Employees’ Emotional Intelligence in Private vs Public Organizations and Performance: The Mediation Effect of Transformational Leadership in a Time-lagged Study

Research about transformational leadership has demonstrated a bond with emotional intelligence. Employees under a transformational leadership relationship score higher on both constructs. However, whether this result is comparable across public and private organizations remains a research gap. This study examines the relevance of private versus public workers'' emotional intelligence in perceiving their leader´s transformational style and its impact on both objective (production rate) and subjective (satisfaction) performance. In a two-time response design, 423 workers (239 men and 184 women) in T1 and 305 workers (167 men and 138 women; 72.10%) in T2 responded about their leader´s leadership style. The results confirm the relationship between the worker''s emotional intelligence and subjective performance, with perceived transformational leadership serving as a mediator in this relationship for private organizations. However, in public organizations, the higher the level of perceived transformational leadership, the lower the percentage of productivity. Thus, the type of organization (private versus public) moderates this mediational relationship, which is maintained over time. In summary, employees'' perceptions of their leader''s leadership style in private organizations are more relevant than in public organizations, with higher levels of performance in the former compared to the latter. Therefore, this paper contributes to the knowledge base by addressing the shortcomings of recent studies through the incorporation of an organizational effect type in a two-time-lagged approach (T1-T2). This time-lag study examines the importance of workers'' emotional intelligence in understanding the role of transformational leadership in performance in private versus public organizations. These findings help in making decisions about leadership training.