The United States Government relies on information technology to provide services to its citizens, spending more than $600 billion on its products and services in the last decade. Given the current fiscal climate, the Executive Branch of the United States Government has a renewed focus on information technology (IT) innovation, requiring federal chief information officers to improve operational efficiency and reduce overall costs. Under these constraints, the leadership role of the federal chief information officer (CIO) is more critical now than ever before to overall agency mission performance. This study examines the effect of emotional competencies on federal CIO Leader Effectiveness and argues that transformational leadership behaviors, including Leader Emotional Intelligence, are more important in the public than in the private sector because of unique organizational management challenges. Existing literature focuses on Leader Emotional Intelligence for improving leadership outcomes and Follower Job Performance and Follower Job Satisfaction. However, a literature gap exists regarding technology workers in the public sector. This study uses a research synthesis methodology to examine federal technology management through prior research and triangulates the findings with data from the 2011 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The results of this study affirm the opportunity for improving federal IT management by using emotional intelligence and transformational behaviors to build effective working relationships and positively influence strategic outcomes. Increased organizational focus on leader interaction and communication skills positively affects the overall culture of IT organizations through a renewed appreciation of the individual. The study findings inform transformational leadership, followership, and organizational behavior management theory within the public sector technology context. Unlike cognitive intelligence, organizational intervention can improve emotional intelligence. Applying these findings, agency human resource departments can tailor their recruitment and training programs to attract, retain, and develop skilled federal CIOs. In addition, the results of this study provide a validated set of emotional competencies to assist federal CIOs in developing their career paths by further defining the needed skills. Finally, this study identifies areas of future research to understand how emotional competencies might benefit building effective communities within the federal CIO network to use emerging technology more effectively. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]