A Study on the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Styles and Perceived Leadership Effectiveness in Bhutan

Effective leadership is the key in every organization to face the challenges of an organization in the dynamic twenty-first century. Past studies have revealed the relationship between emotional intelligence, leadership styles and leadership effectiveness in different cultures and countries, but there is no evidence of a study in the Bhutanese context. Hence, this study is aimed at understanding the relationship between emotional intelligence, leadership styles and perceived leadership effectiveness of financial institution supervisors in Bhutan. This quantitative research is conducted with a sample of 265 supervisors using Trait Meta-Mood Scale that measures emotional intelligence and Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ5X); it also measures leadership styles of leaders in three cities, namely Thimphu, Paro and Phuentsholing. The findings of the study showed that there is a significant relationship between leadership styles and perceived leadership effectiveness and also between emotional intelligence and perceived leadership effectiveness. The implication of the findings is that emotional intelligence acts as a partial mediator for transactional leaders in making them effective but a full mediator for transformational leaders in making them effective. Further studies should be conducted in other organizations in order to generalize the findings in the context of Bhutan. These findings will help in further research in the field of emotional intelligence, the interrelationship of emotional intelligence with leadership styles and perceived leadership effectiveness, especially in the context of Bhutan.