Emotional intelligence and management of school culture in Nigeria

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) and determine if managers’ emotional intelligence is a significant predictor of school culture. It also examined the possibility that gender may have an effect on managers' influence on school culture. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study used a survey research method in order to learn more about how managers' emotional intelligence (EI) affected school culture in the study region during the time of the research. The independent t-test and multiple regression analysis were used to analyse the data using a sample of 100 vice principals. Findings: The findings indicated that managers’ emotional intelligence influence on school culture varies by gender and that the emotional intelligence of school managers is a significant predictor of school culture. Conclusion: According to the results' interpretation, emotionally intelligent principals can improve the school's environment making it more friendly and compassionate.


INTRODUCTION
Effective teaching and learning take place in a supportive school environment.Principals who are emotionally intelligent and have the capacity to read, comprehend and regulate emotions will be better able to teach students the correct values, foster a friendly trustworthy environment and remove harmful school culture.It is commonly stated that unmanaged or neglected emotional expressions particularly negative ones can lead to lower emotional stability which can serve as an incentive for disputes and toxic relationships in an organisation.Apart from being a policy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (2013), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (2021) emphasized the importance of positive school culture as not only promoting students' academic performance, self-esteem and wellbeing but also protecting them from involvement in deviancy, antisocial and risky behaviour.Strong relationships with coworkers and managers are facilitated by a positive work environment

CONCEPT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Organizational culture is frequently defined as shared, protected and encouraged behaviours and relationships that develop gradually into a collective identity and are a crucial component of integrity.Imron, Tunas, and Hamidah (2021) defined organizational culture as values and beliefs created and implemented in organizations that eventually become the cornerstone for building organizational behaviour, character and identity.Organizational culture thus defined as the convergence of beliefs, values, rules and attitudes that are operational in an organizations, controls and influences the tendency of employees to act in a particular way.An organisation establishes its brand throughout the world through the behaviours of its employees.Agi (2019) recognized the unique function of school culture in guiding and characterizing behaviour in secondary schools.Egitim (2022) actually suggested a direct relationship between organizational culture and organizational effectiveness as organizational culture can be harnessed to influence organizational members' decisions making and understanding of issues in the immediate organizational environment (Fok, Zee, & Morgan, 2022;González-Tejero & Molina, 2022).According to Vanesa, Matondang, Sadalia, and Daulay (2019) and Gilbert, Carr-Ruffino, Ivancevich, and Konopaske (2012), organizational culture can be functional or dysfunctional, positive or negative, toxic or healthy.A supportive school environment fosters teacher professional development, student wellbeing and teaching and learning productivity.Imron et al. (2021) suggested that organizational environment is measurable using parameters such as favourable social conditions, reciprocal respect, stability, values and others.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI)
According to Edara (2021), the value of emotional intelligence (EI) in people management and organizational workplace conditioning as an emerging science of human emotions emerged after Goleman's (1995) documents on the subject received a lot of attention.Odukoya, Omonijo, and Oraetue (2020) opined that there are numerous theoretical models for the concept of emotional intelligence (EI).Bar-On's model, focusing on social intelligence, the ability-based model of Mayer-Salovey and Goleman's competency model which focuses on workplace performance.The ability to recognize, interpret and express human emotions in acceptable ways when interacting and forming relationships with others is known as emotional intelligence.It is also an ability to learn, understand and think logically about human feelings using this understanding to make reasonable judgments about issues of relationships in our environments (Drigas & Papoutsi, 2018;Edara, 2021;O'Connor, Hill, Kaya, & Martin, 2019).Goleman (2004) divided the categories of emotional intelligence (EI) abilities into five areas or domains which are presented below without any particular order: self-control, self-discipline, interpersonal abilities, empathy and self-awareness (Edara, 2021).Self-awareness focuses on the ability to recognize and comprehend one's temper and how it affects other people, whereas self-motivation is directed towards success drive, striving for selfimprovement and attaining standards of excellence.Self-regulation focuses on one's capacity for self-control and remaining calm, positive and relaxed even under hard circumstances whereas empathy or social awareness addresses the ability to be sensitive to the needs and views of others.It also involves being receptive to other cultures.Finally, interpersonal or social skill is concerned with effective communication in relationship management, social networking, building compromise and rapport among people to achieve desired goals.Mannix-McNamara, Hickey, MacCurtain, and Blom (2021) claim that there is a symbiotic relationship between school administration and school culture, whereby changes to one lead to changes in the other.According to Ahuja (2015), an emotionally intelligent principal may assist in creating a positive school culture and boosting efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity in schools be cause managers shape school culture and organizational environments provide the crucial intersection for EI and management.Reio, Segredo and Cistone (2017) connected a school manager's EI to school culture based on the fact that human components form a better part of emotional intelligence and school culture.Moore Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle (2016) suggested that principals need emotional intelligence to feel and empathize with others and also use the same to negotiate the differences between feelings and opinions.This source will help principals identify emotional triggers that can appropriate people' feeling and cause problems in schools (Lindebaum & Cartwright, 2010).Emotional intelligence and organizational culture are said to be closely connected in the view of Danaeefard, Salehi, Hasiri, and Noruzi (2012) because self-stimulation or self-motivation which is an important skill of emotional intelligence showed the strongest value in its effect on organizational culture.Falahat, Chai, Aun, and Migin (2014) researched leaders' emotional intelligence, benign organizational culture and employee turnover intentions and concluded that an organizational environment which supports new ideas, creativity, cooperation, solidarity and positivity is attractive to people and diminishes employees' desire to leave, thus reducing turnover rate s (Alheet & Hamdan, 2021).Another aspect of emotional intelligence in an organizational culture is social awareness or empathy.Sanwal and Sareen (2023) linked managers' social-awareness skills to organizational innovation and culture because emphasizing relationships in the workplace inspires employee loyalty, inclusivity, confidence and willingness to put in extra effort (Ukpabio, 2018;Ukpabio & Ekere, 2018;Ukpabio et al., 2023).According to Undung and Guzman (2009), managers making the work environment more motivating and productive has a direct impact on organizational culture since it provides an enabling environment for leaders and workers to b etter comprehend different viewpoints and perspectives (Brzustewicz et al., 2022;Jurado-Salgado, Naranjo-Valencia, & Osorio-Londoño, 2022).

LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature examined whether managers' emotional intelligence (EI) is a predictor of school culture and how it affects school culture as it relates to gender.

MANAGERS' EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SCHOOL CULTURE: GENDER AS MEDIATING VARIABLE
Gender is an important demographic component when analyzing the influence of managers' emotional intell igence on school culture.This evaluation did not put effort into separating school leadership from school administration because it is believed that leadership and its traits are basic components of school management (Ekanem et al., 2023).Ran et al. (2021) conducted research to determine if EI is gender biased in its influence on managers' corporate finance decision-making.
The result prompted the conclusion that male managers demonstrated greater emotional intelligence manifestations of self-regulation, motivation and interpersonal skills of decisionmaking in financial organizations.Women managers conversely showed a greater EI tendency towards empathy and self-awareness in corporate finance decision-making.The study came to the conclusion that male managers had a greater effect of emotional intelligence on decision-making in corporate financing than female managers.Noor, Uddin, and Shamaly (2011) found that there are not many gender differences in leadership style or emotional intelligence with the exception of the interpersonal aspect of emotional intelligence which favored women.The management of health organizations from the gender viewpoint of emotional intelligence was investigated by Kitsios, Papageorgiou, Kamariotou, Perifanis, and Talias (2022).The emotional intelligence scale assessment questionnaire was used to collect data on the emotional intelligence levels of 161 respondents (senior, medium and junior executives).According to data analysis based on criteria x2, a high degree of emotional selfperception by health care managers was expressed.Additionally, the findings revealed that women displayed better levels of emotional intelligence and self-esteem management than men.Kim (2020) examined the effects of managers' emotional intelligence (EQ) and cognitive ability (IQ) on business performance and discover ed that male managers are more likely than female managers to experience a substantial influence from emotional intelligence.Mandell and Pherwani (2003) studied the gender gap in transformational leadership among managers of the hospitality industry sector in Pakistan.Results from the study showed that there were no noticeable distinctions between male and female managers in terms of emotional intelligence.Female managers scored better than male manage r s in te rms of transformational leadership rating.Furthermore, research results published by Noor et al. (2011) indicated that women perceive emotions slightly more accurately than men do as well as that women have slightly higher levels of social and emotional intelligence, more doubt about their feelings and decisions and a lower priority for intelligence than men do.There is a distinct and categorical gender advantage in the present trend of literature on the topic of whether the emotional intelligence of managers differs in its impact on organizational culture by gender.There was a lack of research on the effect of managers' gender on emotional intelligence in the general management of organizational culture.When Google and other search engines were used to find out how gender may influence a principal's emotional intelligence as they manage school culture, the results were unsatisfying.Men performed better on several emotional intelligence subscales than women did.For instance, Ran et al. (2021) found that male managers were more significantly influenced by motivation, social skills and self-regulation dimensions in their financial decisions than female managers when they researched the likelihood of gender effects on managers in financial decision-making in corporate institutions in Pakistan.In addition, it has been suggested that hormonal secretions associated with menstruation have a significant impact on women's mental states (Altemus, 2006;Amin, Epperson, Constable, & Canli, 2006;Pearson, 2005).Hosseini-Kamkar and Morton (2014) researched the evolutionary perspective of the self-regulation aspect of EI with regard to gender and concluded that during the menstrual period, females employ a more self-controlled and less impulsive behavioral strategy than in other times.They hypothesized that the study of gender variations in self-regulation would be affected by the physiology and chemistry of women.This is a result of the female menstrual cycle's fluctuating hormonal environment.According to the study, females exercise greater self-control in fertile cycles and are less impulsive in their behaviour than in other times.This may be the reason for the theory that if females outperform men in self -regulation, it may be due to more hormonal fluctuations than to behaviour management.The majority of the research on the differences in emotional intelligence between men and women came from non-educational settings.According to Stys and Brown (2004), even Goleman (1998), men and women differ and that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, did not establish a gender disparity in the matter of how emotional intelligence manifests itself.According to Mandell and Pherwani (2003), the measuring scale used is largely to blame for the disparities found in studies that examine gender inequality in EI expression.

MANAGERS' EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A PREDICTOR OF SCHOOL CULTURE
Emotionally intelligent managers encourage greater teamwork, a better working environment, respond to circumstances more emotionally and have more self-awareness, self-control and motivation.This is why emotional intelligence is considered to benefit organizations and even predict organizational culture and behavior because these management skills move organisations by fostering a favourable workplace culture (Mannix-McNamara et al., 2021).Robinson, Irvin, and Krishnakumar (2023) found that the ability to read and interpret emotions in the workplace is a strong predictor of inclinations towards organizational citizenship in their study of the predictive effect of job-related emotional intelligence on organizational citizenship.It is crucial to recognize the strong relationship between organizational citizenship and culture.Organizations gain a competitive edge to realize their mission and vision when employees exhibit high organizational citizenship behavior at work.According to Ibrahim, Aziz, Halim, and Sulaiman (2021), organizational citizenship behavior as an actions outside of an employee's work profile and essential duties that ultimately improve the job completion rate.According to this source, organizational citizenship behavior is in reality a byproduct of organizational culture.Organizational culture and emotional intelligence were investigated by Igbinovia and Popoola (2016) as potential indicators of work success among librarians in Nigeria's Edo state.Correlation and multiple regressions were used as analysis techniques and the results using a sample of 181 library employees indicated that organizational culture and emotional intelligence strongly influenced employees' work performance.According to the research findings, principals' emotional intelligence is a crucial predictor of school cultur e. Emotionally intelligent administrators will establish sound educational objectives, encourage friendliness, instill trustworthiness and create a sense of the schoolyard as a family.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The study's general goal was to determine how organizational culture in secondary schools relates to managers' emotional intelligence but its specific goals were to determine whether managers' EI influences on school culture significantly differ by gender and whether managers' EI skills are significant predictor of school culture.

METHODOLOGY
The study used a survey design as it sought to gather emotional intelligence information on serving principals and how they influence school culture at the time of the research.

Participants
This study was conducted with a sample of 100 principals and vice principals in the study area.Fifty-four principals and vice principals were purposively selected from public secondary schools in the study area while 54 principals and vice principals were randomly selected from private secondary schools, all in the Calabar metropolis of Cross River State in Nigeria.The decision to select 54 respondents from the private schools was made by the researcher to ensure equal and proportionate representation of both private and public secondary schools.A total of 108 respondents were served the questionnaire of which 100 correctly filled out and returned the instrument.As a result, this number (100) was chosen as the study's sample.

Instrumentation
The questionnaire titled" Managers' Emotional Intelligence and School Culture Questionnaire" was used for data collection.The questions for the independent variable were formed by paraphrasing the self -assessment scales of Goleman's (1995) five competencies of EI.There were four questions for each of the EI subscale framed in the modified Likert format of Strongly Agreed (SA) Agreed (A), Disagreed (D) and strongly disagreed (SD).The categories had the following numerical values: SA-4; A-3; D-2 and SD-1.The questionnaire was based on Daniel Goleman' EI vision because of the psychometric depth of the model based on self -assessment.The gender parity was measured by gathering data on male and female respondents' categories.The school culture section of the questionnaire was written by the author based on an adoption of the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement (GLISI) (2016) questionnaire template because of its inclusion and scope.

Validity and Reliability of the Instrument
The validity of the instrument was determined by two specialists in measurement and evaluation at the University of Calabar as well as by studying relevant literature.The reliability of the instrument was ensured by the use of the Cronbach alpha test to determine the internal stability of the variables of the study.The resulting calculation produced a reliability indicator of 0.87 thus certifying the questionnaire .

Methods of Data Collection
The questionnaires were administered with the assistance of two research assistants.The tools were provided to the target population following visits to the selected schools and relevant explanations.The completed surveys were then collected, compiled and coded.The data was analysed using an independent t-test and multiple regression analysis.

Hypothesis one
The influence of managers' emotional intelligence on school culture does not significantly differ by gender.The gender of managers was divided into two categories: male and female which is the independent variable of the hypothesis.Managers' emotional intelligence which has subscales of self-awareness, self-regulation, selfmotivation and social awareness is the dependent variable.The independent t-test analysis was used to compare each of the two categories of managers' gender with the five dimensions of emotional intelligence subscales.The result is presented in Table 1.(-2.120) are all significant at p=.000.The null hypothesis is rejected because the p (.000) value with 298 degrees of freedom is smaller than the p (.05) value.This demonstrates a considerable difference between male and female managers in terms of selfawareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social awareness, social skills and culture.The t-negative value indicates that the gender representation of those managers is extremely low.

Hypothesis Two
Managers' emotional intelligence in the form of self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, social-awareness and social skills is not a significant predictor of school culture.The school climate is a dependent variable.The validity of this hypothesis was examined using multiple regression analysis.The result of the analysis is presented in Table 2.

DISCUSSION AND FINDINGS
The testing of the first hypothesis and examination of the data led to the conclusion that there is a gender differential in the impact of managers' emotional intelligence on school culture.This resulted in the rejection of the null hypothesis and the adoption of the alternate hypothesis.The findings of this hyp othesis supported the study of Kim (2020) who explored the impact of managers' emotional intelligence and cognitive ability on firm performance and concluded that the effect of emotional intelligence on firm performance is more significant among male than female managers.This study contradicts the findings of Kitsios et al. (2022) discovered that women express higher emotional intelligence than men and also express higher management-evaluation of selfesteem than men in their study of the role of gender-based emotional intelligence in corporate financial decisionmaking.
The result of this study appears to contradict the trend of the literature on the subject.Existing research doesn't appear to support the idea that managers' ability to affect organizational culture differs based on their gender.Noor et al. (2011) take this viewpoint into account in their comparison of gender differences in emotional intelligence and leadership style.They came to the conclusion that there aren't many gender differences, with the exception of emotional intelligence's interpersonal component which the y found to be more favorable to women.Mandell and Pherwani (2003) in evaluating the relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership style as well as the gender gap in Pakistan's hotel business concluded that there were no appreciable disparities between male and female managers' emotional intelligence levels.
According to the current research, women exceeded men in the areas of self-regulation and self-motivation which have been considered to be male domains (Ran et al., 2021).According to this research, women outperformed men in self-regulation by values of 15.2500 to men's 14.6786 and for self-motivation, women outperformed men by values of 13.7045 to men's 11.9464.Caution is advised when comparing men's and women's emotional states due to physiological difficulties connected with women's menstrual cycles.Hosseini-Kamkar and Morton (2014) found that the menstrual cycle imposes some form of calmness on women, since they show less impulsive conduct during fertile times than during non-fertile periods.
According to the second hypothesis, managers' emotional intelligence including their levels of self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation and social awareness does not significantly influence school culture.The study's conclusions showed that emotional intelligence in managers in the above component is a major determinant of school culture.As a result, the original concept was abandoned and the alternate hypothesi s was accepted.This supports the findings of Robinson et al. (2023) who found that provided a strong relationship between organizational citizenship and organizational culture, the ability to read and understand emotions in the workplace is a powerful predictor of proneness to corporate citizenship and as a result, the creation of a positive organizational culture.
Emotionally intelligent managers advance their organisations ahead by encouraging stronger cooperation, a better work environment and higher adaptability in reacting to challenges with excellent self-awareness, self-control and

Table 2 .
Multiple regression analysis of the prediction self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, so c i al-awar en ess an d so c i al ski ll s (N=100).