrides (2006) the founder of questionnaire method known as Emotional Intelligence Trait Questionnaire-Short Form or TEIQue-SF. This study was conducted in the district of Shah Alam in the state of Selangor Darul Ehsan. Stratified sampling technique which involved six selected faculties were divided into two major groups from the Social Sciences and Applied Sciences discipline.  Under social sciences, the faculties involved are Faculty of Mass Communication and Media Studies, Faculty of Art and Design and Faculty of Planning, Surveyor, and Architecture. Meanwhile, under Faculty of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Faculty of Science and Mathematics were selected. 

4. FINDINGS AND RESULTS

4.1. What is the Level of Emotional Intelligence of Deans?

The result in Table 1 showed the level of emotional intelligence of the deans. The majority of the respondents reported a high score (more than 4.00) with a frequency of 198 respondents and mean score (M=4.77, SD=.52). Next, the moderate levels (3.00 – 4.00) were by a total of respondents with mean score (M=3.12, SD=.14). Meanwhile, for the low level of emotional intelligence, there was no value indicated. The data indicated that the respondents perceived their emotional intelligence of deans was at the highest level.

Table-1. Level of emotional intelligence of deans

Mean score indicator: low (less than 3.00), moderate (3.00-4.00), high (more than 4.00)

Tables 2 showed the dimensions of emotional intelligence. The five dimensions were social skills, motivation, self-regulation, self-awareness, and empathy. Based on the data collected, the highest scored of these five dimensions was empathy with moderate mean score (M=3.87, SD= .620) followed by self-awareness with a mean score (M=3.81, SD=.620) Next, the mean score of motivation (M=3.76, SD=.577) followed by self-regulation with mean score (M=3.74, SD=683). Lastly, based on the data collected, the social skills scored with the low mean (M= 2.79, SD=.411).

Table-2. Dimensions of Emotional Intelligence

Mean score indicator: low (less than 3.00), moderate (3.00-4.00), high (more than 4.00)

4.2. What is the Most Preferred Leadership Style of Deans?

Table 3 showed about the most preferred leadership style of the dean. The two dimensions discovered were transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Between these two dimensions, the transformational leadership displayed mean score (M=3.09, SD=.62). Meanwhile, transactional leadership means score (M=2.09, SD=.63) Then, minimum and maximum for transformational leadership scored (1.41) and (5.00). For transactional leadership, minimum scored (1.38) and the maximum value (5.00). In sum, for this research question, the transformational leadership was the most preferred leadership among deans of the six selected faculties. Based on the answer given by the respondent of the six faculties, (61 %) dean had practiced transformational leadership in daily basis compared (39%) respondents perceive transactional leadership of their dean. Most of the respondents said the quality of transformational leadership having by their dean had secured them in doing work properly either implicit or explicit. Most of the explanation given was deans able to transform ideas and workforce into something valuable, easy and being accepted by the respondents.

Table-3. Most preferred leadership style of deans

Mean score indicator: low (less than 3.00), moderate (3.00-4.00), high (more than 4.00)

4.3. Is there Any Significant Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Style among Deans in UiTM?

Table 4 displayed the results of correlating the mean scores of the five total scores of emotional intelligence; Social Skills, Motivation, Self-Regulation, Self-Awareness and Empathy with leadership style; Transactional and Transformational leadership style.

As indicated in table 4.20, r values, all linear relationships were positive and reached statistical significance. All the correlation between dimensions has significance relationship when all the p values of each dimension score less than .01. As a result, Pearson correlations between dimensions of transactional and transformational leadership style with emotional intelligence dimensions were; Transactional and Social Skills (r = .297, p <.01), Transactional and Motivation (r = .266, p <.01), Transactional and Self-Regulation (r = .003, p <.01), Transactional and Self-Awareness (r = .087, p<.01) and lastly, Transactional and Empathy (r = .250, p<.01). Meanwhile, Transformational and Social Skills (r = .396, p <.01), Transformational and Motivation (r = .362, p <.01), transformational and Self-Regulation (r = .072, p <.01), Transformational and Self-Awareness (r = .189, p<.01) and lastly, Transformational and Empathy (r = .3.62, p<.01).

Table-4. Relationship between emotional intelligence’s dimensions; Social Skills(SS), Motivation (M), Self-Regulation(SR), Self-Awareness(SA) and Empathy(E) and transformational (TFL) and transactional (TSL) leadership among deans.

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level

The Pearson Product moment correlation coefficients were performed to analyze the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style among deans in UiTM. Table 5 showed the r values, all linear relationship was positive and reached statistical significance. As indicated by the r values, all linear relationships have indicated weak and statistically significant correlation for transactional leadership (r = 0.22, p<.05) and transformational leadership (r = 0.34, p<.05) also moderate. Significant relationship for emotional intelligence and leadership style (p-value = .000).

Table-5. Relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style among deans

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

5. DISCUSSION

Based on the findings obtained in chapter 4, it showed that there was a significant relationship between emotional intelligence with transformational leadership style deans. Transformational leadership was having slightly higher of r value (0.34) compared to transactional leadership with r value (0.22) correlated with emotional intelligence. This result was in line with recent study done by Mehta and Pillay (2011) and Guillen and Florent-Treacy (2011) who was done on her project paper, namely Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Effectiveness: The Mediating Influence of Collaborative Behaviors has come out with other findings of emotional intelligence has a significant effect on leadership style and indicated positive correlations between independents variable and dependent variable. On the other hands, this kind of area also has been conducted in the Asian region which was Taiwan and Pakistan.

Of the two countries, the results obtained also supported research findings done by Mehta and Pillay (2011) and Guillen and Florent-Treacy (2011). According to Tsai et al. (2011) conducted their research in Taiwan in order to overview the different impacts among the emotional intelligence and leadership style, self-efficacy and organizational commitment of employees in the banking industry in Taiwan. Plus, leader’s emotional intelligence has an essentialness constructive impact on particular leadership style which leader with high emotional intelligence performs amazing heading abilities to lift the worker ampleness toward oneself. Moreover, instead of Taiwan, similar research was also conducted in Pakistan and the results obtained showed a significant relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style, especially for transformational leadership style and emotional intelligence which was affected by transformational leadership style (Ahmed et al., 2014). Plus, transformational leadership showed a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and leader effectiveness (Ahmed et al., 2014). Next findings were done by Lam and O’Higgins (2012) related to leaders’ transformational leadership style fully influenced and has a significant relationship between leaders’ emotional intelligence and leadership style. They also suggested that a leader needs to express the power of emotional intelligence in order to make employees’ job satisfaction in the high level of satisfaction. Unfortunately, there was also a finding that contradicts with all the positive relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style, especially transformational leadership style.

Firstly, the recent study done by Grunes et al. (2014) in their research found that emotional intelligence was not useful predictors of leadership style and perceived leadership outcomes and ironically, they found other predictors to predict leadership style. This finding was supported by emotional intelligence was not the only factor that influenced leadership style in the organization and it also was not the determining element in leadership perception (Modassir and Singh, 2008). Meanwhile, according to Scott (2007) there was no relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style and they have suggested emotional intelligence was a factor to consider within this area. According to Gardner and Stough (2003) emotional intelligence correlated highly with all components of transformational leadership and understanding of emotions which external factors. Meanwhile, others study stated head of organization transformational leadership style has a positive impact on emotional intelligence and subsequent actual project performance (Leban and Zulauf, 2004). This finding also is supported by Downey and Stough (2002) which come out regarding heads displaying transformational leadership style were more likely to display higher levels of emotional intelligence. Comparatively, multivariate analyses of covariance conducted by Barling et al. (2000) showed three aspects of transformational leadership differed according to the level of emotional intelligence. Meanwhile, according to Weinberger (2009) there was no relationship between the heads of the organization, emotional intelligence and leadership style or the leader’s perceived effectiveness. Research done has indicated that there are both sides of result which brought to significant relationships and no significant relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership style. Even though in this study did not thoroughly discovered about the aspects of transformational leadership style, it showed to the reader on different aspects of transformational leadership gave different perspectives and influence towards emotional intelligence.

6. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, all deans in UiTM that had participated in this study portrayed transformational leadership style and had high emotional intelligence in themselves. In addition, the findings also indicated that leadership style and emotional intelligence was correlated and transformational leadership style has slightly higher scored of correlation as compared to transactional leadership style. In overall, it shows that the faculty of UiTM has been conducted in well-equipped dean to achieve the mission and vision of the faculty as well as university mission and vision. By having a balance trait between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence, it will help a leader to be wise, idealistic, realistic, decision maker, problem solver and etc. to bring a new perspective in management in line with faculty and university focus, mission and vision. As a leader, possess the element of transformational leadership and emotional intelligence will help the employee to be satisfied in his or her work because of the leader attitude and fairness (Kamal and Lukman, 2017).

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