The influence of conflict management and emotional intelligence on leadership productivity

Purpose – This paper‟s goal is to investigate the relationships between emotional intelligence and leadership productivity, and between the leader‟s conflict management abilities and leadership productivity. This study aims to provide an empirical test of the assumption that supervisors with better conflict management abilities and higher emotional intelligence level have better leadership productivity. Design/methodology/approach – Participants were 19 executives working at various functional units and different hierarchical levels in 16 different German companies from various industrial sectors (as e.g. Information Technology, retail, construction engineering, Public sector, mechanical engineering, market research). Altogether 68 subordinates participated and evaluated their managers. Data were collected by means of two standardized surveys implemented as online questionnaires: The Bar-On EQ-i test designed as a self-report instrument to measure the managerial emotional intelligence level, and the Leadership Productivity Survey by Desjardins designed to measure subordinates' perceptions of the leadership behavior and the productivity potential. Findings – The results of this study in the realm of conflict management and leadership productivity have proven that a relationship exists between conflict management and effective leadership. Effective leaders have superior conflict management abilities, and the factor “conflict management” yields a considerable productivity potential. So the results show that it makes sense to enhance the Leadership Productivity Model by the fifth dimension “conflict management”. The findings in the realm of emotional intelligence and leadership productivity indicate that emotional intelligence has a relationship to effective leadership, in particular in the areas of conflict management and of effective performing of meetings. Furthermore the findings reveal as well a strong relationship between conflict management and the performing of meetings. Research limitations – Data were collected from leaders who joined the program voluntarily with the goal to get feedback and to develop themselves. This fact might limit generalizability of the results, because the assumption is that these leaders already have a relatively high leadership development level. A cross-section of better and worse leaders of one large company for example, might be more representative. Practical implications – The findings have a significant potential impact for companies preparing the next generations of leaders. Employing leaders with high emotional intelligence and sophisticated conflict management capabilities will facilitate a performance-promoting climate and ultimately enables a company to remain competitive. Originality/value – Nowadays emotional intelligence is considered a key determinant of leadership performance in the managerial literature. However there doesn‟t exist enough empirical research in this area. Therefore this study contributes to our understanding of the linkage between emotional intelligence and leadership productivity.