Examining the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence of School Principals and Their Leadership Styles

Abstract

The aim of this research is to determine whether the emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills of school principals show a significant difference in terms of their gender and age, and to determine whether the emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills of school principals predict their leadership styles. The WLEIS (Wong & Law Emotional Intelligence Scale), the Tromso Social Intelligence Scale, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and a Personal Information Form were used to collect the data. The research sample consists of 277 school principals, 67 women and 210 men, from Avcılar, Beyoğlu, Çatalca, Esenyurt and Güngören districts of İstanbul. Independent T-Test, One-way Analysis of Variance, Tukey test and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis were used in the statistical data analysis. According to the results of the analysis, it was determined that the emotional intelligence skills of the principals predicted the transformational and laissez-faire leadership styles scores as a whole but did not predict the transactional leadership style scores. Emotional intelligence skills explain 36.7% of the total variance in the transformational leadership style and 26.2% of the total variance in the laissez-faire leadership style. It was determined that the social intelligence skills of the principals predicted the scores of the transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style and laissez-faire leadership style as a whole. Social intelligence skills explain 38.7% of the total variance in the transformational leadership style, 15.6% of the total variance in transactional leadership style, and 34.3% of the total variance in laissez-faire leadership style.