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The purpose of this study was to examine whether self-awareness of managers (defined as agreement between self and other leadership ratings) would moderate relationships between (a) aspects of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership behavior, and (b) transformational leadership behavior and managerial performance. Multisource data were collected from 63 managers (who responded about their emotional intelligence and transformational leadership behavior), 192 subordinates (who rated their manager's transformational leadership behavior and performance outcomes), and 63 superiors of focal managers (who rated managerial performance). Results indicated that correlations between emotional intelligence aspects, leader behavior, and performance varied as a function of self-awareness of managers. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.
When it comes to improving organizational effectiveness, management scholars and practitioners are beginning to emphasize the importance of a manager's emotional intelligence (EQ) (Cooper,1997; Harrison,1997; Hesselbein, Goldsmith, & Beckhard,1996; Morris & Feldman,1996). EQ represents a set of dispositional attributes (i.e., self-awareness, emotional management, self-motivation, empathy, and relationship management) for monitoring one's own and others' feelings, beliefs, and internal states in order to provide useful information to guide one's and others' thinking and action (Goleman, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Prior research (e.g., Cooper, 1997; Goleman,1995; Megerian & Sosik,1996) suggests that aspects of EQ may underlie a manager's exhibition of transformational leadership (see Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978), which involves a strong emotional relationship between the leader and follower. Several reviews (e.g., Bass, 1998; Bass & Avolio, 1997) and meta-analyses (Gaspar, 1992; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramanium, 1996; Patterson, Fuller, Kester, & Stringer, 1995) have identified transformational leadership as a particularly powerful source of effective leadership in a variety of organizational contexts.
Several writers (e.g., Bennis,1989; Megerian & Sosik,1996) have argued that one aspect of EQ, self-awareness, is integral to transformational leadership effectiveness. Prior studies (Atwater & Yammarino,1992; Yammarino & Atwater, 1997) indicate that managers who are highly self-aware compare their leadership behaviors against the information they receive from others (e.g., followers) about their behaviors. Atwater and Yammarino (1992) found that the extent to which U.S. Naval Academy students are self-aware (i.e., in agreement with others concerning leadership perceptions) moderates relationships between transformational leadership and performance. Two key questions, however, are (a) what aspects of EQ differentiate those leaders who are in agreement with others concerning their transformational...