Investigating the Influence a perceived servant leadership styles has on employee engagement

Abstract

Even in today’s uncertain and turbulent times, employees remain the key driver of organisational performance. Retaining high performing and loyal employees, while maintaining a high level of organisational performance, is becoming increasingly challenging for today’s leaders. Global levels of employee engagement are at an all-time low. It has become imperative for leaders to cultivate a work environment that espouses a more engaged work force. Servant leadership requires leaders to remove positional and authoritative power, and work together with employees to enhance organisational performance, and create an environment that is conducive to meeting organisational goals. OBJECTIVE: The focus of the research was to ascertain whether there is a relationship between servant leadership and employee engagement, and to establish which sub scale of servant leadership had the greatest relationship with employee engagement. METHODOLOGY: The key parameter data in this mono-quantitative study were employees across industries. The study set out to investigate the servant leadership style of an employee’s manager, and the engagement of the employee. The study followed a descriptive research design and data was collected from 115 employees across various industries via an online survey. The researcher adapted research instruments for both constructs: servant leadership was measured according to six dimensions, and employee engagement was defined by three dimensions. OUTCOME: The results in the study established a statistically significant relationship between a perceived servant leadership style and overall employee engagement, and found the servant leadership dimension, transcendental spirituality, to have the greatest relationship with employee engagement.