THE RELEVANCE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR LEADERSHIP – UAE CONTEXT

Emotional intelligence is essential when it comes to leaders, having the skill to understand the emotions of others and self-regulation will help leaders in taking decisions and to the success of the leaders. Moreover, when it comes to leadership and EI there is a very important action to take, which is measuring the EI within people. This paper measures the EI level of people living in the UAE using the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale. The main objective of this paper is to understand the level of awareness in the UAE regarding Emotional Intelligence and to provide recommendations for preparing the future leaders. The paper discusses pioneers or EI, domains and types as well as EI theories. The first hypothesis was that there is a difference between genders and education levels. The second hypothesis is that majority of people in the UAE lack understanding of EI. Both hypotheses were accepted, and further hypotheses are discussed. The sample size is 207 respondents who took part through simple random sampling. SPSS was used to make analysis and recommendations upon the findings. The data yielded in various findings which showed differences between genders and educational levels as well as work positions