This study examines how leaders' emotional intelligence, as defined by the trait model, impacts followers' perceptions of leadership according to the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory, and whether these perceptions vary depending on communication being digital or face-to-face. The study was conducted using a quantitative approach, with data collected through surveys. A total of 120 followers and 55 leaders participated, the majority of whom were employed in the public or private sector. To analyze how leaders' emotional intelligence influences followers' perceptions of leadership, Spearman's rank correlation was applied (N = 110: followers: n = 55, leaders: n = 55). For the analysis of whether followers' perceptions of leadership vary depending on communication methods, an independent t-test combined with the Mann Whitney U-test was employed (N = 72: face-to-face: n = 36, digital: n = 36). The results indicate that leaders with high emotionality exhibited a statistically significant positive correlation with the quality of LMX relationships (r = 0.296, p = 0.028), suggesting that leaders who are adept at perceiving and expressing their own emotions establish higher-quality relationships with their followers, characterized by trust, loyalty, respect, and mutual influence. However, no significant correlations were found between global emotional intelligence, well-being, sociability, and self-control in relation to followers' perception of leadership, which may be due to limited data variation and high average emotional intelligence scores within the sample. From another perspective, this may indicate that emotional intelligence plays a less influential role in leadership dynamics than certain theoretical models suggest. Furthermore, face-to-face communication was associated with higher-quality LMX relationships compared to digital communication, with observed differences within the spectrum of high to medium quality. This suggests that digital communication does not necessarily lead to low-quality relationships but may impose constraints on achieving optimal relational quality in work-related contexts. Nonetheless, these findings should be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations, underscoring the importance of further exploration of these aspects in future research, particularly through studies with larger sample sizes and longitudinal approaches.