Journal of Organization and Human Behaviour

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Relationship Between Perceived Leadership Style and Employee Engagement in Service Sector:An Empirical Study


Affiliations
1 Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan’s Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management (BULMIM), New Delhi, India
2 Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between perceived leadership styles and employee engagement in the service sector. The causal research design with cross-sectional nature of data was used for the study. A sample of 450 valid responses was randomly collected from respondents in private service sector in India. The results revealed that perceived leadership style and employee engagement are having a highly significant relationship. Further, the perceived leadership style has a highly significant impact on the employee engagement. Transformational leadership is more imperative than transactional leadership for bringing more prominent employee engagement. The study has implication for organisations to consider leaders with the transformational style of leadership in work task and decision-making for facilitating organisation change. One important implication of the study is for a leader to be able to identify his/her style that works best in a particular situation and the expectations of the employees which would lead them to be engaged employee easily and push them for better performance.

Keywords

Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Employee Engagement, Service Sector.
Subscription Login to verify subscription
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Attridge, M. (2009). Measuring and managing employee work engagement: A review of the research and business literature. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 24(4), 383-398.

  • Avolio, B. J., Bass, B. M., & Jung, D. I. (1999). Re-examining the components of transformational and transactional leadership using the multifactor leadership questionnaire. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72(4), 441-461.

  • Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press.

  • Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. (1995). MLQ Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Mind Garden, Redwood City, CA.

  • Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1997). Full range leadership development: Manual for the multifactor leadership questionnaire. CA, Mind Garden.

  • Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2004). Multifactor leadership questionnaire: Manual leader form, rater, and scoring key for MLQ (Form 5x-Short). Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden.

  • Bass, B. M. (1999). Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8(1), 9-32.

  • Baumruk, R., & Gorman, B. (2006). Why managers are crucial to increasing engagement. Melcrum Publishing.

  • Baysak, B., & Yener, M. İ. (2015). The relationship between perceived leadership style and perceived stress on hospital employees. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 207, 79-89.

  • Breevaart, K., & Bakker, A. B. (2017). Daily job demands and employee work engagement: The role of daily transformational leadership behavior. Daily Job Demands and Leadership, 1-41.

  • Development Dimensions International. (2005). Predicting Employee Engagement MRKSRR12-1005 Development Dimensions International, Inc., MMV. Retrieved from www.ddiworld.com (October 30, 2016).

  • Dernovsek, D. (2008). Creating highly engaged and committed employee starts at the top and ends at the bottom line. Credit Union Magazine, May.

  • Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005). Assessing leadership dimensions, styles, and organizational context. Journal of Managerial Psychology.

  • Dychtwald, K., Erickson, T. J., & Morison, R. (2006). Workforce crisis: How to beat the coming shortage of skills and talent. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.

  • Gallup. (2005). Employee engagement: The employee side of the human sigma equation. Retrieved August 1, 2016, from http://www.gallup.com/ content/ default.aspx?ci=52.

  • Ghafoor, A., Qureshi, T. M., Khan, M. A., & Hijazi, S. T. (2011). Transformational leadership, employee engagement, and performance: Mediating effect of psychological ownership. African Journal of Business Management. University of Central Punjabi, Pakistan.

  • Hartog, D., Muijen, J.J., & Koopman, V. (1997). Transactional vs. Transformational leadership: An analysis of the ML Q. J. Occup. Organ. Psychol, 70, 19-34.

  • Holten, A., & Brenner, S. O. (2015). Leadership style and the process of organizational change. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(1), 2-16.

  • Joseph, F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate data analysis: A global perspective. Pearson Education.

  • Lowe, K. B., Kroeck, K. G., & Sivasubramaniam, N. (1996). Effectiveness correlates of transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic review of the MLQ literature. The Leadership Quarterly, 7(3), 385-415.

  • Luthans, F. (2005). Organizational Behavior (10th ed.). New York: The McGraw Hill Companies.

  • Macey, W. H., & Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), 3-30.

  • Metzler, J. M. (2006). The relationships between leadership styles and employee engagement. Master’s Theses. Paper 2967.

  • Mondy, R. W., & Premeaux, S. R. (1995). Management (7th Ed.). Englewood-Cliffs-New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

  • Muenjohn, N., & Armstrong, A. (2008). Evaluating the structural validity of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), capturing the leadership factors of transformational transactional leadership. Contemporary Management Research, 4(1), 3-14.

  • Norman, S. M., Avolio, B. J., & Luthans, F. (2010). The impact of transparency and positivity on trust in leaders and their perceived effectiveness. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 350-364.

  • Padmanathan, S. R. (2010). Leadership styles and employee engagement (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Utara Malaysia).

  • Perko, K., Kinnunen, U., Tolvanen, A., & Feldt, T. (2016). Back to basics: The relative importance of transformational and fair leadership for employee work engagement and exhaustion. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), p.6.

  • Pham, H. H. (2016). An Empirical Research on the Relationship between Leadership Behavior and Employee Engagement within Virtual-working Environment at Technology Enterprises in Vietnam. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2838542 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2838542

  • Phelps, M. (2009). Is it time to rethink employee engagement? Retrieved 13 October 2014, from www.ddiworld. com/pdf/isittimetorethinkemployeeengagement_wp_ddi.pdf.

  • Pillai, S. (2013). Total employee engagement: result of powerful leadership style and employee motivation. International Journal on Arts, Management and Humanities, 2(2), 39-43.

  • Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2015). Exploring the relationship between service orientation, employee engagement and perceived leadership style: A study of managers in the private service sector organizations in India. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(1), 59-70.

  • Popli, S., & Rizvi, I. A. (2016). Drivers of employee engagement: The role of leadership style. Global Business Review, 17(4), 965-979.

  • Raja, M. W. (2012). Does transformational leadership leads to higher employee work engagement. A study of Pakistani service sector firms. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2(1), 160.

  • Shuck, B., & Herd, A. H. (2012). Employee engagement and leadership: Exploring the congruence of two frameworks and implications for leadership development in HRD. Human Resource Development Review, 11(2), 156-181.

  • Stroud, R. N. (2009). The relationship between leadership competence and employee engagement (Doctoral Dissertation, Rutgers University-Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology).

  • Tims, M., Bakker, A. B., & Xanthopoulou, D. (2011). Do transformational leaders enhance their followers’ daily work engagement? The Leadership Quarterly, 22(1), 121-131.

  • Vera, D., & Crossan, M. (2004). Strategic leadership and organizational learning. Academy of Management Review, 29(2), 222-240.

  • Wang, P., & Walumbwa, F. O. (2007). Family-friendly programs, organizational commitment, and work withdrawal: The moderating role of transformational leadership. Personnel Psychology, 60(2), 397-427.

  • Wellins, R. S., Bernthal, P., & Phelps, M. (2005). Employee engagement: The key to realizing competitive advantage. Development Dimensions International, 5, 1-31.


Abstract Views: 334

PDF Views: 6




  • Relationship Between Perceived Leadership Style and Employee Engagement in Service Sector:An Empirical Study

Abstract Views: 334  |  PDF Views: 6

Authors

Khagendra Nath Gangai
Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan’s Usha & Lakshmi Mittal Institute of Management (BULMIM), New Delhi, India
Swati Agrawal
Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract


The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between perceived leadership styles and employee engagement in the service sector. The causal research design with cross-sectional nature of data was used for the study. A sample of 450 valid responses was randomly collected from respondents in private service sector in India. The results revealed that perceived leadership style and employee engagement are having a highly significant relationship. Further, the perceived leadership style has a highly significant impact on the employee engagement. Transformational leadership is more imperative than transactional leadership for bringing more prominent employee engagement. The study has implication for organisations to consider leaders with the transformational style of leadership in work task and decision-making for facilitating organisation change. One important implication of the study is for a leader to be able to identify his/her style that works best in a particular situation and the expectations of the employees which would lead them to be engaged employee easily and push them for better performance.

Keywords


Transformational Leadership, Transactional Leadership, Employee Engagement, Service Sector.

References