The Influence Of Emotional Intelligence On Sustainable Leadership In Environmental Organizations

Abstract

cThe drive toward sustainability has added increasing pressure for the environmental organizations in the world to integrate sustainability into all aspects of governance. Leadership quality is seen as the "key" for the sustainability of the organization, but the emotional competencies that underlie sustainable leadership have not been adequately studied. The study aims to explore the role of emotional intelligence (EI) and its five facets (self-awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills) on sustainable leadership behaviours of 245 senior and middle managers from environmental organizations in India. As for the design; the study uses quantitative cross sectional research design and multiple regression analysis, which shows that EI has a strong and statistically significant positive effect on sustainable leadership (R²=0.64; F=86.3; p<0.001). Empathy (β=0.31, p<0.001) and self awareness (β=0.28, p<0.001) emerged as the strongest predictors. One way ANOVA also found significant differences between the groups for both EI and sustainable leadership score by organization type (p<0.001). The findings add to the body of Green Leadership–EI literature by providing detailed, level-by-level evidence in a non Western environmental sector setting and have practical implications for leadership development curriculum and/or selection for sustainability-related organisations