How emotionally intelligent individuals become leaders: the crucial roles of vertical and horizontal exchange in collectivist culture

Purpose Drawing on a social constructionist perspective of leadership, this study aims to investigate how and when emotional intelligence is transformed into leadership emergence through individuals’ vertical and horizontal social exchange relationships. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from team network data involving 313 subordinates and their 84 supervisors across 51 work teams in China. Findings The results showed that a member’s emotional intelligence is related to their leadership emergence via both leader-member exchange and team-member exchange. Collectivist culture enhances the relationship between emotional intelligence and team-member exchange as well as the indirect relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership emergence via team-member exchange (rather than leader-member exchange). Originality/value We shift the focus from the information-processing perspective of emotional intelligence to a social construction perspective of leadership, particularly in collectivist cultures that value interdependence. This research contributes to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of the link between emotional intelligence and leadership emergence.