School leadership is currently one of the most widely studied and published areas. However, leadership as a social process, affecting both end products and personnel emotions, is seldomly studied. In this paper, we study leadership as a social process ('emotional leadership', 'emotional intelligence').Reuven Bar-On developed in 1998 the concept of emotional quotient ("EQ") in order to evaluate person's emotional intelligence ("EI"). According to Bar-On (EQ Symposium, 2004), EI is "an array of noncognitive capabilities, competencies, and skills that influence one's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures". He created the Emotional Quotient Inventory (the EQ-i), which was the first test of emotional intelligence to be published by a psychological test publisher (1997). The EQ-i has five domains: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) adaptability, (4) stress management and (5) general mood (Bar-On, 1996; Bar-On, Tranel, Denburg & Bechara, 2003).Peter Salovey and John Mayer (1990; Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000) suggested that a new kind of intelligence - 'emotional intelligence' (EI) - gives us awareness of our own and other people's feelings. According to them (1990), emotional intelligence is "a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide ones thinking and action." Their EI model has five domains: (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) motivation, (4) empathy and (5) social skills (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).Daniel Goleman (1995) was first to develop valid measures of emotional intelligence and to explore its significance. He scientifically showed that emotional and social factors are important (1995; 1998a). Goleman (1995) first agreed with Salovey and Mayer's (1990) five domains of emotional intelligence, but later his thinking about the dimensions of emotional intelligence, and their accompanying characteristics, has evolved and simplified into four domains with eighteen characteristics. In his four-domain model motivation is merged into other four domains (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002, 253-256).We present a 51-item self-rating Emotional Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) that operationalises four domains of emotional intelligence (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). Our goal is to study with an empirical sample the construct validity of the four-domain model of emotional leadership: (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) social awareness and (4) relationship management. The sample consists of 124 Finnish comprehensive school teachers.The paper is organised as follows: First, we discuss the central concepts of emotional intelligence research body (Bar-On, 1996; Bar-On, Tranel, Denburg & Bechara, 2003; Gardner, 1983, 1999; Mayer & Salovey, 1990; Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000). Second, we present a 51 -item Emotional Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) that operationalises four domains of emotional intelligence. The instrument shares dimensionality and structure of our previously developed Leadership Competencies and Characteristics Questionnaire, LCCQ (Nokelainen & Ruohotie, 2005; 2006) but is more specific by nature. Third, we study with an empirical sample of 124 Finnish comprehensive school teachers the construct validity of the ELQ. Finally, we conclude the results, discuss the weak point of this study and suggest guidelines for future studies.The EI model we apply to this study contains four domains: (1) self-awareness, (2) self-management, (3) social awareness and (4) relationship management. ELQ operationalises those four domains into 18 characteristics according to Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2002). The 18 characteristics are further operationalised into 51 5-point Likert scale questions (1 totally disagree, , 5 = totally agree).Construct validity of the ELQ was analysed with an empirical sample of Finnish school teachers (N=124) in following three stages: (1) the central tendency and deviation values of the items measuring teachers' evaluations on their principals emotional leadership are analysed with nonparametric methods; (2) the variable structure of the ELQ is examined with Bayesian Dependency Modeling (BDM) in order to test it against the theoretical EI -model; (3) the emotional leadership characteristics are correlated (nonparametric Spearman's rho) with items measuring teachers' spiritual sensitivity (Tirri, Nokelainen, & Ubani, 2006). Investigation of teachers's evaluations showed that the head teachers had quite sound sense of their self-worth and capabilities.They were also able to read currents and decision networks at the school level, recognize and meet teachers needs, keep disruptive emotions and impulses under control, and see the upside in the events.The BDM results showed that the theoretical structure of EI is present in this domain. Further, the visual inspection of the Bayesian dependency network showed that all four EI domains were present in the model derived from the empirical sample. The results of correlational analysis revealed low correlations with decision-making and planning and organizational skills, and high correlations between leadership and human relations skills, as expected.Bar-On, R. (1996). The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i): A test of emotional intelligence. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems. Bar-On, R., Tranel, D., Denburg, N. L., & Bechara, A. (2003). 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