Emotional Intelligence Predicting Leadership Effectiveness: Mediating Role of Personality Traits

Abstract

A person's ability that allows him/her to utilize knowledge, facilitates abstract thinking, and helps in coping with novel and hard situation is known as intelligence (Gardener, 1993). Intelligence is considered as a general ability of an individual to employ his ideas rationally, to act consistently, and to handle expeditiously with circumstances (Weschler, 1958). In the last decades, the construct of emotional intelligence has found unparalleled interest of researchers (Goleman, 1995). Several training modules to enhance emotional intelligence and various courses have been developed and introduced at all levels. To define what exactly emotional intelligence is, many schools of thought exist. In very common description, emotional intelligence is defined as capability of understanding and regulating emotions of ourselves and others (Goleman, 2001).