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Article Title: Age: A determinant of Management's Emotional Intelligence Competency
by Philip Kiprotich Bii, Ongeri Lucas, Ombaba Kennedy B.Mwengei, Noah Koskey, Edina Korir, and Elias Maiyo Yano

Abstract:
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capacity of an individual to identify his/her own emotions and to become sensitive to those that he/she perceives from the environment and the circle of people he/she is interacting with. It is a particular set of abilities and knowledge-building attitudes. EI enables managers to tap into their emotions as a source of energy to foster intrapersonal and interpersonal understanding. EI is increasingly being emphasized as a leader attribute that managers require to improve the performance of their organizations. The objectives of this study were; to determine the influence of age on management's EI and to establish the moderating effects of gender and managerial experience on the relationship between age and management's EI. A survey research design was used for this study. The institutions studied were selected using stratified random sampling technique. The three strata considered were primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges/tertiary institutions. From each institution sampled, the respondent was the head of the institution. Apart from the data from the managers, each manager was also rated by four subordinates called raters. Emotional Competency Profiler (ECP) was used to determine the EI of the managers. Age was taken as the independent variable while EI was identified as the dependent variable. Manager's gender and managerial experience were considered as the moderating factors. Data was analyzed statistically using SPSS. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were carried out and hypotheses tested. Results showed that the managers exhibited moderate levels of EI. There was a significant positive linear relationship between age and EI (R2=0.67, F=28.18. t=12.9, p=0.000, ?=0.843). It was also observed that the contextual factors had mild moderating effects on the relationship between age of the manager and EI that was not statistically significant. It was therefore concluded age does have a bearing on the EI competency of the manager with older people posting higher EI levels.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, age, gender, experience, emotional competency profiler

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