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J. Indian Assoc. Child Adolesc. Ment. Health 2014; 10(1):9-30

Original Article

Role of Parental Emotional Intelligence and

Perceived Parental Leadership Behaviour on Satisfaction with Parent

Dr. Deepika Dabke

Address for correspondence: Dr. Deepika Dabke, Faculty, IBS Business School,

Department: HR and Soft Skills, Hiranandani Knowledge Park, Opp. Hiranandani

Hospital, Off. Technology Street, Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai-400076, Email:

deepikadabke@hotmail.com

________________________________________________________________________

Abstract

Background: Parental handling is an important element in promotion of positive mental

health in adolescents. The Emotional Intelligence of parents and their parenting style are

critical elements governing the nature of parent-child dyadic relationships.

Aim: This study examined the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) of parents and

Perceived Parental Leadership Behaviour on adolescents’ degree of satisfaction with

parents.

Method: Data was collected from 200 working parent and their adolescent off-springs

wherein, parents completed the Mayer, Salovey and Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test

(MSCEIT) and the adolescents were administered the Multifactor Leadership

Questionnaire (MLQ), and Adolescent Family life Satisfaction Index; Parent subscale.

Results: Overall EI of parents showed a significant positive correlation (r=0.19, p<0.01)

with adolescents’ satisfaction scores. A significant positive correlation was seen

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between Satisfactions scores and all the Transformational aspects (r score ranging from

0.46 to 0.35, p<0.01) as well as Contingency Reward (r= 0.35, p<.01). Multiple

regressions analysis results led to emergence of Intellectual Stimulation (β = .21, ΔR2=

0.21, p<.01), Individualized Consideration (β = .18, ΔR2= 0.28, p<.01) and Idealized

Influence (β = .16, ΔR2= 0.29, p<.01) as a positive predictors of parental satisfaction.

Laissez- Faire Leadership (β = -.15, ΔR2= 0.25, p<.01) and Management by Exception-

Passive (β = -.14, ΔR2= 0.31, p<.01) emerged as negative predictors. Emotional

Intelligence failed to emerge as a predictor of satisfaction scores.

Conclusion: While EI has been upheld as an important trait that boosts interpersonal

relationships, Parental Leadership style seem to have a greater impact on adolescent’s

satisfaction with parents. The findings hold significant implications for Parental Skills

enhancement endeavours.

Key words: Emotional Intelligence, Transformational Leadership, Contingent Reward,

Laissez-Faire Leadership, Parental Satisfaction

Introduction

Emotions have always intrigued people. They are an important medium to examine since

they influence and can help or harm an individual’s perceptions, thought processes and

behaviours 1, 2. Emotions and an individual’s ability to intelligently deal with emotions

in self and others have been systematically studied and subsumed under

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the term Emotional Intelligence (EI) for almost two decades. The present study aims at

exploring the role of EI in the parental context.

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

Mayer and Salovey define EI as, ―the capacity to reason about emotions and of

emotions to enhance thinking 3. The importance and influence of EI in professional

roles has been empirically proved 4,5,6,7.

Another critical role wherein EI can play a significant part is the parental role. The fact

that family well-being depends immensely on parental handling is undisputed. Research

studies have shown a positive relationship between parental emotional management and

family and child well-being 8, 9.

Emotional Intelligence can be examined using the Mixed model or Ability model. The

Ability model of EI as developed by Mayer and Salovey 10 enjoys a greater statistical

superiority as well predictive value. However there is a paucity of studies using the

Ability tool especially performance based tools. In the present study, EI was studied

using the Ability model.

Parental Leadership Model

Parental role is a very critical component in the upbringing of an adolescent. Adolescents

present parents with numerous unique challenges associated with this life stage. As

adolescents progress through this developmental period, they show increased

dissatisfaction with family life 11 and tend to report lower levels of family cohesion

12

12, 13. On the other hand maintaining connectedness with parents during this period

has been identified as being equally important 14, 15. Thus Parental style becomes a

critical factor in influencing adolescents. Baumrind’s 16 seminal work on parenting

styles has been prominent in influencing research on parenting and its effects on children.

Whilst leadership is understood to have greater application in work, political or societal

scenarios, its role in the family systems is also imperative. A parent was looked at as a ―

family leader for the first time by Freud. A parental leadership role can facilitate

appropriate value inculcation and behavioural shaping.

Out of the numerous leadership models, Transformational leadership 17 model has been

the most extensively researched model. Transformational leadership is a process that

changes and transforms individuals. Bass proposed a full range leadership model

comprising of three leadership Behaviours: Transformational Leadership, Transactional

Leadership and Laissez- Faire Leadership. Past research has adequately proved the

predictive value of this model with respect to a number of business and behavioural

outcomes.

Figure 1 highlights the basic definition and essence of each construct in the full scale

model. Popper and Mayseless 18, while drawing a theoretical similarity between

Transformation leadership and parental role, have propounded that what good parents

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do and how they behave with their children, closely corresponds with what

Transformational leaders do and how they behave with their followers.

Figure 1

Both are sensitive and responsive, showing individual consideration for their protégées’.

Both reinforce the protégé’s’ autonomy in a supportive, non-judgmental way and by

actively providing developmental opportunities. While this model holds great predictive

power, very few studies have made an attempt to apply and empirical study this

leadership Behaviour in the parental context 19.

This study aims to assess the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Bass’s Full

Leadership Model in determining the quality of Parent child relationship.

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Hypotheses

1. There is a significant positive correlation between overall EI and Satisfaction with

parents as perceived by adolescents

2. There is a significant positive correlation between Transformational Leadership

Behaviour, Contingency Reward and Satisfaction with parents as perceived by

adolescents

3. There is a significant negative correlation between Management–by-exception as

well as Laissez faire Leadership and Satisfaction with parents as perceived by

adolescents

4. Transformational Leadership will evolve as positive predictor of Parental

Satisfaction perceptions of adolescents

5. Emotional Intelligence of parents will emerge as positive predictor of Parental

Satisfaction perceptions of adolescents

The proposed relationship between the various constructs and satisfaction scores

is summarized in Figure 2.

Figure 2

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Methodology

Sample

200 parent and adolescent dyads were selected for the study. Parents’ ages ranged from

35 to 58 years, with the average age of 46.74 years (SD = 4.14). Adolescent age ranged

from 12 years to 19 years with an average age of 15. 97 years (SD = 1.89). 81.5 % of

parents were males and 18.5 % were females. All the parents approached for this study

were working in a full time capacity.

Measures

Emotional Intelligence (EI)

EI of participants was measured by the MSCEIT V.2 test 20. The MSCEIT is a 141

item scale which yields a Total score, two Area scores and four Branch scores. For the

current study the Overall EI score, Strategic EQ score and the Experiential EQ score were

considered. The MSCEIT has reported full-scale reliability of .91, with Area reliabilities

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of .90 (experiential Emotional Intelligence) and .85 (strategic Emotional Intelligence).

The Cronbach’s alpha value of the current sample was found to be 0.72.

Transformational Leadership Style

Transformational leadership style was measured using the MLQ 5X scale 21 which

provides scores on three types of Leadership Behaviours:

Transformational Behaviour comprising of five aspects namely: Idealized

Influence Attributes (IDA), Idealized Influence Behaviour (IDB), Inspirational

Motivation (IM), Intellectual Stimulation (IS) and Individual Consideration (IC).

Transactional Behaviour comprising of three aspects: Contingency Reward (CR)

Management by exception-Active (MBEA), Management by exception- Passive

(MBEP)

Laissez faire (LZ) Leadership

There were generally adequate reliabilities (Cronbach alpha), for the MLQ5X, ranging

from α = .63 to α = .92.

Adolescent Satisfaction with the parent

It is the adolescent’s satisfaction with parents as measured by the parental subscale of

Adolescent family life satisfaction index 22. The 13 item scale consists of parental

subscale and sibling subscale where in the adolescents had to rate items on a scale of 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). For this study, only the 7 item parental sub-

17

scale was used. The internal consistency reliability coefficient (Cronbach Alpha) for

family life satisfaction was 0.93.

Procedure

Developing Local Scoring for MSCEIT

EI tests cannot be considered as completely culture fair, given their propensity to cultural

factors. The test authors of MSCEIT have provided an option to researchers to develop

their own scoring pattern using either general consensus or expert scoring method. In the

current study a general consensus method was followed. The procedural steps as

recommended in the “Developing Local Norms’ sub-section of the “About the Mayer -

Salovey – Caruso Emotional Intelligence Tests (MSCEIT’s)” section on the web site

http://www.unh.edu/Emotional-Intelligence/index were adhered to in order to be able to

score each participant according to the consensus method.

Results

The statistical analysis of the data was undertaken using the SPSS package. A Pearson’s

Product Moment Correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between

the EQ scores and Satisfaction scores obtained from adolescents. A Step-wise multiple

regressions analysis was conducted to identify predictors of Satisfaction scores of

adolescents.

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Hypothesis 1

As seen in Table I, all the facets of EI showed a significant positive correlation with

satisfaction scores. Strategic EI (r = 0.22, p<0.01) showed a stronger association with

satisfactions score than either the overall EI (r = 0.19, p<0.01) or the Experiential EI (r =

0.13, p<0.05). Thus the ability of the parent to manage emotions in self and others as well

as their ability to understand emotional information and use it strategically for planning

seems to be very crucial in the parent adolescent relationship. Hence the first hypothesis

that there is a significant positive correlation between overall EI and satisfaction with

parents’ as perceived by adolescents was fully supported.

Table 1

Hypothesis 2

Table II specifies the correlation coefficient scores between Satisfaction scores and Full

range Leadership. As indicated in Table II, significant positive correlation was seen

between all aspects of Transformational leadership (r score ranging from 0.46 to 0.35,

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p<.01) as well as Contingent reward (r = 0.35, p<0.01) and Satisfaction with Parent.

Strongest correlation was seen between the Inspirational Motivation (r = 0.46, p<.01)

and Satisfaction, implying that better the ability of parents to motivate the children, more

satisfied they are with their respective parents. On the whole, hypothesis 2 stating that

there is a significant positive correlation between Transformational Leadership

Behaviour and Contingency Reward with Satisfaction with parents as perceived by

adolescents was fully supported.

Table 2

Hypothesis 3

As denoted in Table II, Laissez faire leadership showed a significant negative correlation

(r =- 0.37, p<0.01) with Satisfaction scores. Similarly Management-by-exception-

Passive also showed a significant negative correlation (r = -0.27, p<0.01). While the

direction of correlation between Management-by-exception (Active) and Satisfaction was

20

negative, the coefficient failed to reach a significance level (r = -0.01, ns). To summarize

hypothesis 3 stating that there is a significant negative correlation between Management-

by-exception as well as Laissez faire (LZ) Leadership Behaviour and Satisfaction with

parents’ as perceived by adolescents was partially supported.

Hypothesis 4

A step-wise multiple regressions analysis was conducted to identify the predictors of

Satisfaction scores. As indicated in table III, Intellectual Stimulation (IS) (β = .21, Δ R2 =

.21, p<.01), Individualized Consideration (IC) (β = .18, Δ R2 = .28, p<.01) and Idealized

Influence- Attribute (IDA) (β = .16, Δ R2 = .29, p<.01) emerged as positive predictors of

satisfaction scores. Together the three aspects explained a variance of 27 % as far as

Satisfaction is concerned. Thus hypothesis 4 stating that Transformational Leadership

will evolve as positive predictor of Parental satisfaction perceptions of adolescents was

supported to a great extent.

Table 3

Hypothesis 5

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Hypothesis 5 postulated that EI will emerge as a positive predictor of satisfaction scores.

However the result of the multiple regressions analysis indicated that all the three aspects

of EI were excluded from the model, thus failing to emerge as significant predictors of

Satisfaction with parents. On the whole, hypothesis 5 stating that Emotional Intelligence

of parents will emerge as positive predictor of Parental Satisfaction perceptions of

adolescents was rejected.

The findings of the current study have been summarized in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Discussion

The findings of the current throw light on the role of Emotional Intelligence of the

parents and their Behavioural style on satisfaction perceptions of their adolescent off-

springs.

Emotional Intelligence and Satisfaction

22

The positive correlations between Emotional intelligence and Satisfaction scores reiterate

the significance of EI in interpersonal relationship. On an interpersonal level, people with

higher EI are more adept at reading the body language and emotional cues of others.

Through an empathic understanding, they are better able to strike a rapport with others

and manage their emotional reactions well. Schutte et al 23 have conducted seven

experiments to study the link between EI and interpersonal relationships. Results

indicated that higher scores for EI were related to higher scores for empathic perspective

taking, higher self monitoring, greater co-operative demeanor, and greater satisfaction in

relationships. The findings of the current study are in line with these findings.

These results can also be understood in the light of Implicit Leadership theory applied in

the family context. Implicit Leadership traits are personal attributes and characteristics

that followers expect their leaders to possess. Adolescents expect their parents to be

genuinely interested in them and give appropriate levels of attention. At the same time,

they want parents to love and accept them unconditionally. Parents with a high EI stand a

greater chance of providing such nurturance and warmth in spite of conflicts that

characterize the relationship in this phase. At the same time they may provide adequate

privacy and space that an adolescent yearn for. They may be in a better position to be

behavior-focused and issue-based while dealing with the children.

Transformational leadership skills

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In the given study, Transformational leadership was found to be positively associated

with Satisfaction scores. Intellectual Stimulation emerged as a positive predictor of

Satisfaction scores. Intellectual stimulation (IS) means the arousal and change in

followers of problem awareness and problem solving of thought and imagination. In the

parental context this refers to promoting independent thinking, respecting child’s idea and

promoting psychological autonomy 24. Parents aim at helping children achieve self

actualization by coaching, guiding, instructing and more importantly motivating them to

move from short term hedonism to long term goals. Individualized Consideration (IC) on

the other hand is an attempt to understand the specific needs of followers. In the parental

role, it involves focusing on the uniqueness of the children, respecting their individual

strengths and weaknesses and helping them explore avenues to fulfil those rather than

imposing parental agenda on them. Such attempts at identity development would lead to a

generation of satisfaction with parent.

Idealized Influence, which also emerged as a positive predictor, forms a component of

Charismatic leadership. A parental leader would use this style to inculcate appropriate

values and perspectives in the followers. Fostering trust and Role-Modelling would be

the two drivers for better behaviour management and character building. Modelling is

perceived as a major variable in predicting and explaining the influence of

Transformational leadership 25, 26. Such positive modelling may generate a sense of

pride and satisfaction in the eyes of adolescents.

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Laissez Faire (LZ) parents refrain from intervening in the children’s issues and would

often times be absent and uninvolved in the child rearing process 27. As a result they

would be least connected to their child‘s emotional as well as practical needs in tacking

life issues. Similarly Management-by-exception involves intervention only when

problems become chronic before they can be resolved. Parents indulging in Management-

by-exception-Passive may not be tuned to the child’s frustrations and plea for help and

thereby leave adolescents unsatisfied with parental intervention.

Predictive Power of Transformational Behaviour

While EI was positively associated with satisfaction scores, it failed to emerge as a

significant predictor. This could be attributed at least partly to the participants’

collectivistic cultural bend. Cross-cultural implications are frequently understood using

the five dimensions put forth by Hofstede’s 28. These dimensions are Power Distance,

Masculinity-Feminity, Individualism- Collectivism and Future orientation. India is a

representative of a high power distance and a collectivistic society. Recently, Matsumuto

et al 29 have also endorsed that members of an individualistic culture endorse more

emotional expression, whereas members of collectivistic cultures endorse less of

expression. Thus while emotionality is considered as an important element in

relationships, it does not seem to play a dominant role in deciding domain specific

satisfactions. A similar trend is also observed with respect to general life satisfaction

estimations 30. Thus it can be concluded that parental behavioural in the given role has

a far greater impact on the adolescent than their emotional skills.

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Limitations of the Study

While Thingujam 31, Sibia and Misra 32 have advocated the use of MSCEIT- the

ability based measure of EI, they have also suggested that the test be revised for the

Indian population rather than using it in its original form. While local norms were created

for the EI test, the use of original version of MSCEIT can be considered as a limitation.

Conclusion

The novel aspect of the current study was the use of a performance based measure of EI

and the Application of Transformational Leadership model to parenting. From the current

study, Emotional Intelligence can be considered as an important element in the parenting

role. However Parental styles seem to play a more prominent role in the quality of parent-

child dyadic relationships.

Performance based EI looks at EI as a trait based component and not a state –based

factor. Needless to say, training can have limited impact on this implicit attribute of

parents. On the other hand Leadership Behaviour is a skill and therefore trainable. Thus

there is a greater possibility of correcting our interaction patterns with the children and

creating more productive grounds for interpersonal interaction. The current study also

offers rich insights to practitioners to pursue systematic training approach for the

utilization the Transformational Leadership skills in parental context.

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Acknowledgement

The author takes this opportunity to thank Dr. Anuradha Sovani, Reader, UDAP, Mumbai

for her keen insights and guidance at all times during the designing and the conducting of

the study. She is also indebted to Ms. Sulabha Subramaniam for her valuable support

during the data collection phase. She is also grateful to all the participants who

accommodated her in spite of their busy schedule and provided their responses.

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Dr. Deepika Dabke, Faculty, IBS Business School, Department: HR and Soft Skills,

Hiranandani Knowledge Park, Opp. Hiranandani Hospital, Off. Technology Street,

Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai-400076