Influence of Emotional Intelligence on Decision Making by Leaders

Emotional Intelligence is the aggregate of abilities, competencies and skills that represent a collection of knowledge meant for coping with life effectively. Thus it is closely related to the personal and professional growth of the individuals who have to take decisions under stressful and difficult situations. The aim of the present study is to explore the impact of emotional intelligence on Leadership and his decision making skills of the leaders. 150 respondents had been selected from various levels of executives from a Government organization in Trichirapalli district, Tamil Nadu. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using canonical correlation method. The result indicated that there is association between the level of emotional intelligence and the decision making. Further, the results indicated that emotional intelligence had highly influenced the transactional leader’s decision making than the transformational leader’s decision making. The participation dimension in decision making highly influences the transformational leader’s decision making and felt accountability influences the transactional leader’s decision making. Both the type of leaders, decision making is more influenced by the empathy dimension of emotional intelligence.