Emotional Intelligence and Administrative Effectiveness of Heads of Academic Departments in Public Polytechnics in South West Nigeria

The study examined the emotional intelligence and administrative effectiveness of HODs in public Polytechnics in South West, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were formulated and tested at .05 confidence level. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised all the 394 HODs in all the 18 public owned Polytechnics in South West Nigeria. The sample size comprised 197 HODs selected from 11 public Polytechnics using stratified and non-proportionate sampling techniques. Self-designed 25 items validated and reliable instrument, r = .89 titled “Emotional Intelligence and Administrative Effectiveness Questionnaire” (EIAEQ) was used for data collection. Data analysis was done using multiple Regression Analysis and Analysis of Variance. The result showed that emotional intelligence indicators jointly predicted HODs administrative effectiveness in the following descending order: self-awareness, social-awareness, relationship awareness, and self- management significantly predicted HODs administrative effectiveness and that there was no statistically significant sex difference on emotional intelligence of HODs in polytechnics in South West, Nigeria. The result further showed that gender was not statistically significant on administrative effectiveness as male HODs did not differ significantly from their female counterparts on administrative effectiveness. It was recommended inter alia that the appointment of HODs should be democratized to enable members of the department to have opportunity of assessing the emotional intelligence level of the aspiring HODs.