Leader’s Emotional Intelligence and Employee’s Well-Being: A Multilevel Analysis

Background: Employee well-being is increasingly understood as the result of the interaction between individual vulnerabilities and organizational resources. However, limited evidence has examined how employees’ emotion regulation difficulties, workplace bullying, and leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) jointly contribute to psychological well-being within a multilevel organizational context. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) theory, this study conceptualizes emotion regulation difficulties as indicators of deficits in personal emotional resources, workplace bullying as a psychosocial job demand, and leaders’ EI as a team-level organizational resource. Methods: A multilevel design was adopted involving 287 employees nested within 41 work teams of an Italian communication company. Employees completed measures of emotion regulation difficulties, workplace bullying, and psychological well-being (level 1), whereas team leaders (level 2) completed the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Random-intercept multilevel models were estimated to examine direct and cross-level relationships. Results: Greater emotion regulation difficulties and higher exposure to workplace bullying were associated with poorer psychological well-being. Although leaders’ EI showed limited direct effects on well-being, specific emotional abilities—particularly understanding emotions —buffered the negative association between workplace bullying and psychological well-being. These findings suggest that emotionally intelligent leaders can provide a supportive interpersonal context that mitigates the impact of employees’ emotional vulnerabilities. Conclusions: The findings support a multilevel JD-R perspective in which employee well-being emerges from the interaction between deficits in personal emotional resources, psychosocial job demands, and organizational resources. By providing partial evidence for the buffering role of specific leader EI abilities, this study extends current knowledge on emotionally intelligent leadership and highlights its value for promoting psychologically healthy and sustainable workplaces.