Leadership Style & Employee Engagement

Engagement is the measure of the Team's Emotional Commitment to their leader and it is critically important for the bottom line. From Create a Culture of Engagement in 2013, Video 05 is a creative presentation by Ken Wright - the founder of The Wright Coach and Engage4Results Pty Ltd describes employee engagement with leadership which covers many strategies a leader can implement immediately - they cost virtually nothing and are guaranteed to make people feel great about themselves -  which is the real secret to getting the best out of people and engaging them.

Video 5.0 : Leadership, Engage your team

(Source: Leadership - Engage your Team – Ken Wright, Create a Culture of Engagement, 2013)

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 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).

The organizations have been interested in the willingness of employees to dedicate themselves for leadership roles in the organization and how employees think and feel attached to their work (Ariani, 2014). It is understood that the organization wants to increase employee engagement, given that the engaged employees were willing to devote themselves fully in their work by way of a positive role (Kahn, 1990) and remain in them longer work (Saks, 2006; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Employee engagement concerns the extent to which individuals use all the resources of cognitive, emotional, and physical to perform roles associated with the job (Kahn, 1990; Xu & Thomas, 2011). Employees who feel committed and willing to engage in their work generally is the employee who has the characteristics of an energetic, fun, enjoyable, and effective in carrying out their work (Kahn, 1990; Macey & Schneider, 2008; Xu & Thomas, 2011). The high level of employee engagement is associated with increased return on assets, earnings of each employee higher, better performance, greater sales growth, lower absenteeism, reduced employee turnover, lower cost than the cost of goods, and error because the products are not diminishing quality (Salanova, Agut, and Piero, 2005; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Xu & Thomas, 2011).

Employee engagement is a concept that contains the value of the understanding and improvement of individual and organizational performance and can be influenced by the leader. In theory, the impact of leadership on employee engagement is a leadership style that is adopted to improve employee engagement at work. A leadership style can also improve employee engagement, employee satisfaction, and employee enthusiasm for work (Alok & Israel, 2012). Kahn (1990) suggested that an individual involved is a person who is close to the work-related tasks, so that the employee is willing to give you the ability and energy, and eager to work in an organization that should translate into a higher level of performance in accordance with the role played (in-role performance) and performance that are outside the role played (extra-role performance). When people dedicate themselves to the job role, the individual must have a higher contextual performance and related to the tendency of individuals to behave in a manner that facilitates the tendency to behave in accordance with social and psychological context of an organization (Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011).

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.

Employee engagement and leadership supervision or support is very important for all organizations that promote organizational citizenship behaviour. According to Ariani, (2014) there are three reasons why this is an important concern.

First, Leadership influences followers, motivates them to participate in activities outside the business and curriculum, and enhances their ability to carry out these activities beyond expectations. This theoretical proposition has been empirically supported by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, and Bacharach, 2000) and Podsakoff and Bommer (1996).

Second, leaders can influence followers by creating meaningful work (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993).

Third, employee perceptions of their work called employee engagement positively able to predict their organizational citizenship behaviour (Purvanova, Bono, & Dzieweczynski, 2006)

Video 06: 11 Things leaders say to drive Employee engagement

Source: Blessingwhite, A Division of GP strategies

According to Avey, Hughes, Norman, and Luthan (2008), leadership has a positive relationship with employee engagement. Leadership helps create an environment where employees can easily engage in organizational citizenship behaviour. Leader behaviour has a great impact on the results or performance of employees. Saks (2006)

Found a positive relationship between supervisor support and employee engagement. Theorist suggested that Social Exchange Theory may be able to provide insight on how leaders influence the results achieved by the organization. Social Exchange Theory suggests that employees will reciprocate the leader's behaviour towards them with their own behaviour and the presence of a suitable reciprocal relationship as part of a social exchange relationship development process (Soeib, Othman, & D ' Silva, 2013). Leader behaviour is a source of motivation and satisfaction for his men. Leadership also influences the attitude and performance of followers (Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995). Leadership is an important element in the development of employee engagement.

Basic leadership styles :

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:  Goleman’s theory of leadership

Source : Based on Daniel Goleman (2002)

List of References:

 

Alok, Kumar and Israel, D. (2012). Authentic Leadership and Work Engagement. The Indian Journal of Individual Relations, 47(3): 498-510.

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

Ariani, D. W. (2014) ‘Relationship Leadership, Employee Engagement, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior’, International Journal of Business and Social Research, 4(8), pp. 74–90. doi: 10.18533/ijbsr.v4i8.589.

Avey, James B.; Hughes, Larry W.; Norman, Steven M.; and Luthans, Kyle W. (2008). Using Positivity, Transformational Leadership, and Empowerment To Combat Employee Negativity. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29(2): 110-126.

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

Christian, Michael S.; Garza, Adela S.; and Slaughter, Jerel E. (2011). Work Engagement: A Quantitative Review and Test of Its Relations with Task and Contextual Performance. Personnel Psychology, 64(1): 84-136.

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.

Kahn, William A. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement of Work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4): 692-724.

Leadership - Engage your Team - Create a Culture of Engagement. (2013). [video] Directed by K. Wright. USA.

Purvanova, Radostina K.; Bono, Joyce E.; and Dzieweczynski, Jessica. (2006). Transformational Leadership, Job Characteristics, and Organizational Citizenship Performance. Human Performance, 19(1): 1-22.

Schaufeli, Wilmar B. and Bakker, Arnold B. (2004). Job Demands, Job Resources, and Their Relationship with Burnout and Engagement: A Multi Sample Study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3): 293-315.

Shamir, Boas; House, Robert J.; and Arthur, Michael B. (1993). The Motivational Effects of Charismatic Leadership: A Self-Concept Based Theory. Organizational Science, 4(4): 577-594.

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.

Employee Engagement And Motivation

 

 

Operational definition of variables is given below:

a) Employee Engagement: ‘Engagement represents the energy, effort, and initiative employees bring to their jobs’. Engagement is about motivating employees to go the extra mile in the workplace. It is about encouraging employees to have a passion for their work, and identifying the organization as more than a place to earn money (Mohanan, Sequeira and Kumar, 2012).

 b) Motivation: Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation is what causes us to act. It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behaviour (Mohanan, Sequeira and Kumar, 2012).

Based on Mariza (2016) Employee motivation and engagement are critical sources for employees’ high performance both in manufacturing and services companies. Such motivation and engagement must be generated by effective leadership with clear managerial concepts are critical to influence the employee behaviour to bring company to success performance. Motivation has an important role in encouraging someone to do the work to achieve their personal or group or company goals. Also the executive leaders and managers of the companies need to apply effective methods or approaches to influence the employee motivation in order to achieve better performance (Mariza, 2016).

The three components of motivation as listed by Arnold et al (1991) are :

1.     direction – what a person is trying to do;

2.     effort – how hard a person is trying;

3.     persistence – how long a person keeps on trying.

As an example, an employee’s job is less than the minimum wage that employee unlikely to continue to be motivated until a reasonable wage is given. Also, if the employees’ health is in good condition Herzberg believes that the salary increases will not bring lasting motivation (Armache, 2014).

Video 4: Motivating Employees in Management

Source: (Gregg Learning, 2018)

Above mentioned video explains about the methods of motivating employees and describes that the Motivation Refers to a person's internal or external forces and these forces inspire people's enthusiasm and perseverance to pursue a certain action. Employee's enthusiasm can affect productivity. Part of the manager's job is to guide positivity into the process of achieving organizational goals.

THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

Approaches to motivation are underpinned by motivation theory. The most influential theories are classified as follows:

Instrumentality Theory:  In fact, reward and punishment are the best means of shaping behaviour. Suppose that if rewards and penalties are directly linked to their performance, people will be motivated to work. Tool theory stems from scientific management methods (Taylor,1911). 

Content Theory:  which focuses on the content of motivation. It states that motivation is essentially about taking action to satisfy needs and identifies the main needs that influence behaviour. This kind of motivation theory is called the theory of two elements content. Based on seemingly simple idea that motivation can be divided into health factors and motivation factors often referred to as “two needs systems” (Ball, 2003).

Figure 4: Motivation Model

Source: Porter and Lawler (1968)

According to (Poter and Lawler, 1968) emphasized, mere effort is not enough. Effective effort and to produce the desired performance. The two variables additional to effort that affect task achievement are :

1.     Ability – Individual characteristics such as intelligence, knowledge, skills

2.     Role perceptions – what the individual wants to do or think they are required to do.

List of References :

Armache, J., 2014. Ways and Means To Keep Employees Motivated, Productive, and Loyal. Leadership & Organizational Management Journal, 2014(2). [online].Availableat<https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/52566956/kullll.pdf

Ball, J., 2003. Understanding Herzberg’s motivation theory. ACCA on the Web: http:// accaglobal.com/my/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/qual-resource/acca-qualification/f1/technical-articles/herzbergs-motivation. html

Mariza, I. (2016) ‘The impact of employees’ motivation and engagement on employees’ performance of manufacturing companies in Jakarta Indonesia’, International Journal of Applied Business and Economic Research, 14(15), pp. 10611–10628.

Mohanan, M., Sequeira, A. H. and Kumar, M. S. S. (2012) ‘Employee Engagement and Motivation : A Case Study’, SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2114214.

TEDx Talks (2016) Stop trying to Motivate Your Employees | Kerry Goyeeteel [onlline]. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IhVUedc1a4.>. [Accessed on 21 April 2020].

Taylor, F W (1911) Principles of Scientific Management, New York, Harper (republished)

Measuring Employee Engagement

  

According to Robinson et al., (2004) Measuring employee engagement is a challenging venture since it is an activity that requires to assets human feelings and their emotions. These types of surveys help to identify the level of engagement of each employee and it leads to evaluate the relationship engagement and business results. The findings from such surveys often provide critical information on the effectiveness of HR practices of the organization and provide insights on where changes are needed (Vance, 2006).

According to Vance (2016), the below are some of the key areas that the statements on an engagement survey should cover:

1.  Pride in employer

2. Satisfaction with employer

3. Job satisfaction

4. Opportunity to perform well at challenging work

5. Recognition and positive feedback for one’s contributions

6. Personal support from one’s supervisor

7. Effort above and beyond the minimum

8. Understanding the link between one’s job and the organization’s mission

9. Prospects for future growth with one’s employer

10. Intention to stay with one’s employer

Due to their simplicity and effectiveness, many organizations chose surveys as their method of gauging employee engagement. Other means such as focus groups and one-on-one interviews would also be helpful in measuring employee engagement and diagnosing related issues (Armstrong, 2009).

 

Video 3 : How to Measure Employee Engagement

Source : (Scott Wintrip, 2012)

In this video Wintrip (2012) demonstrates about measuring Employee Engagement and explains the most important 3 methods of measuring engagement,

1.    Believes – According to Wintrip (2012), This about how we talk to people and understand what do they believe and are they believe the company's headed to the right direction do they believe is this the goofiest thing the company's ever done.

2.     Buy-in - It is about how Employees put their actions where their mouth is. Whether they do their words, and their actions align, or Employees are saying one thing and do the same thing or saying one thing and doing another.

3.     Behaviours - This explains how a behaviour changing over time, when measuring the the engagement level and if it goes low and behaviours increase you see noticeable evidence that the organisation seeing a more engaged employee.

Questions on Employee Engagement Surveys Employees, in the fullest sense of the word, can choose the option of "strongly disagree, disagree, moderate, agree or strongly agree". 

Figure 03 : displays a sample format for engagement survey along with the rating scheme.

Source: (Armstrong, 2009).

The first is about Reviewed and introduced employee engagement and organizational commitment. Secondly, the procedures and problems of the research method are discussed. Third, track the quantitative results of the questionnaire. At last, In addition to research conclusions, recommendations and limitation (Albdour and Altarawneh, 2020).

 

List of References:

Albdour, A. and Altarawneh, I., 2020. Employee Engagement and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Jordan. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BUSINESS, [online] 19(2). Available at: <https://www.craig.csufresno.edu/ijb/Volumes/Volume%2019/V192-5.pdf> [Accessed 23 April 2020].

Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. 11th ed. London: Kogan P0age, P. 1019.

Robinson, D., Perryman, S. and Hayday, S. (2004). The Drivers of Employee Engagement. 1st ed. Brighton: Institute for Employment Studies, pp.13-20.

Scott Wintrip (2012) How to Measure Employee Engagement [online]. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C25UyC63Rs.>. [Accessed on 23 April 2020].

Driver Of Employee Engagement

 

According to the survey, the three main drivers to analyse the concept of employment are communication, conciliation and leadership (Bedarkar and Pandita, 2013). These are the driving force that inspires employees for their positive attitudes towards work and the Organization. Inspired employees always believe on motivation, commitment and loyalty. According to the research done by Ala'aldin et al., (2018) Drivers of Motivational Employee engagement leads to good working attitude and high profitability to an Organization.

According to Crawford et al,. (2013), there are some factors that affect employee engagement which is necessary to understand. Mainly there are antecedents and drivers which are given below.

* Job challenge - Challenging job provides an opportunity to strengthen, develop, and learn skills applicable to the work world and personal growth for an employee.

*  Opportunities for development – Development opportunities make work meaningful to the employee because they provide pathways for growth and for fulfilling personal objectives (Penna, 2007).

* Autonomy – This provides the right or condition of self-government. Allow employees to schedule their work at their own procedures.

* Variety – Being able to perform different activities which required different skill levels makes the job interesting.

* Feedback – Providing regular feedback to the employees about the effectiveness of their performance.

* Fit - The existence of compatibility between an employee and a work environment allows individuals to work in a confidant.

* Rewards and recognition - Incentives, rewards, and recognition are the major factors that impact employee motivation (Danish and Usman, 2010). Often, rewards and recognition take the form of extra compensation for employees who carry out the activities.

Figure 1:  The Drivers of Employee Engagement

(Source: IES 2003 Institute for Employment Studies)

Equal Opportunities and fair treatments

A good leader accepts the ideas of all employees and treats everyone equally. Encourage staff to express their options, make recommendations for changes, and maximize interaction. All interactions need to be treated fairly by the team leaders and managers, the bottom idea is to show the staff their significance and will greatly improve their morale, efficiency and commitment. Improved workplace engagement is a buy product of members that have regular connections with workers (Osborne et al,2017).

Family and Friendliness

Reliable and respectable employees are happier and more productive in the work environment. When employees realized that the managers and supervisors trust themselves as well as their families, they strive to exceed their expectations. It’s important to show respect for employees and as a leader it’s mandatory to reserve some time to speak to employees individually or as a team. If possible, please do it in person. In many Organizations employees would have scatted in many locations and as a leader to build engagement we can use virtual check-in via video calls. The leader has been shown to be able Influence and motivate employees by showing clear values and fostering a positive attitude Teamwork (Osborne & Hammoud, 2017).

Job Satisfaction

Employee Satisfaction and retention are always important issues to physician (Fam Pract Manag 1999 Oct). After all, high levels of absenteeism and staff turnover can affect your bottom line, as temps, recruitment and retraining take their toll. But few practices (in fact, few organizations) have made job satisfaction a top priority, perhaps because they have failed to understand the significant opportunity that lies in front of them. Satisfied employees tend to be more productive, creative and committed to their employers, and recent studies have shown a direct correlation between staff satisfaction and patient satisfaction (Fam Pract Manag 1999 Oct).

According to the research done by Bhuvanaiah and Raya (2015) found that the theoretical literature Reveals the importance of motivation in driving. Engaged and mentioned empirical evidence Motivation potential for organizational factors Increase engagement.

Figure 2: Drivers of Employee Engagement- Motivational Process

(Source: Bhuvanaiah and Raya, 2015)

Reference to the figure 2: “The Drivers of Employee Engagement” and also the definitions given by several authors it’s that clear that employee engagement is the important element to the Organization.

Video 2: Gaming can make a better world | Jane McGonigal

(Source : TED, 2010)

According the research done by the Gaming guru Jane McGonigal (2010) presented in TED event that games have the potential of engaging people in the real world because they can help achieve the following goals.

a) Increase hope by keeping out the prospect of an 'epic victory.'

b) Helping to create a social network (multiple players games are collaborative; so promote socialization so when we play with them, we like others better).

c) Enable efficiency (people want to be busy and better to play a relaxing game than to actually "relax").

d) Build sense-a basic element in every engagement programs.

 

List of References:

Crawford, E. R., Rich, B. L., Buckman, B. and Bergeron, J.(2013) Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. 1st ed. London: Routledge.

Alrowwad, Ala'aldin and Obeidat, Dr. Bader Yousef and Al-Khateeb, Areej and Masa'deh, Ra'ed, The Role of Work/Life Balance and Motivational Drivers of Employee Engagement on the Relationship Between Talent Management and Organization Performance: A Developing Country Perspective (December 12, 2018). Modern Applied Science; Vol. 12, No. 11; 2018 . Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3300267

Bedarkar, M. and Pandita, D., 2014. Engagement Impacting Employee Performance. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, [online] 133, p.1. Available at: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814030845> [Accessed 14 April 2020].

Bhuvanaiah, T. and Raya, R., 2015. Mechanism of Improved Performance: Intrinsic Motivation and Employee Engagement. SCMS Journal of Indian Management, [online] p.95.  [Accessed 16 April 2020].

Danish, R. Q. and Usman, A. (2010) Impact of Reward and Recognition on Job Satisfaction and Motivation: An Empirical Study from Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(2), pp. 159-167

Hammoud, M. and Osborne W, S., 2017. Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, [online] 50(67). Available at: <https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1239&context=ijamt> [Accessed 16 April 2020].

McGonigal, J. (2010), “Gaming can make a better world”, TED, available at: www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Penna (2007). Meaning at Work Research Report. [Online] Available: http:// www. e-penna.com/ newsopinion /research.aspx (November10, 2008) proposalʹ, Industrial and Organisational Psychology, 1, 74–75.

Schrita Osborne, Mohamad S. Hammoud. (2017) Effective Employee Engagement in the Workplace.International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 16(1), pp.50-67.

TED (2010) Gaming can make a better world | Jane McGonigal [online]. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM.>. [Accessed on 16 April 2020].

Institute for Employment Studies (2018) Report Summary: The drivers of employee engagement. [online]. Available at < https://www.employment-studies.co.uk/report-summaries/report-summary-drivers-employee-engagement.>.[Accessed on the 16th April 2020].