| Emotional intelligence (EI) has been characterized as a set of skills “relevant to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and in others, and the use of feeling to motivate, plan, and achieve in one’s life” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990: 185). As such, emotional intelligence has been linked to a wide range of individual and group outcomes, including academic success, leadership effectiveness, life satisfaction, and subjective well-being (Cartwright & Pappas, 2008; Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Fiori & Antonakis, 2011). In the workplace, emotional intelligence is considered an important predictor of career success, in part due to its role in building interpersonal relationships and developing effective coping strategies (Armstrong, Galligan, & Critchley, 2011; Lopes et al., 2004). An extensive body of research indicates that career success is a function of ability (Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005), personality (Ng et al., 2005), opportunity (Cokley, Dreher, & Stockdale, 2004; Dreher & Ash, 1990), and their interactions. Yet there are few systematic examinations of the relationship between emotional intelligence and career success, despite strong interest in the popular press (e.g., Bradberry, 2014; Oaklander, 2014). Most of the extant literature has focused on short-term work outcomes such as job performance and job satisfaction, with disappointing findings (Semadar, Robins, & Ferris, 2006; van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004). These results have called into question the importance of emotional intelligence for longer-term measures of career success (e.g., Landy, 2005). The few studies that have examined the link between emotional abilities and career success have been limited in terms of design. One investigation reported no significant relationship between emotional intelligence and career success after just two years of work experience (Rode, Arthaud-Day, Mooney, Near, & Baldwin, 2008). Amdurer and colleagues found that emotional intelligence was related to self-reported career success over a 5- to 19-year time period in a sample of MBA graduates (Amdurer, Boyatzis, Saatcioglu, Smith, & Taylor, 2014). However, they utilized an observation-based measure of emotional intelligence that is difficult to replicate. The few other studies examining the EI-career success relationship are cross-sectional in nature (e.g., Momm et al., 2015), which precludes any definitive conclusions regarding causality. |