Emotional Intelligence and Transformational Leadership: The Moderating Effect of Organizational Culture

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether organizational culture moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Data were collected from academic leaders in18 Malaysian public universities. Bootstrapping resampling technique was used to examine the moderating role of organizational culture on emotional intelligence and transformational leadership. Although results showed that emotional intelligence was positively related to transformational leadership, the relationship was a strong conditional effect of organizational culture on emotional intelligence-transformational leadership relationship. A practical implication is that emotional intelligence can increasingly predict transformational leadership behaviour and so incorporate an appropriate organizational culture; an organization must have an appropriate organizational culture for the relationship to flourish. This can be used for leader hiring and training efforts. Care should be taken in the generalizability of the results to other disciplines and professions since the study's respondents were limited to higher education professionals. The use of organizational culture as a moderator between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership was very limited in past research. Although emotional intelligence correlated with transformational leadership, the extent to which an organization boosts organizational culture can have a significant impact on the relationship.