Emotional intelligence congruence: the influence of leader and follower emotional abilities on job satisfaction

Purpose Limited research has been devoted to the entanglement of emotions between leaders and followers (i.e. emotional congruence) and how these emotions may be altering job satisfaction. Current research hints that a leader's emotional intelligence (EI) directly influences follower's satisfaction at work. Using the affective events theory (AET), emotional contagion theory (ECT) and the multi-level model of emotion and leadership, this research attempts to directly examine perceptions of the leader–follower relationship and the relationship's enhancement of follower job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs a survey among 427 USA-based workers to test a moderated model of the relationship between follower and leader EI and job satisfaction. The hypothesized relationships and moderation effects are examined using the SPSS macro PROCESS (Hayes, 2018). Common method variance (CMV) was analyzed and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is presented. Findings Direct effects support the hypotheses that follower and leader EI contribute to the job satisfaction of followers. Moderation effects support the enhancing effect of EI congruence, such that the relationship between follower and leader EI and follower job satisfaction is stronger at higher levels of congruence. Originality/value These findings are significant in that the findings are among the first to examine leader and follower EI similarity and the similarity's effect on an employee's satisfaction at work. The findings highlight new opportunities for leadership and emotion researchers to better understand the leader–follower relationship.