Relation of employee and manager emotional intelligence to job satisfaction and performance

This study examined the relationships among employees’ emotional intelligence, their manager’s emotional intelligence, employees’ job satisfaction, and performance for 187 food service employees from nine different locations of the same restaurant franchise. We predicted and found that employees’ emotional intelligence was positively associated with job satisfaction and performance. In addition, manager’s emotional intelligence had a more positive correlation with job satisfaction for employees with low emotional intelligence than for those with high emotional intelligence. These findings remain significant after controlling for personality factors. A similar pattern was found for job performance; however, the effect did not meet traditional standards of significance. Applied implications of the results are discussed.