Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Among Head of Departments A Study of Higher Education Institutes in Afghanistan

Abstract

This study devotes to examine the level of Head of Departments’ transformational leadership and Head of departments emotional intelligence in independent Governmental Institutes based on demographical factors such as gender, teaching experience and the relationship between Head of Departments’ transformational leadership and Head of department’s emotional intelligence. This study used transformational leadership theory and emotion intelligence theory to develop a study model. 30 hypotheses were established from the model. In order to test hypotheses, a quantitative research study was conducted while 270 questionnaires as research instruments were distributed among 15 head of Departments working in independent Governmental Institutes in Afghanistan a total 266 filled questionnaires were return backed. The response rate was found highly significant. In this study, 24 questions related to transformational leadership described by Leithwood (1996) has been selected and used in the survey. They are about shared vision, group goal, performance expectation, modeling behavior, individual support, and providing intellectual stimulation. Accordingly, 23 questions regarding emotional intelligence by Goleman's (2012) represent, self-awareness, emotional self-management, motivation, empathy, and relationship management. After preliminary analysis using SPSS, the dataset was ready for SEM-PLS to run PLS-Algorithm as measurement model and then to run structural model to test study hypotheses. The basic requirement of scale analysis was complete as reliability and validity were statistically established. Test results shows that there is significant relationship between the Head of departments’ transformational leadership and their emotional intelligence. The current research study is quite unique and novel. The current research study will contribute to literature, and knowledge six dimensions of transformational leadership and five dimensions of emotional intelligence has tested empirically. The result of the current study contributes to the knowledge of academia, knowledge of literature and knowledge of researchers that there is significant relationship between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence. The current research study was limited to only head of departments, while further the study can be extended to both public and private institutions. Not only this, future research study can have a mediating and moderating effects such as perceived organization support can play a vital role as mediator between transformational leadership and emotional intelligence.

Keywords- Vision, group goal, performance expectation, modeling behavior, individual support, intellectual stimulation, self-awareness, emotional self-management, motivation, empathy, and relationship management