. 2026 Jan 12;12:1744198. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1744198

Table 3.

Pearson correlations between emotional intelligence, self-esteem, and leadership competency by gender (N = 260).

Emotional intelligence		Leadership competency (male)					Leadership competency (female)
Emotional intelligence		(LC1)	(LC2)	(LC4)	(LC5)	Total	(LC1)	(LC2)	(LC4)	(LC5)	Total
Self-emotions appraisal (EI1)	r	−0.201^*	−0.143	−0.175^*	−0.109	−0.177^*	−0.233^**	−0.207^*	−0.189^*	−0.213^*	−0.216^*
Self-emotions appraisal (EI1)	P-value	0.023	0.108	0.048	0.220	0.045	0.007	0.017	0.030	0.014	0.013
Other emotions appraisal (EI2)	r	−0.208^*	−0.145	−0.156	−0.117	−0.183^*	−0.210^*	−0.181^*	−0.161	−0.154	−0.187^*
Other emotions appraisal (EI2)	P-value	0.018	0.102	0.078	0.189	0.039	0.016	0.038	0.066	0.078	0.032
Use of emotion (EI13)	r	−0.218^*	−0.150	−0.172	−0.154	−0.195^*	−0.204^*	−0.196^*	−0.170	−0.204^*	−0.204^*
Use of emotion (EI13)	P-value	0.013	0.091	0.052	0.083	0.027	0.019	0.025	0.052	0.019	0.019
Regulation of emotion (EI4)	r	−0.229^**	−0.181^*	−0.166	−0.158	−0.204^*	−0.170	−0.156	−0.143	−0.145	−0.168
Regulation of emotion (EI4)	P-value	0.009	0.041	0.061	0.074	0.021	0.051	0.074	0.102	0.097	0.055
Total emotional intelligence	r	−0.217^*	−0.157	−0.162	−0.149	−0.194^*	−0.195^*	−0.165	−0.152	−0.156	−0.177^*
Total emotional intelligence	P-value	0.014	0.077	0.067	0.093	0.028	0.025	0.059	0.081	0.073	0.042
Self esteem	r	−0.117	−0.108	−0.082	−0.112	−0.117	0.563^**	0.593^**	0.541^**	0.504^**	0.547^**
Self esteem	P-value	0.187	0.225	0.358	0.209	0.187	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001	<0.001

Self-esteem shows robust positive correlations with leadership for females (r range: 0.504–0.593, p < 0.001) but not males. This divergence is confirmed in regression (Table 4), where self-esteem predicts female leadership (β = 2.27, p = 0.001) but suppresses male leadership (β = −1.78, p < 0.001). *indicates p < 0.05; **indicates p < 0.01 (levels of statistical significance).