Abstract: Based on cognitive resource theory and social exchange theory, we examine how the congruence of leaders’ emotional intelligence assessed by leader themselves and their subordinates respectively influences employee voice from the perspective of dual system. Using 43 leader-subordinate matched samples, we conduct a congruence test and a moderated mediation test through polynomial regression, response surface analysis and bootstrapping. The results show that: (1) there are four conbinations about the congruence between other-reported leader’s emotional intelligence and self-reported leader’s emotional intelligence, which are top-down, down-top, down-down and top-top. Among the four conbinations, top-top conbination can strength ambidextrous leadership’s influence most. (2) Employees are more likely to make their voices heard under situation of down other-reported and top self-reported emotional intelligence congruence. (3) Ambidextrous leadership partly mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence congruence and employee voice. (4) Leaders’ self-awareness negatively moderates the indirect relation via ambidextrous leadership between emotional intelligence congruence and employee voice. This finding sheds some light on the antecedents of ambidextrous leadership and employee voice, and provides new perspective to study leader-member exchange.

Key words: emotional intelligence congruence, leaders' emotional intelligence, leaders' self-awareness, ambidextrous leadership, employee voice