Leadership Style and Employee Engagement

                      Leadership Style and Employee Engagement

Leaders play an important role in an employee engagement and becoming the best employer in to the company. According to Hewitt’s , (2014) employee engagement suggests that leaders hold the key to employee engagement. Leadership means inspiring people to do their best to achieve the desired results. It involves developing and communicating a vision for the future, inspiring people and ensuring participation (Dixon ,1994).  Ex: Tim Cook is the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Apple. He took over Apple after the company’s founder, Steve Jobs. Cook has helped navigate Apple through the transition after Jobs’ death as well as developing new product lines and opening Apple retail stores in China (cmoe.com, 2020).

Hay, (2002) stated that many employees "leave work because they are dissatisfied with the boss." That the leader's behavior will not only affect the results of the entire organization and customers, but also affect the attitudes and behaviors of employees outcomes. Some researchers have suggested that the Leadership is one of the biggest factors affecting employee’s in the workplace and employee engagement (Attridge at al, 2009) Ex: Sheryl Sandberg has been the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook since 2008. She founded a nonprofit, Lean In, named after her best-selling book. She has been an influential advocate for women in the business world. She has made the successful transition from government work at the Treasury Department to the tech industry at Google and Facebook (cmoe.com, 2020).

Leadership skills ( Dixon, 1994)

● Inspire others;

● Persuade others willingly to behave differently;

● Clarify what needs to be done and why;

● Communicate a sense of purpose to the team;

● According to (Tamkin et al, 2010), that leaders cannot create performance themselves but    are conduits for performance through their influence on others;

● Get the team into action so that the task is achieved.

 There are six basic leadership styles

Table 1: 1 Summary of the Emotional Leadership Styles

Source: (JALM, 2017)

Goleman’s theory of leadership
According to Goleman, (2000) six styles of leadership: coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching (Table 1 collates a brief explanation of each style). This type is derived from research in the commercial field. Each style is based on some combination of emotional intelligence abilities. Although still controversial, to what extent EI affects effective leadership (Waterhouse, 2006) There is no doubt that there is a connection between emotional intelligence and effective leadership, at least in its changing style (Barling et al, 2000).

Table 1:2 Goleman’s theory of leadership

Source: Based on (Goleman 2000)

List of references 

Aon Hewitt. (2014). Trends in global employee engagement. Retrieved 15 July 2015, from 2014-trends-in-globalemployee-engagement-report

Attridge, M. (2009). Measuring and managing employee work engagement: A review of the research and business literature. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health

Bakhtari, H., 1995. Cultural effects on management style: a comparative study of American and Middle Eastern management styles. International Studies of Management & Organization,

Barling J., Salter F., Kelloway E. K. (2000), Transformational leadership and EI: an exploratory study, “Leadership & Organizational Development Journal

Dixon, N F (1994) On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, London, Pimlico

Gardner L., Stough C. (2002), Examining the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence in senior level managers, “Leadership & Organization Development Journal

Goleman D. (2000), Leadership that gets results, “Harvard Business Review

Hay, M. (2002). Strategies for survival in the war of talent. Career Development International,

Tamkin, P, Pearson, G, Hirsh, W and Constable, S (2010) Exceeding Expectation: The principles of outstanding leadership, London, The Work Foundation

Waterhouse L. (2006), Multiple Intelligences, the Mozart Effect, and Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Review, “Educational Psychologist