ON WHY “EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE” WILL NOT PREDICT LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS BEYOND IQ OR THE “BIG FIVE”: AN EXTENSION AND REJOINDER

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been embraced by many practitioners and academicians without clear empirical support for the construct. In this rejoinder and extension of an earlier comment, I highlight the importance of using methodologically defensible scientific criteria for conducting or evaluating research. I review literature demonstrating that EI models are beset with problems concerning their validity and show that support for the EI construct may be based more on tangential speculation than on empirical findings. Although I find some common positions with EI researchers such as Prati et al., I underline contradictions and inconsistencies which may cast doubt on the necessity of EI for understanding and predicting leadership effectiveness.