Introduction4
Employee engagement .4
Importance of employee engagement.6
Leadership ...9
Leadership types9
Participative (Democratic) leadership type9
Transformational and Transactional leadership types10
Authoritarian (Dictatorial) leadership type..11
Situational leadership type, Organic leadership type 12
The relationship between employee engagement and leadership13
Summary15
References..16
Literature Review
Introduction
Organizational leadership effectiveness is one of the most significant aspects of the fast growing organizations experiencing competitiveness regarding employee engagement. In the governmental sector, leadership remains the major determinant of employee engagement (Catteeuw, Flynn & Vonderhorst, 2007). One of the most common leadership styles used in governmental sector is the traditional leadership, which enforces the effective concepts of authority and power (Germano, 2010). Nonetheless, the leadership styles in the governmental sector have been changing significantly with the aim of creating a framework where employees engage in transformation and development in both behavior and performance. Benefiting from employee engagement, therefore, assists in achieving a positive contribution to the sector’s effectiveness. According to Catteeuw, Flynn, and Vonderhorst (2007), such leadership styles involve the engaging attitudes supporting and enhancing engagement to enable the realization of governmental sector expectations and effectiveness. The literature review, therefore, focuses on evaluating studies that address leadership styles to determine effectiveness on employee engagement in the governmental sector.
Employee engagement
Employee engagement refers to workforce involvement and satisfaction with enthusiasm for work. Moreover, employee engagement concept elaborates on the intimate involvement a workforce can have and framework of work experience. According to Cheema, Akram, and Javed (2015), an employee engaged refers to their emotional connection with the other employees and cognitive vigilance to the direction of the workforce. In most cases, employee engagement occurs when the workforce tends to know what to expect from their commitment, have access to resources necessary to complete tasks and participate in work opportunities for feedback and growth. Additionally, engagement occurs when an employee feels that he plays a greater role in the progress of an organization (Cheema, Akram & Javed, 2015).
Employee engagement focuses on integrity, trust, and communication since it is a two-way commitment between the leadership and workforce (Baker, Kan & Stephen, 2011). The approach ensures an increase in success chances, contributes to individual and sector performance and overall productivity. Even though some engaged employees, especially in the organization sector, tend to show productivity, profitability, safety and show less likelihood in leaving employers, others do not. More than 60% of the governmental sector employees of a global scale go to work and dedicate their time to complete the set objectives, while on the other hand they remain uninvolved emotionally and ambivalent at best with their work (Baker, Kan & Stephen, 2011). According to Benn, Todd, and Pendleton (2010), such an engagement gap may cost the governmental sectors more in lost productivity.
Nonetheless, employee engagement appears a progressive effort determined by the kind of leadership style employees are exposed to and by organizational objectives. Despite the number of engaged employees, governmental sector leaders determine their contribution and rate their commitment among the top priorities (Nasomboon, 2014). Employee engagement, therefore, ensures the coexistence of right conditions for the governmental sector to be productive, commit to set goals and values, focus on organizational success with a sense of well-being.
Importance of employee engagement
Employee engagement remains a significant aspect of employee performance in the governmental sector. The significance of the aspect reflects its relation to organizational outcome. More importantly, employee engagement has a vital influence on performance indicators such as customer satisfaction, productivity, profit, employee turnover, and safety. Nasomboon (2014) indicates that enhancing employee engagement through effective leadership approaches assist in establishing an environment capable of assisting in fostering a productive environment. More so, this increases the chances of success for the organization (Nasomboon, 2014). In the case of productivity, employee engagement assists the employee in taking initiatives and pursues improvement opportunities.
Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes (2002) argue that the employees engaged through effective leadership styles tend to develop new work knowledge, go an extra mile, respond to opportunities, and engage more on volunteering and mentoring fellow employees. Additionally, most of the engaged employees get satisfaction in their respective jobs with more commitment to the sectors they work in. Employees are motivated to meet challenging objectives and to succeed. Governmental sector employees under effective leadership do not hold back but enthusiastically engage energy at work. Also, engaged employees dynamically change and arrange for their work to fit the changing work environment (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002). Furthermore, engaged employees have a positive attitude, which assists in stimulating a creative and integrative perspective adding to the value of the sectors they work in.
Employee engagement in governmental sectors involves different drivers depending on the sector. Nonetheless, the drivers’ focuses on subjective trigger making employees stay focused on the organization goal and values, advocate for them and provide a discretionary effort for success (Popli & Rizvi, 2015). Some of the employee engagement drivers include:
Leadership
Governmental sectors with effective leadership have the most engaged employees. Moreover, most of the employees planning to stay within a specific sector and focus on achieving the set goals show a high level of trust and belief in their leaders. Engaged employees feel valued and trust in the leadership to deliver as they expect. Additionally, this involves recognizing their efforts and encouraging them to thrive in the given work environment. More importantly, communication and transparency forms the framework for establishing trust in the leadership to gain engagement (Popli & Rizvi, 2015). Therefore, effective leadership, focusing on improving productivity, should enhance employee engagement through recognizing efforts, executing communication strategy, promoting transparency, encouraging employee and openly engaging them for feedback.
Professional growth
In governmental sectors, development opportunities are vital to employee engagement. In most cases, engaged employees tend to focus more on receiving training opportunities compared to cash bonuses (Popli & Rizvi, 2015). The case is such since when the workforce starts feeling, they are not acquiring any professional growth; they tend to focus on looking for employment in other sectors. Employee engagement and loyalty, therefore, focuses on advancement opportunities the sector provides. When focusing on retaining productive employees, the employers should therefore focus on providing growth prospects. Additionally, this includes creating and promoting development opportunities, challenging the workforce to challenge them, encouraging innovation, working in dynamic teams, and having employees set own development goals and assist in realizing the goals (Popli & Rizvi, 2015).
Meaningful work
In the governmental sector, employee engagement focuses more on the kind of work provided towards achieving the set goals. The case proves that it is possible for employees to engage at work when they feel the tasks they handle are meaningful and engaging (Frisch & Huppenbauer, 2014). Increasing employee engagement, therefore, involves finding out the kind of projects keeping the workforce engaged, aligning the projects with the visions and values of the employees, encouraging constant communication, celebrating their achievements and encouraging them to introduce new projects.
Organizations are focusing on the maximization of employee engagement and contribution towards the realization of set goals and objectives (Catteeuw, Flynn & Vonderhorst, 2007). Some of the new models of employee engagement include:
The X-Model of employee engagement: the model focuses on employee contribution to the success of the governmental sector and personal satisfaction in the process. According to the model, aligning the values, aspirations, and goals of the employees with the sectors is the best approach to achieving effective employee engagement necessary for the realization of the set goals (Catteeuw, Flynn & Vonderhorst, 2007).
Three Factor Model: according to the model, employee engagement is possible through satisfying three vital engagement factors. The factors include achievement, which involves taking pride in the accomplishment of employees, receiving recognition for the accomplishments and taking pride in the sector achievements (Catteeuw, Flynn & Vonderhorst, 2007). Additionally, equity is also vital through just treatment based on basic employment conditions in respect to the organizational goals and standards.
Leadership
Leadership involves setting a tone and culture in an organization. The leadership concept implicates engaging a process of influencing a workforce towards the achievement of a common goal. Effective leadership can influence other employees towards working hard in achieving the set goals (Willcocks, 2011). Moreover, leaders produce change and encourage their employees. Establishing a relationship between leadership and workforce necessitate appreciation from leaders involved for personal values of the employees willing to provide talents and energy towards accomplishing shared objectives (Willcocks, 2011).
Leadership types
In the contemporary governmental sector setting, there are significant leadership styles that continue to evolve to define the coexistence of a productive work environment. Such types impact employee engagement, which affects the overall productivity of the workforce in the work environment (Willcocks, 2011). Some of the leadership styles include participative, transformational, transactional, authoritarian, situational, and organic leadership style.
Participative (Democratic) leadership type
Participative leadership involves engaging both employees and leaders in a more participative role when making decisions. In this leadership style context, everyone can be actively engaged, exchange ideas, and discuss before making decisions (Walji, 2009). Moreover, involving the leadership style in employee engagement, especially in governmental sector, enables a contributive effort in decision making to ensure productivity and better contribution from both employees and the leaders. However, according to Germano (2010), this type of leadership rarely proves to turn out as good as it sounds. The trouble with democratic leadership is that the expectation of every group member to have an equivalent share in the result very rarely comes true (Germano, 2010).
Transformational and transactional leadership types
The transformational leadership involves a process where leaders engage with employees in a way that allows corporative efforts towards the realization of goals set, especially through higher levels of morality and motivation. According to Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson (2003), the leadership style exists in four dimensions including:
Idealized influence: the dimension handles the establishment of trust and confidence
Inspirational motivation: the dimension handles the motivation of the entire governmental sector
Intellectual stimulation: this emphasizes on changing the awareness of employee problems and arousing their capacity to provide solutions to such problems.
Individualized consideration: this focuses on response to unique and specific needs of employees in ensuring an inclusive effort in transforming the governmental sector.
The four leadership style dimensions enable the respective leaders in behaving as models of fostering employee transformation into the more engaged workforce for success and productivity. In the governmental sector, transformation leaders are always visible and known due to their energy in handling all aspects of their tasks (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003). Such leaders spend time effectively, addressing issues and communicating with their employees while looking for initiatives with value to the future of their sector. Finally, the leaders empower and motivate employees to ensure engagement while transcending short-term objectives with a focus on intrinsic needs.
The transactional kind of leadership involves managerial aspect with a focus on the role of organization, supervision, and performance. When this type of leadership is used effectively in governmental sectors, there is the promotion of compliance of employees through factors such as punishments and rewards, which have effects on engagement (Bass, Avolio, Jung & Berson, 2003). Most of the leaders using the style focus on employees' productivity with the aim of finding faults and deviations making it only effective in handling cases of emergency and crisis situations and the projects with specific requirements.
Authoritarian (Dictatorial) leadership style
The style involves the governmental sector focusing on dictating procedures and policies while deciding on what objectives should be achieved (Karakas & Sarigollu, 2012). Additionally, this involves directing and achieving activities without the participation of the other employees. In the style context, the leader has control of the other employees and motivates the workforce effectively towards completing the assigned tasks. Employees complete the tasks as the leadership provides close supervisions (Karakas & Sarigollu, 2012). In some cases, the leaders do not show a clear division between the leadership they offer and the employees' role. More importantly, the authoritarian leadership style enables leaders to make independent decisions with minimal assistance from the rest of the employees.
Situational leadership style
This leadership style is one of the most effectively used in influencing employee engagement. In governmental sector, the situational leadership style enables the coexistence of a relationship between the employees and the leader while serving as a framework for guidance and direction (Willcocks, 2011). Leaders using the style in ensuring employee engagement learn to demonstrate four significant competencies including diagnosing cases to understand the situation to influence. According to Groves & Larocca (2011), this involves adapting while adjusting behavior while responding to contingencies of the presented situation, communicating and advancing in the process of solving the situation. Situational leaders need to manage consciousness in their powers and spaces for improvement, perform efficient coaching discussions, regulate the company in a smart way, generate more efficient companies by speeding up the advancement of the new workers, establish faithful workers by working on the performance relapse problems, and efficiently control behavior adjustment and business outcomes by interacting with constructive and factual leadership language (Situational Leadership, n. d.).
Speaking about situational leadership type, it is impossible not to mention the Contingency theory (introduced by Fiedler). While some scholars view situational and contingency theories as synonymous, Peretomode (2010) suggests a clear differentiation between them. As examples, she provides educational system kinds in several countries. Peretomode argues that the contingency theory is more favorable in a hypothetically worsening state of facts as school (Peretomode, 2012).
Organic leadership style
The leadership style involves a blend of paradigms that focuses on compassionate influence style on employees. The blends of leadership in most cases involve transformational, servant and relational leadership styles. Servant leadership is turning upside down the usual position when employees serve their leaders. Here, on the contrary, it is the leaders who work for the advantage of the employees (Economy, n.d.). According to Willcocks (2011), the organic leadership style when used in governmental sector tends to encompass servant leadership with a humble attitude making employees engagement the mission. A major influence on the leadership style is due to the way organizational setting keeps on shifting. More importantly, transformational experiences drive the leadership style at all levels. The case makes it more replicable since most of the leaders in the governmental sector can conceptualize the style and make employee engaged towards the realization of the goals set (Willcocks, 2011).
In comparison with other types, the organic leadership is new (Feng Jing, F., & Avery, G. C., 2008). Here the leader and the employees cooperate independently from their influence. Instead of depending on one leader, the organic companies tend to have multiple leaders. According to Feng Jing, F., & Avery, G. C. (2008), organic type of leadership makes it possible for people with various rates of competence to come up and be welcomed by the organization as leaders.
The relationship between employee engagement and leadership
Leadership styles affect employee engagement, which in turn influences organizational effectiveness. Leadership styles foster improvement in employee engagement by changing the way the workforce see themselves as vital in the realization of set goals and values which enhances motivation to be a greater good. Moreover, effective leadership provides an inspiring vision of organizational goals that assist in overcoming self-interest and narrowing factionalism in governmental sectors (Khan, Ghouri & Awang, 2013). Leaders summon broader and renewed energy among employees to work towards achieving productive measures. In most cases when an employee has a positive interaction with the leadership such as managers and supervisors, they tend to increase their levels of engagement in whatever the activity an organization engages (Khan, Ghouri & Awang, 2013).
Additionally, the use of effective leadership styles such as transformational leadership results in enhanced job satisfaction and organizational commitment. More so, leadership styles focusing on work relationship building and the development of trust enhance employee engagement levels (Khan, Ghouri & Awang, 2013). Leadership, therefore, ensures there is a mutual support for the realization of a common objective, which is the collective good of the governmental sector. From such a perspective, effective leadership styles provide the capacity to affect the engagement levels of employees directly.
Roth (2013) views the ability to engage as a genuine ability of a good leader. He argues that not only do the leaders realize the importance of operating the policies and products, but also they dedicate their time and efforts to engagement (Roth, 2013). Roth differentiates between four levels of leadership: leading oneself, leading others, leading teams and leading a work culture. The successful combination of all of them, according to Roth, makes up a good leader and, therefore, provides fruitful engagement strategies (Roth, 2013).
Summary
In the modern-day competitive work environments, there is a chance for governmental sectors to move towards the establishment of a positive environment for employee engagement. Moreover, various leadership styles assist in employee engagement in governmental sectors. Such leadership styles have important roles in ensuring both employee and organizational profitability. More importantly, knowing how to enhance the level of employee engagement in the work environment is a vital aspect of talent management to have a productive workforce. Effective leaders, therefore, display specific behaviors such as supportive management, vision display related to the enhancement of employee engagement, which assist the governmental sector in achieving set objectives. Additionally, the review indicates that exceptional leaders using the aforementioned leadership styles in governmental sector create a work environment that fosters productivity due to employee engagement.
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