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N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser:
N. M. G. Mfikwe,*1 T. G. Pelser**2
Received: 5. 4 . 2016 Professional paper
Accepted: 28. 11. 2017 UDC 005.5:165.195>328(680)
*1
N. M. G. Mfikwe, Graduate School of Business & Government Leadership, North-West University, Mafikeng
Campus, South Africa
**
2 T. G. Pelser, PhD, Professor. Graduate School of Business and Leadership, Dean and Head of School. University
of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X54001, Durban, South Africa. Email: pelser@ukzn.ac.za
115
Journal of Contemporary Management Issues
Unlike few other business concepts, the style to the demands of the situation and
notion of an emotionally intelligent leader are less inclined to adhere to one particular
has caught the interest and stirred the imagi- style. As a result they create better perfor-
nation of scholars and practitioners alike mance-driven climate than their male coun-
(Walter et al., 2012). According to Hur et terparts which is the essence of Emotional
al. (2011) the study of emotions in the con- Intelligence (EI) in a management context.
text of leadership has become a key topic
of interest among organisational behav- According to Thornton (2014), women
ioural researchers over the past decade. A currently hold only 26% of senior manage-
significant body of research has been built ment positions in South Africa and 21% of
over the past two decades that has found the local businesses have no women at all in se-
emotional intelligence abilities to be associ- nior management positions. This is in stark
ated with a range of important work-related contrast to emerging countries like Russia
behaviours. Particularly significant from a and China, where a much higher number of
project’s perspective have been associations women feature in leadership positions in or-
found between emotional intelligence (EI) ganisations. The number of women in senior
and leadership, team effectiveness and work positions in businesses throughout South
group effectiveness (Clarke, 2010). Africa has decreased by 2% since 2014, but
has remained fairly fixed between 26% and
Goleman (1998) explains that emotional 28%. Nonetheless, a total of 34% of South
intelligence means managing feelings so African businesses employed female human
that they are expressed appropriately and ef- resource directors and the same percentage
fectively, enabling people to work together had female Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)
smoothly toward their common goal. Gole- which show an increase of 2% since 2014
man (1998) further argues that women are and 7% since 2013. Despite the drop of
not ‘smarter’ than men when it comes to women in senior positions since 2014, the
emotional intelligence, nor are men superior leadership quotas remained a clear directive
to women. An analysis of emotional intelli- for business and the public sector to allow
gence in thousands of men and women found for equal opportunities for women in the
that women, on average, are more aware of workplace (Thornton, 2014).
their emotions, show more empathy, and are
more adept interpersonally. Men on the other
hand, are more self-confident and optimistic,
2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
adapt more easily and handle stress better
(Goleman, 1998). The presence of women in senior man-
agement roles, especially in the South Af-
In his most recent study, Goleman (2014) rican context, has changed management
explains that not all emotional partners are cultures in most organisations. Leaders in
equal and that a power dynamic operates every organisation need high emotional
in emotional contagion determining which intelligence because they represent the or-
person’s brain will more forcefully draw the ganisation to the public, to those they lead
other into its emotional orbit. Related to the and those they interact with on behalf of the
above notion, global research conducted by organisation. Most of all, leaders in the or-
the Hay Group (2012) shows that successful ganisation, set the tone for employee morale
women leaders often display versatility in –their influence often rubs-off on those they
management styles. They tend to adapt their lead in their teams both negatively and posi-
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Management, Vol. 22, 2017, No. 2, pp. 115-126
N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE...
tively, depending on the leader’s leadership whereby male and female leadership styles
style. are not the same, this would also serve as
motivation to design development opportu-
A lack of understanding of whether nities or interventions to assist senior man-
males or females have a better sense of emo- agers to obtain the required or most relevant
tional intelligence and leadership styles to managerial qualities that could assist the
share a vision with their employees may re- managers to lead their teams and the entire
sult in poor or weak service delivery output. organisation.
It could also indirectly affect the equity ratio
that South Africa strives to achieve in order
to promote equality amongst all its citizens
in the workplace. Despite the directive to 3. RESEARCH AIM AND
consider the equity quotas when positions QUESTIONS
are filled in the civil services, i.e. attaining The main purpose of this study is to mea-
the 50:50 male and female representation at sure and analyse the levels of emotional in-
senior or leadership levels, one of the key telligence of male and female senior manag-
challenges of the South African Public Ser- ers in the South African Government, in or-
vice is to recruit, develop and retain compe- der to identify if their emotional intelligence
tent leaders and managers. has an influence on their leadership styles
Senior managers in Government and and subsequently make specific recom-
Public Service managers have an important mendations for implementing interventions
task of transforming the strategic vision, to resolve any discrepancies. This research
goals and objectives of government into ef- aims at understanding the leadership styles
fective service delivery. Unfortunately, the of males and females in senior positions.
South African public sector is reeling from The second purpose is to identify if emo-
the barrage of new initiatives with respect tional intelligence has an impact on leader-
to the government’s transformation agenda, ship and vice versa, if leadership has an im-
and from a plethora of targets that need to be pact on emotional intelligence. Emotional
achieved in the public sector. The leadership intelligence is regarded as a leadership com-
styles and emotional intelligence of the se- petence and thus a high level of emotional
nior managers of the North West Provincial intelligence should enable a senior manager
Government Public Service will contribute to be more efficient and effective in organ-
to a sense of shared vision of providing a isational relationship building.
qualitative service to the public and ensuring
that the citizens have faith in government The following research questions were
systems. addressed:
Organisations that want to be a cut above 1. Does the leadership style of men and
the rest would depend on recruiting the right women senior leaders have a significant
leaders with the right attitude and leadership impact on their emotional intelligence?
style. These leaders would in turn be able to 2. Does emotional intelligence support the
influence, motivate and promote the culture type of leadership style that male and
of effective service delivery. They would in- female senior leaders display?
culcate a culture of shared responsibility, a
sense of ownership and yearning to deliver 3. Does emotional intelligence enable
impeccable services to its public. In the case leadership?
117
Journal of Contemporary Management Issues
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Management, Vol. 22, 2017, No. 2, pp. 115-126
N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE...
ers and customers, sensing and interpreting gests that females take a more relationship-
their moods and winning their trust. This oriented style of leadership.
suggests that emotional intelligence can be
facilitated through training in both men and TheTurnkett Leadership Group (2002)
women to optimise functioning in the work- found that 51% of respondents agreed or
place. Gardner and Stough (2002) support strongly agreed that women are more predis-
this and indicate that emotional intelligence posed to be developed as talent in the work-
testing may improve an organisation’s abil- place. 47% agreed or strongly agreed that
ity to predict who will be an effective leader, women’s teambuilding skills are more ef-
who will manage a productive group and fective than those of their male counterparts.
who will be satisfied in their own job, who The lowest scores were for women being
will not avoid responsibility, but also who more effective than men in achieving results
will be absent when needed. where only 20% agreed or strongly agreed.
They concluded that the responses could be
According to Goleman (2014), lead- grouped into three categories: 1) emotional
ership boils down to a series of social ex- intelligence and empathy, 2) ability to multi-
changes in which the leader can drive the task, and 3) ability to communicate and
other person’s emotions into a better or build consensus.
worse state. Callousness from a boss not
only heightens the risk of losing good peo- The reviewed literature suggests that fe-
ple but it also torpedoes cognitive efficiency. male senior managers have better emotional
Goleman (2014) further argues that a social- intelligence than their male counterparts in
ly intelligent leader helps people contain and the workplace and that women-led teams are
recover from their emotional distress if only more psychologically or emotionally well
from a business perspective. Thus, a leader and productive compared to male-led teams.
would do well to read with empathy rather This study will explore this assertion further.
than indifference, and to act on it. The literature review provided vari-
As more women begin occupying posi- ous theoretical perspectives and conceptual
tions of leadership, questions as to whether knowledge on emotional intelligence and
they lead in a different manner from men leadership styles of senior managers. This
and whether women or men are more ef- section highlighted that teams and personnel
fective as leaders, have garnered greater are important assets in achieving organisa-
attention (Quader, 2011). In a comparative tion’s goals. It does however take Emotion-
study in which Petrides and Furnham (2006) ally Intelligent and astute leaders to promote
measured emotional intelligence females a particular vision to its followers. Employees
scored higher than males in social skills. In a need to be managed in such a way that they
self-estimate of emotional intelligence men not only buy-in to the same vision as the lead-
scored higher on certain factors compared ers, but carry it forth with pride and zeal.
to women (Petrides and Furnham, 2006)
.Based on this research, it was hypothesised
that those who rated themselves high in 5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
emotional intelligence would have better
leadership abilities. Furthermore, it was hy- A cross sectional design survey was used
pothesised that females would score higher to answer the research questions. Partici-
in EI and leadership than males, which sug- pants (n=85) were purposively selected from
a relatively small group of senior managers
119
Journal of Contemporary Management Issues
in the South African Government. All at- The Leadership Style Survey [LSS] (Clark,
tempts were made to select an equal num- 1998) is a 30 item measure which contains
ber of males and females. The participants statements about leadership style beliefs. It
ranged from Directors, Chief Directors, was used in this study to distinguish the vari-
Deputy Directors General and two Superin- ous leadership styles. Clark (1998) identifies
tendent Generals and in terms of education three leadership styles: authoritarian, par-
the respondents held Doctoral to Bachelors’ ticipative, and delegation. The Generalised
degrees (see Table 1). Self- Efficacy Scale [GSES] (Schwarzer &
Variable Frequency %
Gender Male 48 56.47
Female 37 43.53
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Management, Vol. 22, 2017, No. 2, pp. 115-126
N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE...
a high reliability of the 119 items used for Quader (2011) is of the opinion that, even
the questionnaires. For random samples, if gender differences between male and fe-
the statistical significance of such relation- male leadership did exist, both genders are
ships are determined with Chi-square tests, necessary in running a business. Certain
but actually one wants to know whether the masculine traits, such as the ability to focus
relationship is large enough to be important. and take action, are essential to a business
What is significant to this study is that the ef- success, so are the feminine qualities of re-
fect size is again independent of sample size. lationship building, emotional mentoring,
The following guidelines were used for the communication, multitasking, intuition and
interpretation in the current case: compassion which offer business a very dif-
ferent perspective from the more commonly
(a) small effect: w=0.1 recognized masculine traits (Quader, 2011).
(b) medium effect: w=0.3 Question 2: Does emotional intelli-
gence support the type of leadership style of
(c) large effect: w=0.5
the male and female senior leaders?
(d) A relationship with w≥0.5 is consid-
The chi-square test in Table 2 shows a
ered as practically significant.
statistically significant difference at the 5%
level of significance. Gender plays a vital
role in the leadership style and only two
6. RESULTS statements were influenced by gender. In a
This section discusses the key findings related study, Khalili (2012) discovered that
according to the data interpretation. The dis- women scored higher than men on empathy
cussion is based on the results obtained on and social responsibility, while men sur-
each of the research questions: passed women on stress tolerance and self-
Question 1: Does the leadership style confidence. His findings suggested women
of men and women senior leaders have a and men are equally Emotionally Intelligent,
significant impact on their emotional intel- but they are different in these spheres. In the
ligence? same breath, Northouse (2013) cautions that
the incongruity between the female gender
None of the statements relating to emo- role and the leadership role leads to preju-
tional intelligence showed any statistically dice against female leaders, who are evaluat-
significant difference when crossed with ed and perceived more negatively than their
gender at the 5% level of significance. It male counterparts.
clearly indicates that leadership style of men
and women senior leaders has no signifi-
cant impact on their emotional intelligence.
121
Journal of Contemporary Management Issues
Question 3: Does emotional intelligence arrange events that other enjoy, that they
enable leadership? seek out activities that make them happy, that
they are aware of the non-verbal messages
The majority (90%) of the respondents they sent to others and lastly that they pres-
indicated that they don’t know when to speak ent themselves in a way that makes a good
about their personal problems to others. The impression on others. Accordingly, the ma-
similarly large share of respondents (91%) jority (86%) of the respondents agreed that
are of the view that when they are faced with when they are in a positive mood, solving
obstacles, they remember times they faced problems is easy for them, that by looking
similar obstacles and overcame them, that at other people’s facial expressions they rec-
they expect that they will do well on most ognise the emotions they are experiencing,
things they try, that other people find it easy that they know why their emotions change,
to confide in them, that they find it hard to that when they are in a positive mood they
understand the non-verbal messages of other are able to come up with new ideas, that they
people. A non-conclusive majority (53%) have control over their emotions, and that
did not concur that some of the major events they easily recognize their emotions as they
of their life have led them to re-evaluate experience them.
what is important and not important. A good
proportion (73%) concur that when their The analysis highlighted the fact that
mood changes, they see new possibilities, the vast majority (85%) of the respondents
that emotions are one of the things that make agreed that they motivate themselves by
their life worth living, that they are aware of imagining a good outcome to tasks they
their emotions as they experience them, that take on, that they complement others when
they expect good things to happen, that they they have done something well, that they are
like to share their emotions with others, and aware of the non-verbal messages other peo-
that when they experience a positive emo- ple send, that when another person tells them
tion, they know how to make it last. It was about an important event in his or her life
also evident from the data that a majority they almost feel as though they have experi-
(79%) of the respondents agreed that they enced this event themselves, that when they
Table 3: Chi Square Test
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Management, Vol. 22, 2017, No. 2, pp. 115-126
N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE...
feel a change in emotions they tend to come in emotions, I tend to come up with new
up with new ideas, that when they are faced ideas; When I am faced with a challenge, I
with a challenge they give up because they give up because I believe I will fail; I can
believe they will fail. A significant propor- tell how people are feeling by listening to the
tion (93%) of the respondents are opposed tone of their voice; emotions are one of the
to the fact that they know what other people things that make my life worth living and I
are feeling just by looking at them, and were am aware of the non-verbal messages other
unsure that they help other people feel bet- people send).
ter when they are down. The majority of the
respondents (97%) agreed that they use a In a similar study, Coetzee and Schaap
good mood to help themselves keep trying in (2005) conclude that the level of a leader’s
the face of obstacles, that they can tell how emotional intelligence determines wheth-
people are feeling by listening to the tone of er or not such a leader is able to influence
their voice and lastly that it is difficult for behaviour and take individual develop-
them to understand why people feel the way ments into consideration through the intel-
they do. lectual stimulating of followers. Coetzee
and Schaap’s (2005) analysis confirms that
The above information deduced from the an Emotionally Intelligent leader is able to
data demonstrates that there is a link if not instil trust and commitment and motivate
a clear correlation between leadership and followers to exert extra effort, which in turn
emotional intelligence. It is apparent that creates a feeling of satisfaction once the set
emotional intelligence factors directly affect goals are reached.
leadership decisions and a positive environ-
ment. Baron (2014) claims that every inter-
action is an opportunity to engage, empower
7. RECOMMENDATIONS AND
and inspire or distance, disempower and dis-
enfranchise those around you and thus lead-
CONCLUSION
ers must have the emotional intelligence to Although the previous literature showed
understand that every interaction sits on the that women leaders have better emotional
fulcrum between two possibilities: nurturing intelligence as opposed to their male coun-
relationships, thus eliminating the obstruc- terparts, and possible differences in leader-
tions to progress, reinforcing trust and loy- ship style are related to each other, the find-
alty or creating obstacles and eating away at ings of this study did not show significant
whatever trust has been established. differences. Therefore, leaders with high
emotional intelligence are bound to under-
Question 4: Do women senior manag- stand that whatever gender, their message,
ers have better emotional intelligence than and communiqué they transmit, may spark
male senior leaders or managers in the positive or negative reactions from the em-
South African Government? ployees they manage, thus they have to be
The chi-square test in Table 3 shows a calculative and deliberate in the messages
statistically significant difference at the 5% and communication they transmit, for the
level of significance. Gender plays a vital overall benefit of the organisation and those
role in the leadership role and some emo- they lead.
tional intelligence items on the Emotional Senior managers in government are ex-
Intelligence Scale (EIS); (I like to share my pected to have some of the following key
emotions with others; when I feel a change
123
Journal of Contemporary Management Issues
competencies: change management, knowl- civil service has to promote a shared vision
edge management, strategic capability and and provide equitable service to the public.
leadership, programme and project manage-
ment, service delivery innovation, problem It is also very clear from the data that
emotional intelligence is an enabler of lead-
solving and analysis, people management
ership. Emotional intelligence factors direct-
and empowerment, client orientation and
ly affect leadership decisions and a positive
customer focus, communication, honesty
environment. Significant change in organ-
and integrity. Recruitment procedure for
isational culture, the employment equity
these senior managers should involve com-
directive of including more women in lead-
petency assessments. ership in South African organisations and
The aim of this study was to compare better understanding of leadership qualities
leadership styles of female and male senior and emotional intelligence of both women
leaders in government in relation to their and men, may assist in appreciating the need
for both genders in the workplace.
emotional intelligence. The results of the
study indicated that there were no differ- Lastly, gender plays a vital role in the
ences in the leadership styles of male and leadership role and some emotional intelli-
female managers. Secondly, the results also gence scales as confirmed above. It would
showed that there were no differences in the be to the added advantage of South African
levels of emotional intelligence of male and organisations, especially the public sector,
female managers. However, emotional in- to strive towards the much advocated 50:50
telligence and leadership are two important employment equity directive of women and
correlates of which leadership provides the men in the workplace. This is specifically
context in which emotional intelligence op- the case if South Africa is to live up to best
erates. Thus, it is critical to promote these practices of developing countries and main-
two qualities among senior leadership if the tain its competitive edge.
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Management, Vol. 22, 2017, No. 2, pp. 115-126
N. M. G. Mfikwe, T. G. Pelser: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE...
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