Examing the relationship of emotional intelligence and political skill with effective educational leadership styles

Schools, are political arenas where social skills are becoming important. In that way politically and emotionally skilled educational leaders combine social effectiveness skills with the capacity to adjust their behavior to different and changing situational demands in a manner that appears to be sincere, inspires support and trust, and effectively influences and controls the responses of others. In this study, we examine two of the most popular social constructs: emotional intelligence (EI; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) and political skill (Ferris et al., 2005). The main objective of this study is to explore the relationship of school leaders’ emotional intelligence and political skill with leadership styles they adopt when leading their schools and the effect of the above constructs to their teachers’ job satisfaction. The findings will contribute to our understanding of how emotional intelligence and political skill affect principals’ leadership styles and teachers’ job satisfaction. Also, policy makers could use the findings in order to enhance the quality of school leadership and education in general.