Transformational Leadership Style and Team Innovation: The Moderating Role of Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence

Array

Abstract

Organizations around the world continuously confront a wide range of challenges, risks and obstructions occurring in dynamic and complex business environment. These vulnerabilities keep on menacing their sustainability and appropriate functioning. Given such uncertain external pressures, the capabilities of employees working in teams within these organizations have become crucial and by time evolving as their viable assets. Business leaders are often tested for their agility in response, resource base sufficiency and innovative outcomes through unpredicted crises. Leading in tough times is itself a toughest challenge in face of unparalleled environmental pressures. It is therefore important to understand and explore what entails a successful leadership role for teams to remain innovative given any drastic change occurs. The objective of intended research was to address gaps in the understanding and comprehension of team innovation through leadership and leaders’ emotional intelligence in order to identify how leaders derive their teams in uncertain business environments. This study determined the influence of transformational leadership on team innovation with emotional intelligence of leaders as a moderating variable. The results showed that a relationship exists between transformational leadership and innovation in teams in an uncertain environment. Transformational leadership boosted employee innovation in teams. Accordingly, emotional intelligence has been seen as ability of leaders to make a set of norms that recognize employees in teams; yet, unpredicted effect of emotional intelligence on the relationship between transformational leadership and team innovation has been witnessed in this research.