A myriad of studies demonstrated that engaged workers are better performers, at the individual-, team-, and even business-level. Moreover, leadership is considered to be key for increasing employee engagement. Hence, the question is: what kind of leadership is most conducive in promoting employee engagement and thus boosting performance. Although many leadership concepts exist, none of them focuses exclusively on increasing levels of work engagement among followers. So, a new leadership concept was developed that is firmly rooted in Self-Determination Theory. In short, by inspiring, connecting, strengthening and empowering employees, leaders satisfy their follower’s basic psychological needs of meaning, relatedness, competence, and autonomy, respectively. This, in its turn, increased their level of work engagement.
In this presentation the concept of engaging leadership and its measurement by a brief questionnaire is introduced and illustrated with various (unpublished) research findings. For instance, it appears that engaging leadership is indirectly associated with follower’s work engagement through: a) basic needs satisfaction; b) increasing job resources and decreasing job demands. This was observed in cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies, at individual as well as team-level, and across different countries. It is concluded that engaging leadership impacts follower’s level of work engagement through different mediating processes.