Influence of moral intelligence and self-efficacy on leadership skills among Saudi middle schools' gifted students

Objective: To evaluate the influence of moral intelligence and self-efficacy on leadership skills among Saudi Middle Schools' Gifted Students. Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted among Saudi middle schools' gifted students in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The study explored the moral intelligence, self-efficacy and leadership skills of gifted students using validated and piloted self-administered questionnaires. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 122 out of 733 male gifted students in 89 schools. Data was analysed using SPSS. Results: The study included 46, 42, and 34 first, second and third level middle school students respectively. The results indicated that the respondents had moderate score in the self-control (4.225 ± 0.463), tolerance (3.899 ± 0.515), conscience (3.625 ± 0.453), respect (3.666 ± 0.535) and empathy (3.418 ± 0.484) domains whereas fairness (2.665 ± 0.664) and kindness (2.570 ± 0.721) had low mean scores. The students demonstrated moderate levels of self-efficacy and leadership skill. Self-efficacy, self-control, respect and tolerance were significant predictors of leadership skills. There was no significant impact for interactions of moral intelligence dimensions and self-efficacy on leadership skills score. Conclusion: Saudi middle schools' gifted students demonstrated moderate level of self-efficacy; leadership skills and moral intelligence. The students were found to possess moderate level of self-control, tolerance, conscience, respect and empathy while the level of fairness and kindness was low. Significant predictors of leadership skills were self-efficacy, self-control, respect and tolerance. Self-efficacy had no moderating effect on leadership skills among Saudi middle schools' gifted students.