The Professional Counselor | Volume 12, Issue 3 235 partners to act to improve the program and the school. School counselors engaging in transformational leadership ascribe to an egalitarian structure in which they engage in shared decision-making, promote a united vision, and inspire others to work toward positive change among students and the broader school community (Lowe et al., 2017). Beyond being studied as an outcome variable itself (Hilts, Liu, et al., 2022), school counselors’ enactment of leadership has also been found to be positively associated with their outcomes of CSCP implementation (Mason, 2010; Mullen et al., 2019). Emotional Intelligence and the Mediating Role of Transformational Leadership Over the past several decades, emotional intelligence has been increasingly attributed as a critical trait and ability of individuals employing effective leadership (Kim & Kim, 2017). For instance, Gray (2009) asserted that effective school leaders are able to perceive, understand, and monitor their own and others’ internal states and use this information to guide the thinking and actions of themselves and others. Mullen and colleagues (2018) found that, among a sample of 389 school counselors, domains of emotional intelligence (Jordan & Lawrence, 2009) were significant predictors of leadership self-efficacy and leadership experience. Specifically, Mullen et al.’s (2018) results showed that (a) awareness of own emotions and management of own and others’ emotions were positively related to leadership selfefficacy; (b) management of own and others’ emotions significantly predicted leadership experience; and (c) awareness and management of others’ emotions was positively associated with self-leadership. Moreover, initial research has revealed that not only is emotional intelligence an antecedent of leadership (Barbuto et al., 2014; Harms & Credé, 2010; Mullen et al., 2018), but that leadership, particularly transformational leadership, mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and job-related behavior such as job performance (Hur et al., 2011; Hussein & Yesiltas, 2020; Rahman & Ferdausy, 2014). For example, Hussein and Yesiltas’s (2020) results indicated that not only were higher scores of emotional intelligence positively associated with organizational commitment, but that transformational leadership partially mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment. In another study, Hur and colleagues (2011) sought to examine whether transformational leadership mediated the link between emotional intelligence and multiple outcomes among 859 public employees across 55 teams. The researchers’ results showed that transformational leadership mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and service climate, as well as between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. Scholars have explained this relationship as the ability of individuals employing transformational leadership to inspire and motivate others to accomplish beyond self- and organizational expectations and redirect feelings of frustration from setbacks to constructive solutions (Hur et al., 2011; Hussein & Yesiltas, 2020). Purpose of the Study Taken together, emotional intelligence has been identified in the counseling literature as a significant predictor of counseling self-efficacy and competence (Constantine & Gainor, 2001; Easton et al., 2008). It has also been well established in the workforce literature as being positively related to job performance and leadership outcomes (Hussein & Yesiltas, 2020; Kim & Kim, 2017). The broader leadership literature also comprises evidence in support of the mediating role of transformational leadership between emotional intelligence and performance outcomes (Hur et al., 2011; Hussein & Yesiltas, 2020; Rahman & Ferdausy, 2014). Emotional intelligence has not been examined in relation to school counselors’ CSCP implementation and service outcomes, although CSCP implementation has been widely embraced as a core of the ASCA National Model. Likewise, although emotional intelligence has been studied with counseling practice and leadership separately, we identified no empirical research that has examined the mechanisms between school counselors’ emotional intelligence, transformational leadership practice, and outcomes of program implementation. The present study seeks to address these gaps. Thus, the two
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