Women-Owned Businesses Leadership, Emotional Intelligence

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, one of the fastest growing segments of the economy is businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Within that segment, the number of firms owned by women continues to grow. Little research has been conducted to understand the critical factors of women's success, and in particular, how that success could be impacted by stress. The current study explored female small business owners in a variety of industries. The study investigated whether there was a potential impact of emotional intelligence and coping responses on leadership effectiveness practices. The purpose of this study was to examine whether any significant, predictive relationships existed between these variables. The focus of the study was female, small-business owners in the upstate New York cities of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. Each firm of the sample population had between 2 and 50 paid employees, in order to understand specific issues related to leaders in a size demographic that had not previously been researched.