The relationship between emotional intelligence with administrators’ performance at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences

BACKGROUND: The leadership of an organization requires specific features to adapt to changes and to survive and grow in new environments, and emotional intelligence is one of the most important attributes that can help leaders and managers respond to these changes. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to determine the relationship between emotional intelligence with administrators’ performance at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 100 basic and middle managers of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran who were selected by census method in 2016. The instrument of data collecting was the “Inventory Shrinkage”, and the “Organizational performance evaluation forms”. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 16 using descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation. RESULTS: The results showed there was a significant negative correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational performance in administrators (r=−0.214, p=0.032). The findings also showed that among the components of emotional intelligence and administrators’ performance, only components of empathy, was there a significant negative correlation (r=−0.199, p=0.047). Also, there was no statistically significant relationship between emotional intelligence and demographic variables such as work experience, age, marital status and education level (p>0.05). There was no significant relationship between organizational performance and demographic variables, either (p>0.05). But between the components of emotional intelligence, only for social skills and work place of administrators, a significant positive correlation was confirmed (r=0.203, p=0.043). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study showed that there was a negative and significant correlation between the components of emotional intelligence and administrators’ performance of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences administrators, only in the empathy component.