Thinking style and emotional intelligence: An empirical investigation - Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Asher

The paper empirically examines conceptual links between thinking styles and emotional intelligence. It surveys literature on thinking styles and emotional intelligence, suggesting thinking styles can be conceptualized as right-brained, left-brained, or whole-brained and measured with MBTI subscales. The review also indicates that management and awareness processes relate most closely to thinking styles. Based on literature, hypotheses about relationship patterns are tested, and findings show left and right-brained styles correlate with emotional intelligence variables in theoretically expected directions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Narrative about technical expertise and emotional intelligence

Thinking style and leadership transition

Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

Brain Hemisphere Dominance

Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business Thinking style and emotional intelligence: An empirical investigation T. Winters Moore East Tennessee State University J. Blake Snider East Tennessee State University Mark Luchini East Tennessee State University ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper was to empirically examine the conceptual links between thinking styles and emotional intelligence. The paper reviews pertinent literature about thinking styles and emotional intelligence. Findings from the literature review suggest that thinking styles can be conceptualized as right-brained, left-brained, or whole-brained and can be measured with the subscales ofthe MBTI. Findings also revealed that although emotional intelligence has been measured a number of ways in the extant literature; the key processes of management and awareness are most closely related to thinking styles. Based on the review of literature, a number of specific hypotheses about the pattern of relationships between thinking styles and emotional intelligence concepts were tested. Analytical findings revealed that both left and right-brained thinking styles are related to emotional intelligence variables in conceptually expected directions. Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Thinking Style, Leadership Copyright statement: Authors retain the copyright to the manuscripts published in AABRI journals. Please see the AABRI Copyright Policy at [http://www.aabri.com/copyright.html](http://www.aabri.com/copyright.html). Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business INTRODUCTION There is a narrative circulating in many management circles that starts with the idea that highly technical people typically arrive at the top of their given area of expertise through intense focus on logical analysis, problem resolution, technical terminology understanding, and proficiency in specific areas of their chosen field. Another key feature of this narrative is that academia has also followed course by focusing its educational programs in these areas. This learning process is typically reinforced in their careers by continued learning of the exact same skills via company financed conferences, seminars and various forms of advanced discipline education. As the person becomes more of an expert, they are generally more respected and regarded by their management and peers bringing about a certain, possibly incorrect, aura of referent and expert leadership and management qualities. Once they reach the top of the nonmanagement hierarchy, the normal course of action is many times to automatically assume them for promotion into a frontline management position. Typically, both the employee and their managers expect this as a natural progression up the corporate ladder. This “work hard and keep moving up” idealism is in itself an ingrained part of general business culture and expectations. To the extent that this narrative exists in the real world, it follows that while this model may work in many traditional non-technical occupations, the highly technical person often times falls short showing an incredible lack of emotional intelligence, which is a major factor in management and leadership success (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009) . They struggle with their inability to relate to people, their lack of understanding personal inter-relationship intricacies, and failure to be an empathetic encourager, mentor and leader to their staff and teams. More simply put, many times in the case of the technical professional desiring to move into management, as Goldsmith (2007) says,”What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There”,(Goldsmith, 2007) . While interpersonal skills are necessary to manage in any discipline, the highly technical person often times has the intrinsic, erroneous belief that his or her expert technical knowledge and ranking, alone, automatically makes them good managerial candidates. Goldsmith (2007) says: It’s not that these people don’t know who they are or where they’re going o

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the paper?

To empirically examine conceptual links between thinking styles and emotional intelligence.

How does the paper describe thinking styles?

Thinking styles are conceptualized as right-brained, left-brained, or whole-brained and measured using MBTI subscales.

What relationship is found between thinking styles and emotional intelligence variables?

Both left and right-brained thinking styles relate to emotional intelligence variables in directions expected by theory.

Sep 17, 2026

Uploaded by Asher