领导情绪智力对团队绩效和员工态度的影响——公平氛围和权力距离的作用

The Effect of Leader Emotional Intelligence on Group Performance and Employee Attitude: Mediating Effect of Justice Climate and Moderating Effect of Group Power Distance

本研究共收集了74个工作团队的数据,探讨了领导情绪智力对团队层面绩效(任务绩效、利他行为)和态度(满意度、团队承诺)的影响、公平氛围的中介作用以及团队权力距离的调节作用。研究结果表明:领导的情绪智力对团队绩效和态度均有显著的正向影响;程序公平氛围中介了领导情绪智力对团队任务绩效和利他行为的影响,交互公平氛围中介了领导情绪智力对团队任务绩效、满意度和团队承诺的影响;团队权力距离调节了领导情绪智力和交互公平氛围的关系,该调节关系通过交互公平氛围的中介作用影响团队任务绩效、满意度和团队承诺。

Recently, increasing numbers of researchers have shown interests in leader emotional intelligence. Even though some of them are optimistic on the relation between leader emotional intelligence and team performance, critics still remain and mixed results are found. What＇s more, the mechanisms and constrains that explain the effectiveness of leader emotional intelligence, especially at group level, are relatively unexplored. We address those research gaps by exploring the effect of leader emotional intelligence on leader-member interaction in the perspective of justice climate and group power distance. We also synthesize the performance and attitude at the group level to further examine the influence of leader emotional intelligence in working groups. Justice climate is a suitable reflection of leader-member interaction while emotional intelligence underlines leaders＇ social skills So that, exploring the effectiveness of leader emotional intelligence in the perspective of justice climate grasps the essential characteristic of emotional intelligence. On the other hand, group power distance is a contextual factor that affects the influence of leaders on group outcomes, thus it constrains the extent to which leader emotional intelligence could be effective. The sample for this study consisted of 74 working groups. We used the ability model to define emotional intelligence because it showed better psychometric properties. The questionnaires for leaders included emotional intelligence, group performance, and organizational citizenship behavior, while the questionnaires for group members included procedural justice, interactional justice, satisfaction and organizational commitment. Justice, power distance and four dependent variables were aggregated to group level. Multiple mediator model, moderated mediation and bootstrapping were used in the analysis. The result showed significantly positive relations between leader emotional intelligence and group level outcomes such as task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, satisfaction and organizational commitment. Those relations were mediated by procedural justice climate or interactional justice climate. Furthermore, group power distance moderated the relation between leader emotional intelligence and interac- tional justice climate： the relation is stronger in groups with higher, rather than lower, group power distance. Group power distance worked indirectly through interactional justice climate to affect group performance and attitude. The current study makes significant contributions both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, we join the debate of emotional intelligence＇s effectiveness by showing promising evidences supporting the positive effects of leader emotional intelligence on both performance and attitude at the group level. We also demonstrate the mechanism and contingency in the perspective of leader-member interaction by examining the roles of justice climate and group power distance. Practically, the result of this study suggests that emotional intelligence is an important ability we should consider when selecting the leaders. Leaders can make use of their emotional intelligence to create a justice climate in the organizations. Leaders should also pay attention to group power distance because it will affect the effectiveness of their emotional intelligence.