Emotional intelligence and high-performance leadership of women leaders: the mediating role of organization culture

Purpose - This study aims to explore the mediating effect of organization culture (OC) in the influence of emotional intelligence on the high-performance leadership of Chinese woman leaders. Design/methodology/approach - A quantitative study to analyze survey data from 290 women leaders in the Ning Xia Hui Autonomies Region private and public sectors based in Northwest China. Findings - The results indicate that emotional intelligence has a positive influence on woman leadership performance in China. woman leaders with higher emotional intelligence may have higher leadership performance. Further, emotional intelligence positively influences organization culture; OC also positively influences high-performance leadership. And the study also indicates OC mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and woman leaders’ high-performance leadership in China, which means that OC promote and reinforce the relationships between emotional intelligence and high-performance leadership in China. Therefore, organizations should pay more attention to the construction of OC to help Chinese woman leaders and organizations succeed. Practical implications - This study may catalyze positive social change in leadership development and management by helping women leaders implement effective leadership performance in a complex and global workforce. And to help women leaders increase their understanding of emotional intelligence, OC and its influence has on their performance. The proposed model of this study may help Chinese leaders put emotional intelligence, OC and high-performance leadership of woman leaders into a careful and integrated consideration. Professionals could use these results as a catalyst to develop a set of management plans and career development plans to improve woman’s understanding of the relationship between leadership performance and emotional intelligence. OC is critical to help women leaders present an effective leadership performance. Hence, this study may help women leaders successfully get more opportunities for growth and promotion in the organization. Originality/value - Through the first-hand verification of organization culture, this study provides an essential theoretical and background contribution to the impact of emotional intelligence of woman leaders on high-performance leadership. In addition, the study also has forward-looking thinking, that is, the second-order reflection-reflection model of OC and high-performance leadership of woman leaders, which will provide a new vision for variance-based partial least squares-structural equation modeling.