Leadership Typology and Employee Engagement

Abstract

Purpose: The paper is a contribution to research on managers / leaders performance influencing employee engagement. The manager has a major impact on the level of employee commit-ment. There is no unified, complete, empirically verified model of managerial activity leading to employee engagement in the subject literature. The available studies indicate numerous connections between the different aspects of the leader’s performance and employee engagement. Based on the findings of the literature review, the authors defined the concept of employee engagement and the importance of a lead-er’s role in engagement building. Significant managers’ actions affecting employee engagement have been identified. Due to the complex nature of the leader’s activity, the following classifica-tion identifying four model profiles has been proposed: a classical leader, a change leader, a discreet leader and a holistic leader. Each of the profiles has been characterised by the tasks performed.

Design/methodology/approach: The results of the quantitative research on a representative sample of professionally active Poles conducted by the Institute of Human Capital at Warsaw School of Economics in the autumn of 2016 identified the prevalence of employees opinions about model behaviours of managers. It was measured which patterns are the most common. Both fully and partially saturated behavioural patterns have been tested (how many managers meet the patterns in full, in 75% and in half), as well as pure and mixed variants of models.

Findings: On the basis of the analyses it was determined that the most beneficial, considering employee engagement, is the model combining the behavioural characteristics of all three patterns. Further research on leadership should take into account the com-plexity of a leader’s role, particularly in the context of manage-ment through engagement.

Research and practical limitations / implications: The anal-yses reveal that managers have a major impact on employee engagement. In order to maximise efficiency, managers should apply comprehensive skills appropriate in the given stage of team management.

Originality/value: The paper is a contribution to the discussion on the nature of engagement, leadership and the relationship between these two constructs. Based on the analysis of the leadership paradigms, the authors’ original classification of key behavioural patterns of engaging leaders has been proposed.

Paper type: Research paper.