The relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational & transactional leadership styles and moderating role of gender: A study in Turkish energy sector

We are experiencing the information age and the characteristics of this age are the use of high technology, the alternating structure of workforce and the increase in competition which in today's business life levering the expectations from the leaders more than the classical/traditional definitions of them. In our world of today, the classic/traditional leader- follower relation has no more room and the leader has to be in a close relationship with the follower. In this respective, the concept of emotional intelligence has become the main subject of business life and the importance of emotional intelligence in the structure of the relationship that the leader builds to form is being discussed more and more. This study examines the relationship between emotional intelligence and transactional, transformational leadership styles with the moderating influence of gender. The study was conducted on a number of companies in Energy sector in Turkey on 216 white-collar employees who are at the middle and upper-level management. The results of the study show that emotional intelligence has a positive relation with transformational leadership. Emotional intelligence has a positive relation with transactional leadership except that relationship management of emotional intelligence is not statistically significant with passive management by exception dimension of transactional leadership. In terms of using transactional or transformational leadership style based on different gender, no differences were found. Additionally, the results show that female managers score higher at self-awareness and social awareness concepts than male managers.