Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Decision-Making in Educational Organizations: The Mediating Role of Communication Effectiveness

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been emerging as a critical competency in educational leadership due to the fact that leaders have to deal with complex interpersonal relationship, emotional pressures, stakeholder expectations, and organizational decision making. Communication effectiveness may be an important mechanism for conveying emotional intelligence to effective leadership practice. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the leaders’ emotional intelligence and the quality of decision-making in the education organizations. It also examines the mediating process between emotional intelligence and leadership decision-making that could be the communication effectiveness. The study adopted the integrated review method of literature, which is a secondary academic literature method. There have been several empirical and review studies, which were synthesized, together with foundational theoretical literature, in order to discover common relationships, mechanisms and conceptual patterns. The analyzed suggests that an emotionally intelligent leader is better equipped to control emotions, handle conflicts, build trust, foster relationships with others, and positively address organizational issues. The synthesis also indicates that the effectiveness of communication is a way of bringing these emotional skills into the practice of leadership through active listening, sharing information openly, interacting in a supportive manner, providing feedback, and involving stakeholders. This study suggests that communication effectiveness as a mediator variable between the emotional intelligence of leaders and decision-making quality in education organizations is considered significant. The use of emotional intelligence and communication skills in educational leadership development could then help in making decisions in a more inclusive, transparent, and context-dependent manner.