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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1526797
From intention to perception: Emotional processes as a link between intended and
Provisionally accepted- 1Department applied economics I, Faculty of Psychology, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
- 2Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Department of Mechanic and Industrial Production, Mondragón, Basque Country, Spain
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Research has shown that managers and employees often differ in their perception of leadership and that agreement between them is essential for effective leadership. Leadership is a matter of actions of the leaders and perceptions of followers who interpret what occurs in organizations. Thus, the extent to which intended leadership style influences followers and, therefore, organizations may depend on f0ollowers' perceptions. That is why it is relevant to analyze the relationship between leaders' intended leadership styles, the followers' perceptions of leadership style, and the process of mediation between them. This study explored the mediation effect of management team emotional intelligence (TEI), the discrete emotions of followers and work units, and the relationship between intended and perceived leadership styles. Data were gathered from two sources: 1,566 managers grouped into 188 teams and 4,564 workers. These groups were analyzed using multilevel path analysis. The results showed that TEI and employees' emotional states had a full mediation effect on the relationship between management teams' intended transformational leadership and employees' perceived transformational leadership. The implications of these results are discussed in this paper.
Keywords: Team Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, Intended Leadership, Perceived leadership, Leadership
Received: 12 Nov 2024; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mindeguia, Aritzeta, Garmendia and Olarza. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Rosa Mindeguia, Department applied economics I, Faculty of Psychology, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain
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