Buffering Role of Transformational Leadership and Emotional Intelligence in the Relationship between Team Conflicts and Team Performance

Abstract

Conflicts in organizations, regardless of their nature, have been reported to have deleterious impacts on performance, however, recent trends reveal researchers' interest in examining the factors that may help in curbing conflicts' negative effects on performance.To significantly contribute to the ongoing debate in the literature and provide novel insights on this important issue, this study investigates the buffering role of transformational leadership and emotional Intelligence in reducing the jeopardizing effect of team conflicts on team Performance.A study among 254 project-based employees of a private consulting organization supported our assumptions that the negative association between team conflict -categorized as task, relationship and process conflict -and team performance has been significantly reduced at higher levels of transformational leadership behavior and the exhibition of higher levels of emotional intelligence than at lower levels.The results of this study imply that transformational leadership behavior has the capacity to weaken the unwarranted effects of different forms of conflicts rising in the workplace that may have negative implications for team performance.Similarly, the group-level display of higher emotional intelligence has an equally significant role to play in dampening the negative consequences of numerous conflicts on team outcomes.