Exploring the Paths Between Ethical Leadership and Task Performance: Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

Ethical leadership is known to produce multiple positive employee outcomes. Ethical leaders provide guidance to their followers on ethical standards. The ability of emotional perception enables one to perceive and understand his/her own feelings completely and correctly, and better react to situations involving emotional interactions. Emotional intelligence has also positive impacts on various employee outcomes such as task performance. Task performance is linked to main organizational activities and behaviors typically specified in job definitions. Task performance is influenced by several factors, one of which is ethical leadership. Accordingly, the present study aimed to examine how emotional intelligence is related with task performance and whether ethical leadership has a mediating role in such relationship. The study was conducted with 256 participants using a set of questionnaires. The study data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The study results showed that emotional intelligence has a positive effect on task performance, and ethical leadership plays a fully mediating role in such relationship.