Relationship between leadership styles, emotional intelligence and organisational commitment in small and medium-sized enterprises

The main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between leadership styles, emotional intelligence and organisational commitment in medium-sized manufacturing enterprises located in Selangor. A total of 408 employees comprising of executives and non-executives participated in this research. The employees were given a set of questionnaires which comprised of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ – 5X) by Avolio and Bass (2004), Genos Emotional Intelligence Questionnaires by Palmer and Stough (2006), Organisational Commitment questionnaires by Meyer and Allen (1997) and demographic questionnaires. Out of 408 questionnaires received from the respondents only 373 were usable for this study. The collected data were analysed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis were carried out to analyse the data. This study found that there were significant positive relationships between i) transformational leadership and organisational commitment, ii) transactional leadership and organisational commitment, iii) transformational leadership and emotional intelligence, iv) transactional leadership and emotional intelligence and v) emotional intelligence and organisational commitment. In this study, the findings showed that emotional intelligence partially mediated the relationship between leadership styles and organisational commitment. The test using Baron and Kenny (1986) showed that emotional intelligence only partially mediated the relationship between leadership styles and organisational commitment. The findings can be generalised as follows i) transformational and transactional leadership styles were the dominant form of leadership styles displayed by the managers of medium-sized enterprises ii) emotional intelligence of managers do have an effect on the organisational commitment of the employees iii) leadership styles of managers do determine the organisational commitment of employees. The findings showed that managers need to transcend their leadership style from transactional leadership to transformational leadership in order to enhance the commitment level of employees from moderate to high level. In ensuring that mediumsized enterprises continue to contribute to national economy, the human resource department should emphasize on developing and conducting appropriate training on leadership and emotional intelligence of the managers. This study also provides an opportunity to expand the research to other industries within SMEs such as services, constructions, agriculture and telecommunication