Emotional Intelligence: A Key for Nurse Managers’ Transformational Leadership Style

Abstract

A review of the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership outcomes described the ongoing debate between the proponents and critics of emotional intelligence as one that “thrives on hyperbolic claims on one hand, and empirical evidence to the contrary on the other”. The relationship between emotional intelligence with transformational leadership among nurse managers has received particular attention in these study, which can be attributed to both its popularity in the leadership and specific elements of transformational leadership style that seem relevant to emotional intelligence. Aim of the study: This study aims to explore emotional intelligence as the key “concept of possibility” to ignite transformational leader behavior. Research design: The design of study is descriptive correlation research design. Setting: The study was conducted at one hospital of the ministry of health hospitals. Sample: A convenient sample of (48) nurse managers. Tools of data collection: Tool 1: Background data sheet: it covered data related to age, gender, qualification, position, years of nursing experiences, years of nursing management experiences, if he/she has leadership program before and if he/she has an emotional intelligent program before. Tool 2: Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 6S. This questionnaire provides a description of leadership style on seven factors; each factor has three items, related to transformational leadership. Tool 3: The Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) which consists of 16 items measures four dimensions. Result: the study conducted that there is a positive correlation between emotional intelligent and transformational leadership style among nurse managers. Conclusion and Recommendations: Offering continuing education, course content in curriculum education or professional development opportunities to develop emotional intelligence, as a key for transformational leadership that could have significant implications for health care systems, the quality of management skills, and for preparing effective future nurse managers.

Keywords: Emotional intelligence, nurse managers, transformational leadership