Description
This study examined the relationship of leadership characteristics and emotional
intelligence in women leaders at community colleges in the United States. Although there are
more women leaders now than previously, women are still not equally represented in leadership.
The lack of women in leadership prevents other women from seeing themselves as potential
future leaders. The topics of transformational leadership, transformational leadership versus
transactional leadership, emotional intelligence, leadership and emotional intelligence,
transformational leadership and emotional intelligence, women leaders, transformational
leadership and women, and emotional intelligence and women were examined in the literature
review. The research reviewed information from 60 women community college leaders from
diverse sizes of community colleges. Quantitative methodologies were used to analyze the
survey results. There were no significant differences in the means of the Emotional Intelligence
Index among the categories of college size, ranges in years in role, nor across the ranges of years
in leadership position. The most significant finding in the research was that participants selfscored highest in transactional and execution characteristics. These reveal that many participants
of the survey are not transformational leaders, which corresponds to why no significant
correlations were found between their leadership characteristics and emotional intelligence.
