A survey of the effect of leader’s social intelligence on employee’s perception of interpersonal justice: the mediating role of shared leadership

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a leader’s social intelligence (SI) on an employee’s perception of interpersonal justice by considering the mediating role of shared leadership. Conceptual model and research hypotheses have been developed by the Marlowe’ SI model (1986 Marlowe, H. A. (1986). Social intelligence: Evidence for multidimensionality and construct independence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 52–58.10.1037/0022-0663.78.1.52[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and the theory of shared leadership and interpersonal justice theory. Research population was Ministry of Education and training employees in TEHRAN; 108 employees were selected for gathering the required data. Data were collected using a standard questionnaire. Reliability testing of questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha was confirmed by .96 coefficient. For analyzing data and determining the relationships between variables of conceptual model, the covariance-based structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood method has been used. Results provide acceptable evidence of convergent and discriminant validities and internal consistency and item reliabilities of the measure of SI, interpersonal justice and shared leadership. The study contributed to our understanding of the linkage among pro-social attitude, social performance skills, empathetic ability, emotional expressiveness and confidence between shared leadership and interpersonal justice. Results of data analysis show that among SI dimensions, the ‘pro-social attitude’ by .383 coefficient has the highest effect on perceived interpersonal justice. Also among shared leadership dimensions, the ‘perceived shared purpose’ by .378 coefficient has the highest effect on the perceived interpersonal justice.