The Effects of Leaders’ Emotional Intelligence on Employee Engagement in Vietnamese Construction Companies – A Case of Hoa Binh Corporation

Abstract

Emotional intelligence has become an emerging topic in the leadership field. To follow that trend, this research was conducted to investigate the application of leaders' emotional intelligence in formulating appropriate leadership styles for enhancing employees' job engagement. Quantitative approach was employed with structured questionnaire distributed to 400 white-collar employees working in offices of Hoa Binh Corporation and its subsidiaries located in Ho Chi Minh City. The empirical results of this research indicated that five leaders' emotional intelligent competencies, namely self-motivation, self-esteem, self-management, emotional literacy, and interpersonal relation had statistically positive effects on the employee engagement; whereas, the leader's competency regarding to change resilience had statistically negative effect on the employee engagement. These variables could explain for 79% of the variation in the employee engagement at the work place. This result implied a strong influence of the emotional intelligent leadership in retaining and developing the workforce engagement.