LEADERSHIP: Leadership is aprocess by which a leader influences the thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors ofothers (Devi and Narayanamma, 2016). It is the ability to get other people todo something significant that they might not otherwise do (Devi and Narayanamma, 2016). Leadership has been convinced in improvingemployees’ performance and increasing the chance to achieve organizations’goals, as well as increasing employees’ engagement with the organization(Vidyakala and Ram, 2016).
Leadership style decides the atmospherefor the link between employee engagement and employee productivity. Good leader having excellent leadershipskills have the ability to influence people to achieve their end results. Effectiveleadership provides clear directions, increase morale of the employees, improvedecision making, etc. Goals, activities policies, etc. of theorganizations are determined by autocratic leadership. The leader reserves thehigher authority to make decisions and does not refer to their staff in theorganization (Mansor, Mun, Farhana, Nasuha and Tarmizi, 2017).
They would wantto clearly know the when, what and how of the work that is to be done. Organic leadership style includes multipleleaders who help to manage the dynamic and diverse environment of theorganization. Organic leadership brings in growth and sustainability for thefirm. High levels of absenteeism and staffturnover is due to autocratic leadership. Democratic leadership is a participativestyle of leadership which gives a clear direction to group members in theorganization. Employees must be encouraged so that they contribute to thedecision making and allow different inputs from various group members. Laissez-faire leadership is alsoidentified as the “ hands-off style”.
The employed are allowed to do their jobsindependently and no direction and very less information is given for the taskto be done. It leads to lowest productivity among the group members. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP: Transformationalleader generally encourage employees to perform their task with trust andproper engagement. Transformational leaders are capable of encouraging employee’sto perform beyond the expectation, through meaningful engagement and trustwhich is done by giving continuous attention to employee and give proper timelyfeedback . Employees are encouraged to go beyond their own self-interests andself-realization by such a leader thereby influencing them to do the rightthing & establishing a vision for the organization.
There are fourdimensions of transformational leadership: idealized influence, inspirationalmotivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Individualizedconsideration is the extent to which the follower’s needs are taken care of& listens to follower’s needs and concerns along with acting as a coach ormentor. Innovation and creativity is encouraged in followers when we talk aboutintellectual simulation. Leader should not criticize followers publicly. Inspirationalmotivation is the leader providing meaning to the task at hand andcommunicating optimism about future goals. Idealized influence is where leaderacts as a role model for their followers. TRANSACTIONAL: Physical andpsychological needs of the employee are addressed by transactional leader. Theyuse organizational rewards and punishments to improve the organizationperformance.
They also use organizational bureaucracy, policy, power and authorityfor controlling the employees. Transactional leadership has three components: Contingent reward, active management by exception and passive management byexception. Contingent rewardlooks at rewarding, elucidating expectations and providing resources which arenecessary for achieving the goal. Active management by exception is the active supervisionof the management for prevention of mistakes & correcting them. Passivemanagement is the interference of leaders only if the standards aren’t compliedwith the actual expectations. ENGAGEMENT: Employeeengagement was first defined as the simultaneous employment and expression of aperson’s preferred task behaviors that encourage connections to work, individual existence, and full involvement in role performances (Mansor, Mun, Farhana, Nasuha and Tarmizi, 2017). An “ engaged employee” is defined as onewho is fully adsorbed by and enthusiastic about their work and so takespositive action to further the organization’s reputation and interests (Vidyakalaand Ram, 2016). Engagement also acts as anindication that the employee has trust in values of organization and will be keenon contributing to attain business goals.
There are sevenantecedents of employee engagement such as job characteristics, perceivedorganizational and supervisor support, rewards and recognition, distributiveand procedural justice (Mansor, Mun, Farhana, Nasuha and Tarmizi, 2017). employeeengagement has three components: Vigor, Dedication and absorption. Highly engaged employees willingly investeffort in their job and also have high levels of energy without fatigue whichis termed as vigour. Dedication is when enthusiasm is felt by the employees byfully getting involved in their work and are proud and inspired. Absorption iswhen employees feel pleasant and completely immersed in the task which they areperforming.
FINDINGS & CONCLUSION: Trust of employees on leadershipstructure coupled with good relationship between employee & management arebelieved to have higher engagement. Transformational, Transactional leadership has a positive correlation with employee engagement levels. Social relevance of work, Intellectual simulation, Motivation (for simulatingenergy & increasing commitment), Psychological empowerment, individualconsideration also has a significant direct relation with engagement levels. However, Idealized influence was found to have a negativerelationship. If we compare transformationalleadership with transactional leadership on their effect on employeeengagement, it was found that transformational leadership is a betterpredictor. Demographic variables like gender, age, experience, position, sectors & industries were also found to be leading determinant of employeeengagement Organic leadership affects employeeengagement by creating perception of social relevance of work sense of belongingness and theanswerability among the employees is achieved by employee engagement and anappropriate leadership style. LIMITATIONS & SCOPE: However, it was observed that there are afew limitations.
Common method bias may occur because of self-report measuresadopted. Also, psychological well-being as influencing mechanism has beenconsidered. The common limitation across all studies is the non- considerationof change of leadership style.
Hence, the scope for further studies iswide on exploring the impact of many other variables which have not been coveredalong with the different industries which can be taken for analysis.