Examining the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Transformational leadership: Evidence from Hotels and Travel Companies

Hospitality organizations and travel companies need leaders who are not only emotionally intelligent but who also have an ability to realize and understand the values of their followers that are beneficial both to the service climate and the followers themselves. This study examines the predictive relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style in hotels and travel companies, investigates how the dimensions of emotional intelligence are associated with supervisor’s transformational leadership, assesses if there is any differences in the relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style in respect to business type. Data were collected from 234 managers (78% response rate) by using the Emotional Quotient Inventory questionnaire (EQ-I) and from 468 employees (72% response rate) by using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The results of this study indicate that emotional intelligence is positively related to transformational leadership (p < 0.05). Moreover, a significant predictive relationship (p < 0.05) was found between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership stylewith a variability of 56.8%. Also, the results revealed that the predictive power of emotional intelligence was explained by only the dimensions: “Intrapersonal”, “Interpersonal”, “Stress Management” and “General mood”. In addition, the results showed that no significant interaction (p > 0.05) was found between business type (hotel or Travel Company) and emotional intelligence while predicting transformational leadership style.