Relationship between Conflict Management Strategies and Emotional Intelligence of Sport Coaches in East Azerbaijan Province

The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between conflict management strategies and emotional intelligence (EI) of sport coaches in East Azerbaijan province. According to the statistical population of this research that consisted of all sport coaches in East Azerbaijan province (N=750), 257 coaches were evaluated according to Morgan table with two questionnaires including Robbins conflict management strategies (1999) and EI questionnaire of Bradbury and Graves (2004). Content validity of both questionnaires was approved by experts and their reliability by Cronbach’s alpha. Then, the data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and K-S, Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression analysis (P≤0.05). Results showed that solution-oriented strategy was the dominant strategy for most coaches and their mean EI was higher than the optimal level (M=80). There was a reverse significant relationship between the conflict management and EI (re= -0.54, P<0.001). Also, there was a reverse significant relationship between the control strategy and EI (r= -0.44, P<0.001) and non – opposing strategy and EI (r= -0.57, P<0.001) while there was a significant and positive relationship between solution-oriented strategy and EI (r=0.37, P<0.001). According to the research findings, it is suggested that coaches are educated in order to familiarize more with advantages and disadvantages of each conflict management strategy.