DOES LEADERS’ EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE INFLUENCE EMPLOYEES’ JOB INVOLVEMENT?

The recent literature places emotions at the center of leadership as a dynamic process. The purpose of this study (founded by CARIPARO) was to examine whether an emotional intelligence training (TREMINTS; Zammuner, 2010; Zammuner & Kafetsios, 2005), administered on line to mid-level leaders, would affect their employees’ job involvement and life satisfaction. Leaders (n = 29; mean age: 45 years, sd 9.3; 21% women) and employees (n = 46; mean age: 38 years, sd 10.9; 61% women) filled in the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI; Boyatzis, Goleman, & Rhee, 2000). The ECI self-reported version was filled in by leaders, whereas the others’-reported version was filled in by employees, i. e., rating their leader. Employees evaluated their own job involvement and life satisfaction too. Both leaders and employees filled again the ECI a month later, at Time 2, i.e., after leaders were trained. The two experimental phases included a control group of employees not associated with a leader (n = 22; mean age: 42 years, sd 12.3; 73% women). The results showed a significant increase of employees’ job involvement in the experimental group at Time 2. An enhancement of the emotional competence “Assistence”, as measured by ECI others’ assessment and an increase of the “Conflict Management” competence on self-reported competence were found as well. In conclusion, the study indicates that the training procedure was effective and that employees’ job involvement can be increased by training their leaders' emotional intelligence.