How can leaders achieve high employee engagement?

Abstract

Purpose – Organizations aspire to have engaged employees, and spend considerable resources to measure and improve employee engagement. Theoretically, leadership is a key antecedent of engagement, yet there is no research directly linking leader behaviors and follower engagement. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the evidence for such a link. Design/methodology/approach – Research was conducted with a large New Zealand insurance organization, using data from direct reports. A pilot study was first conducted (n=236), in which the JRA 360-degree feedback instrument was factor analyzed. Subsequently, a linkage analysis (n=178) was conducted to establish the relationship of the resultant leadership factors with JRA's employee engagement measure. Findings – Three factors emerged from the JRA 360: supports team, performs effectively, and displays integrity. Correlation and regression results showed that supports team was the strongest predictor of engagement; semi-partial correlations showed that the three leadership factors overlapped in their relationships with engagement, with supports team predicting most unique variance.