Nurse Managers’ Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership: A Review of Current Evidence

The review that was conducted by Dr. Prezerakos [1] has contributed to the body of knowledge on Emotional Intelligence (EI). It was systematically conducted with the aim to highlight the importance of EI in achieving effective nursing leadership. Although several reviews were conducted on EI in the nursing context [2-4], this was a unique study targeting nursing management and leadership. The review provided a critical analysis of the presented literature and included both qualitative and quantitative studies. While a limitation, the data presented in the review are still valuable given the lack of randomized trials on EI and nursing leadership. Prezerakos’s article is not a systematic review, though it has summarized and provided basic evidence about the significance and influence of EI on effective leadership in nursing. The outcomes ascertaining the association of EI with effective leadership do not only exist in the health sector but also other organizations and sectors [5]. Therefore, the results of Prezerakos’s article could be of benefit to a wide range of disciplines involving leadership research. In this sense, the discussion of the article was circling around the importance of emotional skills of leaders in achieving a healthy work environment [6]; see also studies in Dr. Prezerakos' review