Leadership styles and emotional intelligence among hospital managers

Hospital environment is most complex unlike other workplaces owing to the critical care, wide spread of specialists – medical and non-medical, intensively working for saving the patients battling between life and death. Such environment demands emotionally intelligent workface and also leadership on the part of them. Despite such prominence of the theme, studies are sparse on addressing leadership and emotional intelligence among hospital managers in the literature, leaving a serious gap in understanding the nature of such managers’ work lives. Encouraged by such thought, this study is initiated in two large public and private hospitals in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in which 200 hospital managers participated. When analysed, the data suggest that people centered styles of leadership among managers, predominated both public and private hospitals, besides managers from private hospitals were more emotionally intelligent than their counterparts. Implications are drawn for practice and future research directions.