Emotional intelligence and leadership styles: a case study of school heads in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

In the contemporary education system, school effectiveness anticipates teacher dedication, a sense of responsibility, and team spirit. Such a soft shift in perspectives urges school leaders to reshape their administrative roles to architects of a conducive environment for ensuring the fulfilment of school goals and the promotion of teacher well-being. Arguably, this shift stipulates extended competencies of leadership, namely interpersonal and intrapersonal, which are the essential traits and competencies of Emotional Intelligence (EI). Therefore, this paper presents school heads’ perceived levels of emotional intelligence and the influence of EI on practiced leadership styles. A phenomenological case study was employed with representative cases of five schools. The sample comprised both school heads (n = 5) and teachers (n = 10). Data were collected using four methods, namely semi-structured interviews with teachers and school heads; shadowing of school heads’ to observe their behaviours; a web-based emotional intelligence test to assess school head’ perceived EI; and a self-assessment questionnaire of leadership styles. The findings highlight weak levels of emotional intelligence among school heads. The frequently preferred leadership styles include authoritarian and transactional which underscores a notably weak emotional intelligence integration in leadership practices. However, the sentiments of school heads and teachers varied, because the former considered leadership as their right to rule the team, while the latter found a disconnection between school heads and teachers and a concern for teacher well-being. The findings imply the urgent need to improve the EI of school heads to ensure teacher well-being.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aisha Naz Ansari

Aisha Naz Ansari is a graduate of B.Ed (Hons.) from Sukkur IBA University and holds an MPhil in Education from AKU-IED. She currently works as a Research Associate on a large-scale study at Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development, Pakistan. She has published more than fifteen (15) research articles and research blogs in international and national journals and forums. Her research areas include systematic reviews, educational technology, educational psychology, teacher education, public-private partnerships, and classroom teaching and learning.

Muhammad Mujtaba Asad

Dr. Muhammad Mujtaba Asad is serving as an Assistant Professor and Lead Researcher of Educational Technologies and TVET Research at Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan. Dr. Mujtaba has national and international working experience of more than 15 years in the industrialand educational sector in the domain of Educational Technologies in TVET, Work and Product-Based Industrial Education, and Competency-Based Education in TVET. Dr. Mujtaba has published more than seventy (70) research articles (WoS & Scopus Indexed) in reputed international journals and conferences worldwide. Also, two books related to the observational skills of competent educators and Innovative technologies in 21 st Century Education under the CS and T&F publishing house USA are in his publication credit.