Gender and generational cohort impact on entrepreneurs’ emotional intelligence and transformational leadership

Abstract

Emotional intelligence (EI) and leadership style are topics that have attracted a growing interest in the literature. In this study, we posit that entrepreneurs’ EI is an antecedent of transformational leadership (TL) while examining the moderating role of gender and generational cohort. Data were collected from 2,084 international entrepreneurs and analysed using multivariate analysis and hierarchical linear regression. The results confirm EI as an antecedent of TL and show that others’ emotion appraisal (OEA) and regulation of emotions (ROE) are the most contributing subdimensions of EI to TL. Moreover, the study also reveals significant gender and generational cohort differences for EI and TL. In one of the relevant findings, our research shows that only female Gen Z entrepreneurs have lower scores than their male counterparts. Although men’s EI scores are similar across generations, women’s scores are significantly higher in each older generation leaving ¡open questions for further research in the area.