Research Article

Abstract

Servant leadership is an effective leadership style that focuses on ethics and morality. Emotional intelligence (EI) is also associated with effective leadership and ethical behavior; thus, there has been a surge in studies that assessed the link between EI and servant leadership. Nevertheless, the empirical landscape of this relationship is mixed and fragmented. We undertook a meta‐analysis to clarify this literature and found that (a) EI has a significant positive relationship with servant leadership (ρ̅̂ = .57); (b) the relationship between EI and servant leadership is stronger in studies having a lower percentage of well‐educated subjects, in low power distance cultures, and in high institutional collectivism cultures; and (c) We were unable to find sufficient evidence to support moderating effects of the relationship between EI and servant leadership for gender (male‐dominated and female‐dominated studies), age (between young and old subjects), for self‐report versus follower‐report of servant leadership, and across different scales of servant leadership.

Faculty Members

• Chao Miao - Department of Management and Marketing Franklin P. Perdue School of Business Salisbury University Salisbury MD USA
• Ronald H. Humphrey - Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy Lancaster University Management School Lancaster University Lancaster UK
• Shanshan Qian - Department of Management College of Business and Economics Towson University Towson MD USA

Themes

• Ethics and morality in leadership
• Emotional intelligence
• Moderating effects in leadership studies
• Servant leadership
• Cultural influences on leadership effectiveness

Categories

• Social psychology
• Organizational leadership
• Business management and administration
• Research and experimental psychology nec
• Psychology, other
• Business
• Research and experimental psychology
• Psychology
• Business administration and management
• Psychology, general
• Human development