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Globalization has enhanced the need for organizations to attempt to sustain their competitive advantage. To insure this, organizations must have a leadership structure and cadre that actively engages with their employees. There have been numerous past efforts to improve the understanding of leadership effectiveness (Brown et al., 2006). The provision of a conducive work environment with constructive feedback is believed to positively influence the employee performance. Past research has suggested that a substantial factor influencing employee performance directly and indirectly is the leader’s emotional intelligence. Various studies like Momeni, 2009; Gabel et al., 2005 have suggested that a noteworthy leadership competency to manage employees and to gain competitive advantage is the measure of the supervisor’s emotional intelligence.
A variety of emotional intelligence models have been suggested by the literature. Bar-On’s (1997a) worked on Personality trait model of emotional intelligence mainly related to wellbeing. Goleman’s (1995) worked on mixed models of emotional intelligence, his work was grounded in his analysis of Gardner (1993); which defined emotional intelligence to be the ability to not only identify your own feelings but also of those of others which facilitates self-monitoring and enables managing the emotions of others during transactions (Goleman, 1998b, p. 317). Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) proposed emotional intelligence to be ‘‘the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’’ (Salovey and Mayer’s, 1990, p. 189). The suggestions by Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) were accepted warmly by the researchers circle because of rigorous scientific approach used to prove the model.
Research suggests that emotional intelligence is a critical leadership quality which influences organizational development and growth supports optimal employee performance (Pinos et al., 2006; Goleman, 1998). According to Yukl (2006) an emotionally intelligent leader dose not only monitors and understands the emotions of him and his subordinates but also stimulates inspires the needed behaviors in them. Similarly, an emotional intelligent leader who supports, listens, and involves employees in goal setting, enhances his employee commitment thus enabling them to share more knowledge and efforts at workplace (Butler, 2008). Research also supports that the feedback environment is an important element of managerial system and contributes positively towards organizational effectiveness including employ commitment, employee satisfaction, morale building, role clarification, organizational citizenship and employee engagement. (Gregory and Levy, 2011; Rosen et al., 2006; Norris-Watts and Levy, 2004; Whitaker et al., 2007). Similarly, Sparr and Sonnentag (2008) considered the impact of feedback environment on employees’ overall well-being and employees intentions towards turnover, however, less has been researched about the relationship between the feedback environment and employee performance.