| The leaders' behavior is capable of affecting components of employee engagement. The problem is that the majority of the workers in the United States are not engaged, which costs organizations several hundred billion dollars annually in lost productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction. There is an abundance of literature on the positive effects of transformational leadership and a growing body of literature on the value of employee engagement. Dimensions of transformational leadership closely align with Kahn's (1990) dimensions of cognitive, emotional, and physical engagement, suggesting a theoretical connection between the two constructs. Kahn's (1990) conceptualization of the employee engagement framework has rarely been utilized in past research. The purpose of this quantitative-correlational study was to explore the relationship between the leader's level of transformational leadership (and its dimensions) as perceived by the employee and the employee's level of engagement. The researched used Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and Job Engagement Survey to measure the variables. The selected population consisted of a nonrandom-convenience sample of 86 paralegals. Results indicated that transformational leadership and all of its dimensions were significant predictors of employee engagement (TL, t = 5.45, p < .001; II, t = 5.71, p < .001; IM, t = 4.91, p < .001; IS, t = 3.57, p =.001; IC, t = 4.78, p < .001).;Transformational leadership was found to be significantly related to employee engagement and its dimensions of emotional and physical engagement (EmE, r = .51, p < .001; EE, r = .58, p < .001; PE, r = .33, p = .003), but not significantly related to cognitive engagement (CE, r = .20, p = .06). The results of this inquiry increased the theoretical understanding of the relationship between the two concepts and could be used to justify the development of transformational leadership training programs within organizations aimed at increasing levels of employee engagement. The study included recommendations for further research using a larger sample to increase validity and compare results, conduct similar research on a variety of industry types, and add longitudinal studies to capture the daily levels of fluctuating employee engagement. |
