Growing evidence indicates a positive relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and leadership performance. However, in non-Western public service contexts, scholarship on the nature of this bivariate relationship trails behind.
Using the behavioural EI model, this study examined the relationships between EI competencies and leadership performance of executive managers in the South African public service.
A significant bivariate relationship using the behavioural EI model implies empirical significance and practical implications for policy and leadership development in the public service.
The multi-rater Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI) measured EI competencies of 35 executive managers rated by 230 respondents. Multi-source nominations from 371 respondents measured leadership performance. Five study hypotheses were tested using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients and analysis of variance.
The results indicated significant positive correlations between leadership performance and all four EI clusters of competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. Of the 12 EI competencies, adaptability, inspirational leadership, emotional self-awareness and positive outlook displayed the strongest correlations. Also, a significant negative relationship between the managers’ competency gap and (self-other agreement) their performance was observed.
The results have implications for management and leadership development and recruitment in the public service.
Using the behavioural method, this quantitative study validated the positive relationship between EI and leadership performance in the South African public service
A growing body of literature on emotional intelligence (EI) suggests that a person’s ability to perceive, identify and manage emotion is essential in making good decisions, taking optimal action to solve problems and coping with change (Ashkanasy & Daus,
Emotional intelligence is regarded as an emerging theory at an early stage in development (Cherniss et al.,
Cognisant of cultural relativism and to address the cultural biases and deficits in the scholarship, there is a need to test these claims in non-Western public service contexts. As a result of probable conceptual distinctions across cultures, scholars have proposed further research to test the universality of EI constructs and metrics, and the possibility of contextual differences, in specific emotional and behavioural expressions and regulation (Boyatzis,
Congruently, public sector scholars Denhardt and Denhardt (
The purpose of this quantitative research study was to test claims on the nature of the relationships between EI competencies and executive managers’ leadership performance in the South African public service, framed within the behavioural EI model (Boyatzis,
The objectives of the study were threefold:
Firstly, to determine the nature of the relationship between the four EI clusters and 12 individual EI competencies with leadership performance in the South African public service context.
Secondly, to determine those EI competencies that differentiate high performing executive managers.
Thirdly, to establish the relationships between the executive managers’ competency gap or self-other agreement (SOA) and their leadership performance.
The concept of EI builds on a long history of theory and research on personality, social and positive psychology and particularly on the importance of non-cognitive aspects of intelligence, drawing from antecedents since the early 1900s (e.g. the work of Robert Thorndike, David Wechsler, Howard Gardner, David McClelland and Robert Sternberg).
Generally, EI research is classified into three streams, identified by Ashkanasy and Daus (
However, despite these differences in metrics, there are noteworthy similarities between the three EI conceptual streams. All three include two common domains of EI: firstly, awareness of and managing one’s own emotions and secondly, awareness of and managing others’ emotions. Cherniss (
The pursuit for characteristics to adequately explain workplace success has been continuous within social psychology and the organisational field (Ramo, Saris, & Boyatzis,
Furthermore, several meta-analytical studies reveal that EI predicts performance and displays incremental validity over and above the five-factor model of personality traits and cognitive ability (e.g. Van Rooy & Viswesvaran,
The drive to optimise an individual’s performance has led to the quest of understanding human talent. A major part of this search has focused on leadership talent, which is considered as a key determinant of organisational success. Several studies and meta-analyses indicate that EI competencies based on the behavioural approach to EI (‘mixed model’) are valid constructs in the study of human talent and performance, as they account for a significant variance in predicting or understanding job performance (Boyatzis,
Boyatzis (
In the behavioural EI model, exemplary leaders display strengths in the 12 EI competencies, as these competencies are antecedents to visionary, democratic, affiliative and coaching leadership styles, and therefore these leaders are regarded as resonant or transformational leaders (Boyatzis & McKee,
Upholding democratic principles, public service values and effective implementation of public policy continue to defy many governments, particularly during recurrent crises (Kellis & Ran,
For over a century, strong hierarchical traditions have characterised the public service, dominated by the ‘machine’ image of organisations (Robledo,
The metaphor for the new millennium public service has implications on how public servants are managed and led, as earlier theories focused mainly on controlling and manipulating employees and their work environment with the objective of maximising efficiency and productivity (Denhardt & Denhardt,
Denhardt and Denhardt (2006, p. 83) stressed that ‘human emotions and qualities such as empathy and intuition’ have a significant role to play in public leadership. Likewise, Vigoda-Gadot and Meisler (
In the South African context, the National Development Plan 2030 (RSA,
Amongst the few South African studies on transformational leadership, Mokgolo, Mokgolo and Modiba’s (
Given the conceptual distinctions and the empirical evidence presented, this study’s theoretical grounding is the competency theory of action and performance. The study assessed competencies as behavioural manifestation of EI that predicts job performance, particularly leadership performance (Boyatzis,
The primary research question: ‘What is the nature of the relationship between EI and leadership performance amongst South African public executive managers?’ was examined through testing the following five hypotheses:
A secondary research question: ‘What is the nature of the relationship between the EI competency gap and leadership performance?’ was tested through two hypotheses:
This study used a quantitative research design to test the five hypotheses. Theoretically, the behavioural EI model (Goleman et al.,
The empirical framework of this study, illustrated in
The study’s empirical framework: The relationship between emotional and social intelligence (EI) competencies and leadership performance.
The population for this study was 67 executive managers (Chief Director, Deputy Director-General, and Head of Department, i.e., rank levels 14–16), from four departments in a provincial government in South Africa and were selected using convenience sampling. Three departments represented the centre of government departments with province-wide transversal functions, whilst the fourth department represented the largest social service delivery line department. The 67 managers were invited to participate in the survey and provided with guidelines on the online ESCI survey. The sample for the survey was 35 (response rate = 52%).
The demographic profile of the sample comprised 60% males, almost half (46%) between the ages of 46–55 years, predominantly post-graduate (86%) black African (80%) Chief Directors (rank level 14, 77% ) largely from the three transversal departments (84%) and in the employ of the provincial government for the past 10 years (72%). In addition, 43% of the managers had fewer than 11 subordinates.
The final sample of ESCI rater respondents was 230, comprising five rater groups, namely manager or supervisor (
Using convenience sampling, middle-level and senior managers (
Descriptive statistics of the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory survey and performance nomination scores.
Dependent variable measure | Population | Sample | Number of ESCI raters | Number of nominations | Mean | standard deviation | Highest | Lowest |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Performance nominations | 400 | 191 | - | 371 | 10.6 | 8.37 | 32 | 0 |
ESCI survey | 67 | 35 | 230 | - | - | - | - | - |
ESCI, Emotional and Social Competence Inventory.
The independent variable was EI competency score that was measured using the quantitative survey instrument, the ESCI (Boyatzis,
The ESCI is specifically located within organisational life and work outcome contexts and thus was considered a relevant metric for this study; its emphasis on personal and professional development constitutes the cornerstone for the competency development process. Numerous empirical studies, displaying strong evidence of high reliability and validity of the ESCI have employed the ESCI to explore relationships between EI and leadership or management performance, as well as assessment, development and training of EI (Boyatzis,
Leadership performance was measured using multi-source nominations, which have high criterion validity, that is, they predict hard job performance outcomes (Boyatzis,
Two quantitative analytical methods, namely Spearman’s rank correlation and analysis of variance (ANOVA), were used to test the five study hypotheses (
The study’s research questions, hypotheses and analytical tests.
Research questions | Hypotheses | Statistical analytical test |
---|---|---|
(1) What is the nature of the relationship between EI and leadership performance? | H1: The four EI clusters are positively related to leadership performance. | Spearman’s Rank Correlation |
H2: Each of the 12 EI competencies is positively related to leadership performance. | Spearman’s Rank Correlation | |
H3: A significant difference exists between the EI competency scores of high-performing and low-performing executive managers. | Analysis of variance (ANOVA) | |
(2) What is the nature of the relationship between the EI competency gap and leadership performance? | H4: A significant negative relationship exists between the executive managers’ EI competency gap and leadership performance. | Spearman’s Rank Correlation |
H5: A significant difference exists in the EI competency gap between high-performing and low-performing executive managers. | ANOVA |
EI, emotional intelligence.
The data were tested either at the three significance levels of
Permission for the study was granted by the provincial government’s Office of the Premier and support was received from the HR branches in each department. The voluntary participation of all participants was sought through informed consent. The identity of all participants and the data collected is strictly anonymous and confidential. The researcher complied with the ethical procedure guidelines set out by a Western Cape university. The Hay Group granted permission to apply the ESCI for academic research purposes.
This article followed all ethical standards of research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the ESCI competencies in this study show an overall alpha value of 0.84, with a range from 0.77 to 0.89 for the 12 EI competencies indicating acceptable internal consistency reliability of the scale in this setting (see
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for Emotional and Social Competence Inventory competencies.
EI competency | Cronbach’s alpha |
---|---|
Emotional self-awareness | 0.80 |
Achievement orientation | 0.86 |
Adaptability | 0.82 |
Emotional self-control | 0.88 |
Positive outlook | 0.89 |
Empathy | 0.84 |
Organisational awareness | 0.82 |
Conflict management | 0.80 |
Coach and mentor | 0.91 |
Influence | 0.77 |
Inspirational leadership | 0.87 |
Teamwork | 0.87 |
EI, emotional intelligence.
An overall strong, positive and significant correlation (
Result of Spearman’s correlation to determine the relationship between leadership performance and emotional intelligence clusters.
Clusters of competencies | Spearman’s correlations (r) | Correlation strength |
---|---|---|
Self-awareness | 0.58 |
Strong |
Self-management | 0.55 |
Strong |
Social awareness | 0.43* | Moderate |
Relationship management | 0.54 |
Strong |
Notes:
correlation is significant at the
correlation is significant at the
Four EI competencies showed strong, positive and highly significant (
Result of Spearman’s correlation to determine the relationship between leadership performance and emotional intelligence competencies.
Competencies | Spearman’s correlations (r) | Correlation strength |
---|---|---|
Achievement orientation | 0.48 |
Moderate |
Adaptability | 0.64 |
Strong |
Emotional self-control | 0.31 ns | Ns |
Positive outlook | 0.55 |
Strong |
Emotional self-awareness | 0.58 |
Strong |
Empathy | 0.39 |
Weak |
Organisational awareness | 0.43 |
Weak |
Coach and mentor | 0.48 |
Moderate |
Conflict management | 0.47 |
Moderate |
Inspirational leadership | 0.61 |
Strong |
Influence | 0.50 |
Moderate |
Teamwork | 0.48 |
Moderate |
Notes:
Correlation is significant at the
correlation is significant at the
correlation is significant at the
A two-way between-groups ANOVA was conducted to explore the impact of the EI competencies on the two levels of leadership performance. The ANOVA analysis yielded statistically significant effects at
Overall, the high-performing executive managers’ EI mean scores were significantly higher with three competencies yielding the highest mean differences and
A moderate, negative and significant correlation (
The low-performing executive managers’ overall mean self-EI score (4.35) was higher than that of their high-performing colleagues (4.18). Conversely, the high-performing executive manager-group was rated higher (
The ANOVA result for the EI competency gap between these two groups of executive managers revealed a
Mean differences between the top and bottom 12 Emotional and Social Competence Inventory emotional self-awareness score, emotional intelligence competency gap and performance nominations.
Sub-sample of executive managers | Emotional self-awareness mean score | Mean EI competency gap | Performance mean score |
---|---|---|---|
Top 12 | 4.08 | −0.16 | 17.92 |
Bottom 12 | 3.31 | 0.74 | 4.83 |
Mean difference | 0.77 | −0.90 | 13.08 |
EI, emotional intelligence.
Overall, the quantitative analyses showed strong, positive and significant correlations between public service executive managers’ EI competencies and their leadership performance. All four ESCI clusters displayed either strong (self-awareness and self-management) or moderate (relationship management and social awareness) positive correlations with leadership performance. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was confirmed.
Nine of the 12 EI competencies showed a positive and highly significant
The ANOVA analysis indicated significant difference between the EI competency scores of high-performing and low-performing executive managers at
These results are in general agreement with previous research findings in the fields of EI and leadership. Several meta-analyses confirm the significant relationship between EI and performance (Joseph & Newman,
In particular, this study confirms claims that adopt a behavioural approach to EI on which the theoretical framework of this study was based (Boyatzis,
Several studies show a positive relationship between leader EI and transformational leadership (e.g. Barling et al.,
The four EI competencies displayed the strongest positive correlations with leadership performance and the highest significant mean differences and
The adaptability competency displayed the strongest correlation with leadership performance and the second-largest significant difference in means between high- and low-performing executive managers. Strength in this competency illustrates top-performing executive managers’ adeptness in situations of complex change and in times of crises, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, through behaviours and actions related to adaptive leadership, such as flexibility, open-mindedness and ambiguity (Heifetz,
The EI competency of inspirational leadership displayed the second strongest correlation with leadership performance and the largest significant difference in means for high- and low-performing executive managers. Inspirational leadership is strongly related to transformational leadership elements such as modelling the way, instilling pride, focusing on followers’ needs, enunciating a clear and shared vision and trust (Orazi et al.,
Several researchers (Atwater & Yammarino,
Fleenor et al.’s (
Atwater and Yammarino’s (
The results of this exploratory study have significant theoretical, methodological and practical implications for public leadership. The first major implication is that transformational and emergent leadership models that include EI offer the public service appropriate exemplars in the pursuit of distinctive public leadership models. However, public service leadership models remain extremely managerial and transactional and pay little attention to emotions and feelings (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2006; Newman et al.,
The methodological implication is the importance of using a 360-degree feedback process based on self- and multi-source rating instruments as these have greater reliability than single-source instruments and are appropriate for development purposes. As shown in this study (and several other studies), self-ratings are significantly inflated, and therefore have limitations for development purposes. Day et al. (
There are a few limitations of this study to be observed. Firstly, the small sample size of executive managers (
However, the research results provide a number of opportunities for future research. As this was the first study on EI competencies and leadership performance using the research design and methods in the South African public service, a large-scale study is warranted. This will have the benefit of further testing the research design and the results.
A fertile area for future EI research in the public service is to test measurable elements of transformational and emergent (e.g. authentic, servant, ethical and spiritual) leadership models (considering their growth in recent literature) as variables (Miao et al.,
The primary objective of this quantitative study was to examine the nature of the relationships between executive managers’ EI competencies and their leadership performance in the South African public service, framed within the behavioural EI model (Boyatzis,
This study contributes empirical evidence on the nature of the bivariate relationship in the African public service context. The high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the EI competencies indicate the suitability of the ESCI in this context, therefore implying the applicability of Western EI concepts and metrics. However, further research is warranted in other African public sector settings to compare the competencies with the strongest correlations with performance. The results have implications for management and leadership development and recruitment in the public sector.
The author would like to express his special gratitude to Prof. Erwin Schwella (University of Stellenbosch) for supervising his original thesis; Dr. Annie McKee (University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Richard Boyatzis (Case Western Reserve University) for their guidance on the research design and access to relevant literature; and Prof. Martin Kidd, Ms. Magriet Treurnicht and Ms Adéle Burger (University of Stellenbosch) for their guidance and support with the statistical analysis of the nominations and the ESCI survey data.
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
S.J.H. was responsible for the final research design, data collection, analyses and article write-up.
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated agency of the author.