Please revise proposal based on comments made in document. Add 5 articles to literature review based on public sector studies. The 5 articles added for the literature review of the proposal should be 1 – 2 pages and highlight six key points of each article, the purpose of study, describe the instrument and results of research.
Examining the Impact of Perceived Emotional Intelligence Leadership Styles upon the Employee Engagement among Public Sector Employees
Research Proposal and Literature Review
What is employee engagement? According to (Kahn, 1990) who gave the first definition of employee engagement as people who employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances in their workplace. Engagement is the “simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s ‘preferred self’ in task behaviors that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and emotional), and active, full role performance” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700). Personal disengagement refers to “the uncoupling of selves from work roles; in disengagement, people withdraw and defend themselves physically, cognitively, or emotionally during role performances” (Kahn, 1990, p. 692). When an employee begins a new position, most are passionate and excited to begin a new chapter in their professional careers and contribute towards the success of the organization. They want to do an excellent job and make a valuable contribution to the company. What happens to the passion of the employees after the first year in their job position? Why does the fire go out in the engaged employee?
Gallup concluded that in 2015 after interviewing more than 80,000 Workers are categorized as being engaged based on how they rate key workplace elements. The elements are someone at work encouraging their development and believing that their opinion matters, and having the chance to do what they do best every day. As a result, the engaged employees become committed to their work. The disengaged employees are hostile, they do only the minimum required, more likely to miss work and change jobs whenever an opportunity arises. Employees that are not engaged do only the minimum in their job duties and do not go above and beyond helping and serving their customers (Adkins, 2016).
Emotional Intelligence is a term created by two researchers – Peter Salovey and John Mayer – and popularized by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name. It is defined as the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others (Goleman, 2004). In practical terms, this means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people (positively and negatively) and learning how to manage those emotions – both our own and others – especially when we are under
Goleman’s research led him to conclude there are five components in Emotional Intelligence or EI. These components are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills (Goleman, 2004). Managers who are self-aware recognize how their feelings impact employees. They are not overly critical but, honest with themselves and others. Self-regulation helps managers control their negative emotions instead of being controlled by them (Goleman, 2004). Self-regulation helps to manage the negative impulses felt by all managers.
The third component of emotional intelligence is motivation. When leaders are self-motivated they also motivate their employees, work on their goals and have high quality standard for their work. Additionally, the self-motivated leaders have an emotional connection that is healthy. Thus, they can achieve the results they want without being obsessive (Goleman, 2004). Empathy is a fourth component and is defined as knowing how to treat others who have different personality traits (Goleman, 2004). The last component is having the social skills to build connections that help get the work done when the company isn’t doing well (Goleman, 2004). According to Goleman (2004), these five components of EI list six leadership approaches that could be used interchangeably: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Leaderships.
According to Suehs (2015) on the study about emotional intelligence and employee engagement, there is much to tell as the study indicated by assessing supervisors and managers in a private sector hospital. The research questions ask: (a) what is the level of employee engagement among the study participants, (b) what is the level of emotional intelligence of the frontline managers and supervisors who participated in the study, and (c) using inferential statistics, is there a statistically significant correlation between emotional intelligence of frontline managers and supervisors and the employee engagement of their direct reports (Suehs, 2015). The quantitative study used results of 24 front-line managers and supervisors and employee engagement of their 585 employees to deny or prove the hypothesis. This study found that there is a link between emotional intelligence of the managers and supervisors, and the level of emotionally and actively engaged in daily and strategic activities of the organization. It ascertained that the emotionally intelligent leaders create a workplace where their employees are valued, empowered and engaged. From the study, it is crucial for the leaders in the public sector have emotional intelligence. Having emotionally intelligent leaders in the workplace increases the number of employees who are actively engaged.
In a study by Soyars and Brusino (2009) focusing on the aspects of employee workplace engagement, the researchers found that only a third of the employees are fully engaged in their different workplace because of conducive work environment. The first element of employee engagement is contribution and it depends on the communication of the company. (Soyars & Brusino, 2009, p. 63). The second element of employee engagement is being in connection with others in the workplace, and this is defined as healthy friendships.
It appears that the study by Pritchard (2008) identified poor training, management and benefit Lastly, most employees believe that they are not in their current workplace forever, but can leave if a greener pasture is discovered. They have lost interest in working for the organization and have high absenteeism; such studies are yet to be conducted in US. Despite the extensive amounts of research on the impact of leadership emotional intelligence (i.e. Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) upon the employee engagement in the private sector settings, there is still scarce research on the interplay between leader’s emotional intelligence upon the employee engagement in public sector settings.
This current research study will explore the relationship between employee engagement and
Based on Figure 1 of the conceptual model, the research questions include:
Hypothesis 3: There is a relationship between Affiliative emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 4: There is a relationship between pace setting emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 5: There is a relationship between democratic emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 6: There is a relationship between commanding emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Historical Context of Employee Engagement
One of the most influential early theories in employee workplace engagement is Herzberg’s motivation and hygiene factors first published in 1959. Herzberg developed the theory after interviewing more than 200 accountants and engineers. Herzberg’s two-factor theory showed that job satisfaction depended on two separate continuums. The motivators encourage employees to work harder while the hygiene factors do not encourage employees to work harder because they become unmotivated when they are not present. The theory can be used to improve the performance of a team.
The motivating factors include achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth. In achievement, the job has to give the employee some sense of achievement. Recognition is when the job gives and employee praise on the success they have achieved. Moreover, the job should also be interesting and give employees some challenge. Responsibility refers to employees holding themselves accountable for their work. Additionally, there should be some promotion opportunities. The last motivating factor is growth which requires employees to learn new skills through formal training or on the job training. Hygiene factors are company policies, supervision, relationships, work conditions, salary, status and security ((Herzberg, 1971). The company polices need to be clear to the employees. The supervision has to be fair and clear. Additionally, there should be amiable relationships between subordinates, superiors, and peers. The working conditions need to be safe and hygienic. The salary also needs to be fair and reasonable. Finally, employees need to have security in the workplace. They should not be worried about being laid off.
Two factor theories have four states. The first state is the high hygiene and high motivation. In this state, employees have fewer grievances and are motivated. The second state is the high hygiene and low motivation. In this situation, employees may have few grievances but are not highly motivated. The third state occurs when there is a low hygiene and high motivation. Under this state, the employees are high motivated but have a lot of grievances. Finally, the low hygiene and low motivation state which is the worst for an organization and the team is when employees are not motivated and do not have the right hygiene factors.
There are two ways on how the two factor model can be used to increase motivation in the workplace: eliminating job hygiene stressors and boosting the job satisfaction. The first thing leaders have to do to enhance motivation of their team is to make sure that hygiene factors do not cause any dissatisfaction. Some of the steps to eliminate job stressors include rectifying the bureaucratic company policies, ensuring there is a supportive work culture, ensuring the team members are supported, and ensuring that there is a competitive salary. The other way is for leaders to boost the job satisfaction. After getting rid of the hygiene stressors, mangers need to boost the employee job satisfaction. There are three techniques managers can use to boost job satisfaction: job enrichment, job enlargement and employee empowerment. Job enrichment refers to enriching the employee’s job by giving them complex tasks. Job enlargement is when the employees are given a variety of tasks to complete. Lastly, in employee empowerment, team members are given an increase responsibility.
The limitation of Herzberg’s motivation theory include: the theory can only be used for white collar workers, it only focus is to improve employee satisfaction, it does not take into consideration the individual’s perception and there is no way to measure the employee satisfaction.
Although the theory remains mostly unchanged, there it underwent a list of developments. For instance, the Gallup Organization released the book First, break all the rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do. This book divided the motivation factors into two separate scales. Further, the book used Herzberg’s theory to develop a twelve-step framework of employee motivation (Herzberg, 1971).
The benefit of this theory is the consideration of both “visible” and “invisible” factors of motivation. Initially, managers focused on motivators. Recent developments enable company executives to incorporate hygiene factors. The main problem with this theory is that it focuses on the “average” behavior of employees. The reality is that there are significant differences that may determine the behavior of individuals. For instance, employees who pursue long term objectives may deviate from the “average” behavioral pattern (Herzberg, 1971).
Leadership impact on Employee Engagement
Osborne (2017) conducted a study to assess effective employee engagement in workplaces. This study aimed at investigating the different strategies which some leaders in communication business use to ensure their employees are engaged. The criteria selected the leaders who have no less than a year of employee engagement involvement. Using a conceptual framework based on self-determination theory, data was collected and analyzed. This study found that there are various leadership style aspects that directly link to the employee engagement. Some of the identified factors included existence of an effective employee’s reward and recognition program, employee’s empowerment, and the relationship bonds built between employees and leaders. Employees acknowledged that a leader who expressed high level of emotional intelligence was appealing and likely to have an actively engaged workforce within the organization.
According to a study conducted by Wright (2019), they sought to explore various roles that both employee engagement and leadership style had on service orientation, which in this case is the emotional intelligence. Employees from five different sectors were involved and subjected to the study questions. Using a competing model, the study explained that a relationship exists between the perception employees have or the public has and the employee engagement and leadership styles (Wright, 2019). The study findings showed that an organization required to come up with systems and processes that are employee oriented and ensure employee engagement is high for better service outcomes (Wright, 2019). It is like an approach taken by the leader then influences the employee engagement and they tend to feel that they are losing the connection with their employment sector. However, the paper suggests that a better and detailed study is essential to better a more integrated theory on the leadership styles and their influence they have on employee engagement which then leads to service orientation within the organizations.
According to Xu & Thomas (2011), leadership plays a role in employee engagement. The study focused on leadership since much of the prior conducted studies did not look into employee engagement and its relationship to leadership styles. The study was conducted at a New Zealand insurance company using the 360-degree feedback from 236 employees who rated 42 immediate managers (Xu & Thomas, 2011). The research concluded that leaders who supported and developed team members, worked effectively, and displayed integrity have more employees who are engaged. The strengths of the study included using a thorough behavioral measure of leadership and theoretically based instrument for employee engagement (Xu & Thomas, 2011). The limitation of the study identified that no causality was given. It also found that future research should be done to establish on how leaders can keep their employees engaged and use resources towards enhancing employee engagement as well as it assessment. Leaders should capitalize on their strengths to increase employee engagement (Xu & Thomas, 2011).
The study by Soyars and Brusino (2009) sought to define employee engagement as three elements: contributions, connections, and growth and advancement. They also defined employee engagement as employees who are committed to their work and want to contribute to the success of the organization. This study found that only one- third of the employees are fully engaged in their different workplaces (Soyars and Brusino, 2009). Ninety percent of companies surveyed agreed that employee engagement is important and they should communicate the mission. However, only 52% of companies state they are doing this to a high extent (Soyars & Brusino, 2009). The first element of employee engagement is contribution and depends on the communication of the company’s mission which will enable employees to contribute to its success (Soyars & Brusino, 2009). The second element of employee engagement is connections, and this is defined as healthy friendships. However, this study indicated that only 79% of employees feel that relationships with co-workers increased employee engagement but, 30% of employees feel that relationships with their managers is the most responsible for employee engagement. A better view of these statistics was offered by Ashley Autry, 2019, on a post to show 2018 employee retention, engagement statistics.
A study conducted by Delaney and Royal (2017), the motivation of employees is a significant component of employee engagement. Employees are led to do more bases on their motivation (Delaney & Royal, 2017). The research concluded that there are two types of motivation—intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is internal to the individual and is related to personal drives. Extrinsic motivation is external to the individual and is connected to the work environment and organization (Delaney & Royal, 2017). At the extrinsic motivation is where the leader has a role to play in ensuring that all the employee are well engaged based on the particular leadership approach taken. The study found that employees who exceeded performance expectations were more intrinsically motivated. This is likely to happen when job duties align with personal attitudes and values (Delaney & Royal, 2017). The research concluded that organizations should work to close the motivation gap to ensure that employees perform at a high level (Delaney & Royal, 2017).
Venkatesh (2018) looked at the different leadership strategies that are of influence to employee engagement. The study was centered towards the healthcare organizations. More so, the interesting bit of the study population is the impact employees have within the healthcare sector in that they are related to saving lives and patient satisfaction. Therefore, it is exceptionally vital to deliver high quality healthcare and be there at the critical times of human health. The study was triggered by the trending challenge of engaging healthcare professionals that most leaders are facing. The study highlighted that most of the reasons why this challenge is overgrowing is because employees feel that issues that are of concern to them are never satisfactorily addressed by their leaders. The leaders tend to argue that these challenges are as a result of dynamic technological changes, lack of adequate talents, increasing turnover rates, and the multi-generational workforce. Therefore, this study concluded that a leader’s approach is of great significance to employee engagement. It also advocates for the necessity of leaders to come up with appropriate strategies to implement in order to persuade and engage every healthcare professional under them.
Organizations understand that change cannot be avoided but, retaining engaged employees should be consistent. Organizations want higher productivity and understand that this is one of the benefits of high employee engagement. Organizational pride has remained steady in the UK but, public sector employees are the least proud of where they work (Pritchard, 2008).
Leader Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement
Quang, Khuong, and Le (2015) conducted a study to investigate the how leaders apply emotional intelligence to formulate the leadership styles and improve employee job engagement. The study was carried out on 400 white collar employees working in Hoa Binh Corporation and its subsidiaries in Ho Chi Minh City. The findings of the study indicated that leader’s emotional intelligence competencies such as self-esteem, self-motivation, interpersonal relations and emotional literacy had a positive effect on the employee engagement. Moreover, the leader’s competency regarding changing resilience negatively affected the employee engagement. Thus, from the results, the research found out that emotional intelligent leaders develop workforce engagement (Quang, Khuong, and Le, 2015).
Mahon, Taylor and Boyatzis (2014) carried out a study on 231 team members from two organizations to examine the impact team members have on emotional intelligence and their perception on shared positive mood, shared personal vision, and perceived organizational support. The researchers had hypothesized that organizational support, shared positive mood, shared personal vision, emotional intelligence has a positive association with the organizational engagement (Mahon, Taylor and Boyatzis, 2014). The results of the study found that emotional intelligence moderates the shared personal vision with the organizational engagement, but it is not always done in a positive way.
Palmer and Gignac (2012) conducted a study on employee engagement from three organizations to determine the relationship between emotional intelligence of managers and the level of engagement on direct reports. The data was collected through an online web survey. The findings of the study found that the emotional intelligence of the managers correlate with the employee engagement score (Palmer and Gignac, 2012). Future research needs to establish if there is a correlation between the emotional intelligence of managers and direct report engagement scores. Furthermore, the future study needs to examine whether there is an improvement in the employee engagement scores due to the improvement in the emotional intelligence of mangers. The practical implications of the study identified that organizations need to improve on the employment brand, productivity and the talent retention by working on improving the emotional intelligence of management.
Public Sector Employees and Workplace Motivation/Employee Engagement
Employee motivation may be a difficult and many-sided development. Work place motivation is an endless struggle of employers and workers. The aim of this study was to identify and discuss the factors that influence employees’ motivation and major stress on the variations between public and private sector employees’ psychological feature constructs among the banking industry (Rashid & Rashid, 2012). A survey methodology was designed to assemble formation from one-hundred fifty public and private sector banking stahe public sector banks are those owned by the government while the private sector banks are owned by individuals and corporations. The study is meant to look at whether or not work motivation of the staff operating public and private sector banks is completely different (Rashid & Rashid, 2012). Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze and establish the precise factors that have a larger impact on motivation of the individuals operating within the banks and to work out
In the public sector, the rewards given to employees are not just a matter of academic interest but organizations see a connection tied to performance (Wright, 2007). Studies that have found similar levels of employee motivation among public and private employees suggest that the importance employees place on contributing to the public service mission of their organizations may provide intrinsic rewards that compensate for the low levels of extrinsic rewards commonly associated with public sector work (Wright, 2007). This study uses the goal theory of motivation to propose a theoretical model explaining the potential effects of the importance of organizational mission on employee work motivation. Second, this research uses this model to test the relationship between the importance of organizational mission and employee work motivation that is often asserted-but rarely tested-in the public administration literature
The empirical test of this new framework suggests that goal theory provides a strong theoretical foundation for understanding the separate but related contributions of task and mission. The study concluded that public sector employees are more motivated to perform their work when they have clearly understood tasks that they feel are important and achievable. The value that employees see in the mission of their organization was found to influence their work motivation by increasing the importance they placed on their own work (Wright, 2007).
In a related line of research literature, there is research examining the employee motivation in public sector employees. For example, Jin and McDonald (2017) examined role of immediate supervisor, perceived organizational support, and learning opportunities among public sector employees.
Jin and McDonald (2017) carried out a study to understand the employee engagement in the public sector. The study investigated the role of organizational support in the link between employee engagement and supervisor support. The study was carried out on 1,251 employees from local and state government agencies. The findings show that the supervisor support directly and indirectly affect the employee engagement through the influence it has on perceived organizational support (Jin and McDonald, 2017). The results also show that supervisor support and organizational support are moderated by the learning opportunities. As a result of the learning opportunities, employees are encouraged to grow and learn.
Similarly, Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko (2017) conducted a research study examining the employee engagement among various unspecified public sector employees in the country of Ghana. The findings of the study show that the level at which employees are engaged reduces when the extent of power within the workplace is overemphasized (Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko, 2017). Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko (2017) attributes the results to the fact that the employees are unable to use their discretion in such a high power culture. When there is a positive relationship with the employee engagement, it means that there is job autonomy in the organization. When employees have more autonomy, they will be more engaged in their work. Thus, when there is high employees do not have the autonomy and it negatively affect their engagement. Additionally, study also found that there positive relationship between employee engagement and support culture (Brenyah, 2017). The organizations with a support culture have mutual trust between employees and the leaders which results into employee engagement. The study also showed that there is a positive relationship between achievement culture and employee engagement (Brenyah, 2017). Employees in an organization that is achievement oriented can use their discretion when doing their work. Thus, their level of engagement increases.
Methodology Section
Participants
The sample population to be utilized in this research will entail public utility sector employees aged 24-64 years old located in the Southern region of the United States. The sample excludes all persons, outside the defined age group (Adkins, 2016). Secondly, all participants will be fluent English speakers because the questionnaires, consent forms, and other materials were written in English; the inclusion of non-fluent-English speakers might lead to inadequate understanding of the survey instructions thus these participants will be excluded from the study. Participants should be currently working either on a full or part-time basis in a public sector setting. The participants will include both male and female participants. The participants will be recruited via an online recruitment platform. Using an A-priori Sample Size Calculator for Multiple Regression (https://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/calculator.aspx?id=1) with at least 6 predictor variables of Emotional Intelligence Dimensions (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) in predicting the dependent variable of employee engagement, the minimum required sample size is 123 participants in order to obtain a desired statistical power of 0.90 with a 0.05 statistical significance level (Adkins, 2016)..
Measures
A demographic questionnaire will ask for each participant’s age, gender, work status (Part-time versus Full-time), the yearly income (in dollars), and the highest education level completed (High school, some college credits Vocational degree completed, Completed undergraduate degree, some graduate school credits completed masters or doctorate degree) Furthermore, some additional follow-up questions related to the participant’s personal work experience will be asked such as their length of time working (measured in months), if they have ever been previously fired from an employment position and if they have ever been previously promoted in an employment position. The collecting of the data and other predefined demographic facets is useful in meeting the right data pool for subsequent analysis (Adkins, 2016).
After completing the demographic questionnaires, all the participants will complete two assessments for this study: the Utrecht Work engagement scale developed by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) and a modification on the six distinct styles of emotional leadership Likert scale developed by Daniel Goleman (2004). A complete set of questions used on the survey is located in Appendix A.
First, the Utrecht Work engagement scale developed by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) is a 17-item inventory that measures the 3 dimensions the employee engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). The UWES previously had 24items; 9 vigor items and 8 dedication items that had MBI items that were positively rephrased. The MBI-items were supplemented by the dedication and vigor items and absorption items that constituted the UWES-24 (Brenyah, 2017). However, a psychometric evaluation was done in samples of students and employees whereby 7 items were found to be unsound and eliminated. Thus, only 17 items remained: 6 absorption items, 5 dedication items, and 6 vigor items. There are studies that have used the 15 item version of UWES. There has been validity studies carried out using the UWES. The studies have identified how UWES relates with work engagement and burnout, and work engagement and workaholism (Brenyah, 2017). One of the validity studies reviewed included the work engagement and burnout. The study revealed that there is a strong relationship between professional efficacy and engagement, than to burnout. The other validity study was between work engagement and workaholic.
The study showed that workaholic and work engagement are related to different variables. In work engagement, and workaholic, employees are loyal to their organization and work hard. Employees who are workaholic are loyal to the organization but it is at the expense of their social contacts that are outside the workplace. Engaged employees, on the other hand, feel good, both socially and mentally (Goleman, 2004). Validity studies done using the UWES show that burnout and work engagement are not related. Therefore, it is possible to discriminate engagement from workaholic. Reliability of the UWES is done using two aspects: test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Both the internal consistency and the test-retest reliability are internally consistent. Thus, adding another item does not increase the internal consistency of the scales. The extra items are better eliminated.
Finally, the researcher will adapt the 6 dimensions of Emotional Intelligence (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) by Daniel Goleman (2004) focusing on the perception of the public sector employees on their corresponding leaders or supervisors. For example, a question such as “my team trust me implicitly” would be revised to read “I can trust my workplace leader/supervisor implicitly”. Furthermore, a question such as “I spend a lot of my time getting buy-in to ideas from my team members” would be revised to read “My workplace leader/supervisor spends a lot of time getting buy-in to ideas from the team members.” Revisions will be applied to all the 36 questions on the scale adapted from Daniel Goleman (2004) 6 dimensions of Emotional Intelligence. A Cronbach’s alpha analysis will be conducted at the conclusion of the dissertation survey to examine the internal validity of the newly developed scale measuring the public sector employee’s perception of emotional intelligence leadership styles among their workplace leaders or supervisors (Goleman, 2004).
Procedure
The sample population to be utilized in this research will entail 123 local public sector employees aged 24-64 years old located in the United States (Gerald, 2018). Using online advertisements on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, participants will be directed to an online survey platform (i.e. Google Survey) in order to access the survey. The online advertisement directing participants to the online survey platform will remain for four weeks. Participants will complete an online voluntarily and anonymously to achieve confidentiality. The agreement in participating in answering the questions, will act as a measure of “consent” for participation (Gerald, 2018). Hence, completing the survey online, the participants will be required to read and accept an online consent form that reassures that participation in the research study is voluntary and confidential. Based on the speed and technicality of the questions, the approximated time for completion is 20-30 minutes.
This study takes a quantitative approach, with the applied online questionnaires enabling the gathering of numerical data, essential for subsequent statistical analysis. The chosen analysis software is IBM-SPSS ver. 25 (Gerald, 2018). Descriptive statistics will be applied in providing summaries of the demographic information of the sampled participants, which will include determining the mean, percentages, and standard deviations and the data collected. Using descriptive statistics and graphs or tables, there does the summarizing of the data and allowing for an easier understand? Inferential statistics will be applied in examining relationships across the variables, and in making hypothesis-testing conclusions (Gerald, 2018). Correlation and linear regression analysis will be applied in examining the association existing between the sampled participant demographic variables and their performance. With correlation analysis, the determined outcome, i.e., the correlation coefficient is used in explaining the existing effects across the predefined facets, i.e., zero (0) is applied in indicating no effects, while a determined value of one (1) is used in indicating perfect effect (Gerald, 2018). Hence, by conducting a correlation, one can make conclusions on the association. Secondly, regression analysis will help examine the possible statistical relationships between the public sector employee’s perception of the 6 Emotional Intelligence Dimensions (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) towards their leaders or supervisors and the employee’s self-reported employee engagement.
References
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Appendix
Work & Well-being Survey (UWES)
The following 17 statements are about how you feel at work. Please read each
Statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job. If you have
Never had this feeling, cross the ‘0’ (zero) in the space after the statement. If you have
had this feeling, indicate how often you feel it by crossing the number (from 1 to 6)
that best describes how frequently you feel that way.
Never 0
Almost never ( a few times a year or less) 1
Rarely (once a month or less) 2
Sometimes (a few times a month) 3
Often (once a week) 4
Very often ( a few times a week) 5
Always (everyday) 6
A Communication Styles Questionnaire
ASSESSING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
This questionnaire is based on the work of George Litwin and Richard Stringer,
psychologists from Harvard University. But it considers the same six distinct styles of
leadership as Daniel Goleman.
SCORING
Read the following statements and against each statement allocate a score:
This is always true of me 5 points
This is often true of me 3 points
This is true of me 50% of the time 2 points
This is largely untrue of me 1 point
This is totally untrue of me 0 points
Examining the Impact of Perceived Emotional Intelligence Leadership Styles upon the Employee Engagement among Public Sector Employees
Research Proposal and Literature Review
What is employee engagement? According to (Kahn, 1990) who gave the first definition of employee engagement as people who employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances in their workplace. Engagement is the “simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s ‘preferred self’ in task behaviors that promote connections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and emotional), and active, full role performance” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700). Personal disengagement refers to “the uncoupling of selves from work roles; in disengagement, people withdraw and defend themselves physically, cognitively, or emotionally during role performances” (Kahn, 1990, p. 692). When an employee begins a new position, most are passionate and excited to begin a new chapter in their professional careers and contribute towards the success of the organization. They want to do an excellent job and make a valuable contribution to the company. What happens to the passion of the employees after the first year in their job position? Why does the fire go out in the engaged employee?
Gallup concluded that in 2015 after interviewing more than 80,000 Workers are categorized as being engaged based on how they rate key workplace elements. The elements are someone at work encouraging their development and believing that their opinion matters, and having the chance to do what they do best every day. As a result, the engaged employees become committed to their work. The disengaged employees are hostile, they do only the minimum required, more likely to miss work and change jobs whenever an opportunity arises. Employees that are not engaged do only the minimum in their job duties and do not go above and beyond helping and serving their customers (Adkins, 2016).
Emotional Intelligence is a term created by two researchers – Peter Salovey and John Mayer – and popularized by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name. It is defined as the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others (Goleman, 2004). In practical terms, this means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people (positively and negatively) and learning how to manage those emotions – both our own and others – especially when we are under
Goleman’s research led him to conclude there are five components in Emotional Intelligence or EI. These components are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills (Goleman, 2004). Managers who are self-aware recognize how their feelings impact employees. They are not overly critical but, honest with themselves and others. Self-regulation helps managers control their negative emotions instead of being controlled by them (Goleman, 2004). Self-regulation helps to manage the negative impulses felt by all managers.
The third component of emotional intelligence is motivation. When leaders are self-motivated they also motivate their employees, work on their goals and have high quality standard for their work. Additionally, the self-motivated leaders have an emotional connection that is healthy. Thus, they can achieve the results they want without being obsessive (Goleman, 2004). Empathy is a fourth component and is defined as knowing how to treat others who have different personality traits (Goleman, 2004). The last component is having the social skills to build connections that help get the work done when the company isn’t doing well (Goleman, 2004). According to Goleman (2004), these five components of EI list six leadership approaches that could be used interchangeably: Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Leaderships.
According to Suehs (2015) on the study about emotional intelligence and employee engagement, there is much to tell as the study indicated by assessing supervisors and managers in a private sector hospital. The research questions ask: (a) what is the level of employee engagement among the study participants, (b) what is the level of emotional intelligence of the frontline managers and supervisors who participated in the study, and (c) using inferential statistics, is there a statistically significant correlation between emotional intelligence of frontline managers and supervisors and the employee engagement of their direct reports (Suehs, 2015). The quantitative study used results of 24 front-line managers and supervisors and employee engagement of their 585 employees to deny or prove the hypothesis. This study found that there is a link between emotional intelligence of the managers and supervisors, and the level of emotionally and actively engaged in daily and strategic activities of the organization. It ascertained that the emotionally intelligent leaders create a workplace where their employees are valued, empowered and engaged. From the study, it is crucial for the leaders in the public sector have emotional intelligence. Having emotionally intelligent leaders in the workplace increases the number of employees who are actively engaged.
In a study by Soyars and Brusino (2009) focusing on the aspects of employee workplace engagement, the researchers found that only a third of the employees are fully engaged in their different workplace because of conducive work environment. The first element of employee engagement is contribution and it depends on the communication of the company. (Soyars & Brusino, 2009, p. 63). The second element of employee engagement is being in connection with others in the workplace, and this is defined as healthy friendships.
It appears that the study by Pritchard (2008) identified poor training, management and benefit Lastly, most employees believe that they are not in their current workplace forever, but can leave if a greener pasture is discovered. They have lost interest in working for the organization and have high absenteeism; such studies are yet to be conducted in US. Despite the extensive amounts of research on the impact of leadership emotional intelligence (i.e. Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) upon the employee engagement in the private sector settings, there is still scarce research on the interplay between leader’s emotional intelligence upon the employee engagement in public sector settings.
This current research study will explore the relationship between employee engagement and
Based on Figure 1 of the conceptual model, the research questions include:
Hypothesis 3: There is a relationship between Affiliative emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 4: There is a relationship between pace setting emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 5: There is a relationship between democratic emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Hypothesis 6: There is a relationship between commanding emotional leadership competency and the employee’s workplace engagement in a public sector setting.
Historical Context of Employee Engagement
One of the most influential early theories in employee workplace engagement is Herzberg’s motivation and hygiene factors first published in 1959. Herzberg developed the theory after interviewing more than 200 accountants and engineers. Herzberg’s two-factor theory showed that job satisfaction depended on two separate continuums. The motivators encourage employees to work harder while the hygiene factors do not encourage employees to work harder because they become unmotivated when they are not present. The theory can be used to improve the performance of a team.
The motivating factors include achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth. In achievement, the job has to give the employee some sense of achievement. Recognition is when the job gives and employee praise on the success they have achieved. Moreover, the job should also be interesting and give employees some challenge. Responsibility refers to employees holding themselves accountable for their work. Additionally, there should be some promotion opportunities. The last motivating factor is growth which requires employees to learn new skills through formal training or on the job training. Hygiene factors are company policies, supervision, relationships, work conditions, salary, status and security ((Herzberg, 1971). The company polices need to be clear to the employees. The supervision has to be fair and clear. Additionally, there should be amiable relationships between subordinates, superiors, and peers. The working conditions need to be safe and hygienic. The salary also needs to be fair and reasonable. Finally, employees need to have security in the workplace. They should not be worried about being laid off.
Two factor theories have four states. The first state is the high hygiene and high motivation. In this state, employees have fewer grievances and are motivated. The second state is the high hygiene and low motivation. In this situation, employees may have few grievances but are not highly motivated. The third state occurs when there is a low hygiene and high motivation. Under this state, the employees are high motivated but have a lot of grievances. Finally, the low hygiene and low motivation state which is the worst for an organization and the team is when employees are not motivated and do not have the right hygiene factors.
There are two ways on how the two factor model can be used to increase motivation in the workplace: eliminating job hygiene stressors and boosting the job satisfaction. The first thing leaders have to do to enhance motivation of their team is to make sure that hygiene factors do not cause any dissatisfaction. Some of the steps to eliminate job stressors include rectifying the bureaucratic company policies, ensuring there is a supportive work culture, ensuring the team members are supported, and ensuring that there is a competitive salary. The other way is for leaders to boost the job satisfaction. After getting rid of the hygiene stressors, mangers need to boost the employee job satisfaction. There are three techniques managers can use to boost job satisfaction: job enrichment, job enlargement and employee empowerment. Job enrichment refers to enriching the employee’s job by giving them complex tasks. Job enlargement is when the employees are given a variety of tasks to complete. Lastly, in employee empowerment, team members are given an increase responsibility.
The limitation of Herzberg’s motivation theory include: the theory can only be used for white collar workers, it only focus is to improve employee satisfaction, it does not take into consideration the individual’s perception and there is no way to measure the employee satisfaction.
Although the theory remains mostly unchanged, there it underwent a list of developments. For instance, the Gallup Organization released the book First, break all the rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do. This book divided the motivation factors into two separate scales. Further, the book used Herzberg’s theory to develop a twelve-step framework of employee motivation (Herzberg, 1971).
The benefit of this theory is the consideration of both “visible” and “invisible” factors of motivation. Initially, managers focused on motivators. Recent developments enable company executives to incorporate hygiene factors. The main problem with this theory is that it focuses on the “average” behavior of employees. The reality is that there are significant differences that may determine the behavior of individuals. For instance, employees who pursue long term objectives may deviate from the “average” behavioral pattern (Herzberg, 1971).
Leadership impact on Employee Engagement
Osborne (2017) conducted a study to assess effective employee engagement in workplaces. This study aimed at investigating the different strategies which some leaders in communication business use to ensure their employees are engaged. The criteria selected the leaders who have no less than a year of employee engagement involvement. Using a conceptual framework based on self-determination theory, data was collected and analyzed. This study found that there are various leadership style aspects that directly link to the employee engagement. Some of the identified factors included existence of an effective employee’s reward and recognition program, employee’s empowerment, and the relationship bonds built between employees and leaders. Employees acknowledged that a leader who expressed high level of emotional intelligence was appealing and likely to have an actively engaged workforce within the organization.
According to a study conducted by Wright (2019), they sought to explore various roles that both employee engagement and leadership style had on service orientation, which in this case is the emotional intelligence. Employees from five different sectors were involved and subjected to the study questions. Using a competing model, the study explained that a relationship exists between the perception employees have or the public has and the employee engagement and leadership styles (Wright, 2019). The study findings showed that an organization required to come up with systems and processes that are employee oriented and ensure employee engagement is high for better service outcomes (Wright, 2019). It is like an approach taken by the leader then influences the employee engagement and they tend to feel that they are losing the connection with their employment sector. However, the paper suggests that a better and detailed study is essential to better a more integrated theory on the leadership styles and their influence they have on employee engagement which then leads to service orientation within the organizations.
According to Xu & Thomas (2011), leadership plays a role in employee engagement. The study focused on leadership since much of the prior conducted studies did not look into employee engagement and its relationship to leadership styles. The study was conducted at a New Zealand insurance company using the 360-degree feedback from 236 employees who rated 42 immediate managers (Xu & Thomas, 2011). The research concluded that leaders who supported and developed team members, worked effectively, and displayed integrity have more employees who are engaged. The strengths of the study included using a thorough behavioral measure of leadership and theoretically based instrument for employee engagement (Xu & Thomas, 2011). The limitation of the study identified that no causality was given. It also found that future research should be done to establish on how leaders can keep their employees engaged and use resources towards enhancing employee engagement as well as it assessment. Leaders should capitalize on their strengths to increase employee engagement (Xu & Thomas, 2011).
The study by Soyars and Brusino (2009) sought to define employee engagement as three elements: contributions, connections, and growth and advancement. They also defined employee engagement as employees who are committed to their work and want to contribute to the success of the organization. This study found that only one- third of the employees are fully engaged in their different workplaces (Soyars and Brusino, 2009). Ninety percent of companies surveyed agreed that employee engagement is important and they should communicate the mission. However, only 52% of companies state they are doing this to a high extent (Soyars & Brusino, 2009). The first element of employee engagement is contribution and depends on the communication of the company’s mission which will enable employees to contribute to its success (Soyars & Brusino, 2009). The second element of employee engagement is connections, and this is defined as healthy friendships. However, this study indicated that only 79% of employees feel that relationships with co-workers increased employee engagement but, 30% of employees feel that relationships with their managers is the most responsible for employee engagement. A better view of these statistics was offered by Ashley Autry, 2019, on a post to show 2018 employee retention, engagement statistics.
A study conducted by Delaney and Royal (2017), the motivation of employees is a significant component of employee engagement. Employees are led to do more bases on their motivation (Delaney & Royal, 2017). The research concluded that there are two types of motivation—intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is internal to the individual and is related to personal drives. Extrinsic motivation is external to the individual and is connected to the work environment and organization (Delaney & Royal, 2017). At the extrinsic motivation is where the leader has a role to play in ensuring that all the employee are well engaged based on the particular leadership approach taken. The study found that employees who exceeded performance expectations were more intrinsically motivated. This is likely to happen when job duties align with personal attitudes and values (Delaney & Royal, 2017). The research concluded that organizations should work to close the motivation gap to ensure that employees perform at a high level (Delaney & Royal, 2017).
Venkatesh (2018) looked at the different leadership strategies that are of influence to employee engagement. The study was centered towards the healthcare organizations. More so, the interesting bit of the study population is the impact employees have within the healthcare sector in that they are related to saving lives and patient satisfaction. Therefore, it is exceptionally vital to deliver high quality healthcare and be there at the critical times of human health. The study was triggered by the trending challenge of engaging healthcare professionals that most leaders are facing. The study highlighted that most of the reasons why this challenge is overgrowing is because employees feel that issues that are of concern to them are never satisfactorily addressed by their leaders. The leaders tend to argue that these challenges are as a result of dynamic technological changes, lack of adequate talents, increasing turnover rates, and the multi-generational workforce. Therefore, this study concluded that a leader’s approach is of great significance to employee engagement. It also advocates for the necessity of leaders to come up with appropriate strategies to implement in order to persuade and engage every healthcare professional under them.
Organizations understand that change cannot be avoided but, retaining engaged employees should be consistent. Organizations want higher productivity and understand that this is one of the benefits of high employee engagement. Organizational pride has remained steady in the UK but, public sector employees are the least proud of where they work (Pritchard, 2008).
Leader Emotional Intelligence and Employee Engagement
Quang, Khuong, and Le (2015) conducted a study to investigate the how leaders apply emotional intelligence to formulate the leadership styles and improve employee job engagement. The study was carried out on 400 white collar employees working in Hoa Binh Corporation and its subsidiaries in Ho Chi Minh City. The findings of the study indicated that leader’s emotional intelligence competencies such as self-esteem, self-motivation, interpersonal relations and emotional literacy had a positive effect on the employee engagement. Moreover, the leader’s competency regarding changing resilience negatively affected the employee engagement. Thus, from the results, the research found out that emotional intelligent leaders develop workforce engagement (Quang, Khuong, and Le, 2015).
Mahon, Taylor and Boyatzis (2014) carried out a study on 231 team members from two organizations to examine the impact team members have on emotional intelligence and their perception on shared positive mood, shared personal vision, and perceived organizational support. The researchers had hypothesized that organizational support, shared positive mood, shared personal vision, emotional intelligence has a positive association with the organizational engagement (Mahon, Taylor and Boyatzis, 2014). The results of the study found that emotional intelligence moderates the shared personal vision with the organizational engagement, but it is not always done in a positive way.
Palmer and Gignac (2012) conducted a study on employee engagement from three organizations to determine the relationship between emotional intelligence of managers and the level of engagement on direct reports. The data was collected through an online web survey. The findings of the study found that the emotional intelligence of the managers correlate with the employee engagement score (Palmer and Gignac, 2012). Future research needs to establish if there is a correlation between the emotional intelligence of managers and direct report engagement scores. Furthermore, the future study needs to examine whether there is an improvement in the employee engagement scores due to the improvement in the emotional intelligence of mangers. The practical implications of the study identified that organizations need to improve on the employment brand, productivity and the talent retention by working on improving the emotional intelligence of management.
Public Sector Employees and Workplace Motivation/Employee Engagement
Employee motivation may be a difficult and many-sided development. Work place motivation is an endless struggle of employers and workers. The aim of this study was to identify and discuss the factors that influence employees’ motivation and major stress on the variations between public and private sector employees’ psychological feature constructs among the banking industry (Rashid & Rashid, 2012). A survey methodology was designed to assemble formation from one-hundred fifty public and private sector banking stahe public sector banks are those owned by the government while the private sector banks are owned by individuals and corporations. The study is meant to look at whether or not work motivation of the staff operating public and private sector banks is completely different (Rashid & Rashid, 2012). Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze and establish the precise factors that have a larger impact on motivation of the individuals operating within the banks and to work out
In the public sector, the rewards given to employees are not just a matter of academic interest but organizations see a connection tied to performance (Wright, 2007). Studies that have found similar levels of employee motivation among public and private employees suggest that the importance employees place on contributing to the public service mission of their organizations may provide intrinsic rewards that compensate for the low levels of extrinsic rewards commonly associated with public sector work (Wright, 2007). This study uses the goal theory of motivation to propose a theoretical model explaining the potential effects of the importance of organizational mission on employee work motivation. Second, this research uses this model to test the relationship between the importance of organizational mission and employee work motivation that is often asserted-but rarely tested-in the public administration literature
The empirical test of this new framework suggests that goal theory provides a strong theoretical foundation for understanding the separate but related contributions of task and mission. The study concluded that public sector employees are more motivated to perform their work when they have clearly understood tasks that they feel are important and achievable. The value that employees see in the mission of their organization was found to influence their work motivation by increasing the importance they placed on their own work (Wright, 2007).
In a related line of research literature, there is research examining the employee motivation in public sector employees. For example, Jin and McDonald (2017) examined role of immediate supervisor, perceived organizational support, and learning opportunities among public sector employees.
Jin and McDonald (2017) carried out a study to understand the employee engagement in the public sector. The study investigated the role of organizational support in the link between employee engagement and supervisor support. The study was carried out on 1,251 employees from local and state government agencies. The findings show that the supervisor support directly and indirectly affect the employee engagement through the influence it has on perceived organizational support (Jin and McDonald, 2017). The results also show that supervisor support and organizational support are moderated by the learning opportunities. As a result of the learning opportunities, employees are encouraged to grow and learn.
Similarly, Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko (2017) conducted a research study examining the employee engagement among various unspecified public sector employees in the country of Ghana. The findings of the study show that the level at which employees are engaged reduces when the extent of power within the workplace is overemphasized (Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko, 2017). Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko (2017) attributes the results to the fact that the employees are unable to use their discretion in such a high power culture. When there is a positive relationship with the employee engagement, it means that there is job autonomy in the organization. When employees have more autonomy, they will be more engaged in their work. Thus, when there is high employees do not have the autonomy and it negatively affect their engagement. Additionally, study also found that there positive relationship between employee engagement and support culture (Brenyah, 2017). The organizations with a support culture have mutual trust between employees and the leaders which results into employee engagement. The study also showed that there is a positive relationship between achievement culture and employee engagement (Brenyah, 2017). Employees in an organization that is achievement oriented can use their discretion when doing their work. Thus, their level of engagement increases.
Methodology Section
Participants
The sample population to be utilized in this research will entail public utility sector employees aged 24-64 years old located in the Southern region of the United States. The sample excludes all persons, outside the defined age group (Adkins, 2016). Secondly, all participants will be fluent English speakers because the questionnaires, consent forms, and other materials were written in English; the inclusion of non-fluent-English speakers might lead to inadequate understanding of the survey instructions thus these participants will be excluded from the study. Participants should be currently working either on a full or part-time basis in a public sector setting. The participants will include both male and female participants. The participants will be recruited via an online recruitment platform. Using an A-priori Sample Size Calculator for Multiple Regression (https://www.danielsoper.com/statcalc/calculator.aspx?id=1) with at least 6 predictor variables of Emotional Intelligence Dimensions (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) in predicting the dependent variable of employee engagement, the minimum required sample size is 123 participants in order to obtain a desired statistical power of 0.90 with a 0.05 statistical significance level (Adkins, 2016)..
Measures
A demographic questionnaire will ask for each participant’s age, gender, work status (Part-time versus Full-time), the yearly income (in dollars), and the highest education level completed (High school, some college credits Vocational degree completed, Completed undergraduate degree, some graduate school credits completed masters or doctorate degree) Furthermore, some additional follow-up questions related to the participant’s personal work experience will be asked such as their length of time working (measured in months), if they have ever been previously fired from an employment position and if they have ever been previously promoted in an employment position. The collecting of the data and other predefined demographic facets is useful in meeting the right data pool for subsequent analysis (Adkins, 2016).
After completing the demographic questionnaires, all the participants will complete two assessments for this study: the Utrecht Work engagement scale developed by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) and a modification on the six distinct styles of emotional leadership Likert scale developed by Daniel Goleman (2004). A complete set of questions used on the survey is located in Appendix A.
First, the Utrecht Work engagement scale developed by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) is a 17-item inventory that measures the 3 dimensions the employee engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). The UWES previously had 24items; 9 vigor items and 8 dedication items that had MBI items that were positively rephrased. The MBI-items were supplemented by the dedication and vigor items and absorption items that constituted the UWES-24 (Brenyah, 2017). However, a psychometric evaluation was done in samples of students and employees whereby 7 items were found to be unsound and eliminated. Thus, only 17 items remained: 6 absorption items, 5 dedication items, and 6 vigor items. There are studies that have used the 15 item version of UWES. There has been validity studies carried out using the UWES. The studies have identified how UWES relates with work engagement and burnout, and work engagement and workaholism (Brenyah, 2017). One of the validity studies reviewed included the work engagement and burnout. The study revealed that there is a strong relationship between professional efficacy and engagement, than to burnout. The other validity study was between work engagement and workaholic.
The study showed that workaholic and work engagement are related to different variables. In work engagement, and workaholic, employees are loyal to their organization and work hard. Employees who are workaholic are loyal to the organization but it is at the expense of their social contacts that are outside the workplace. Engaged employees, on the other hand, feel good, both socially and mentally (Goleman, 2004). Validity studies done using the UWES show that burnout and work engagement are not related. Therefore, it is possible to discriminate engagement from workaholic. Reliability of the UWES is done using two aspects: test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Both the internal consistency and the test-retest reliability are internally consistent. Thus, adding another item does not increase the internal consistency of the scales. The extra items are better eliminated.
Finally, the researcher will adapt the 6 dimensions of Emotional Intelligence (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) by Daniel Goleman (2004) focusing on the perception of the public sector employees on their corresponding leaders or supervisors. For example, a question such as “my team trust me implicitly” would be revised to read “I can trust my workplace leader/supervisor implicitly”. Furthermore, a question such as “I spend a lot of my time getting buy-in to ideas from my team members” would be revised to read “My workplace leader/supervisor spends a lot of time getting buy-in to ideas from the team members.” Revisions will be applied to all the 36 questions on the scale adapted from Daniel Goleman (2004) 6 dimensions of Emotional Intelligence. A Cronbach’s alpha analysis will be conducted at the conclusion of the dissertation survey to examine the internal validity of the newly developed scale measuring the public sector employee’s perception of emotional intelligence leadership styles among their workplace leaders or supervisors (Goleman, 2004).
Procedure
The sample population to be utilized in this research will entail 123 local public sector employees aged 24-64 years old located in the United States (Gerald, 2018). Using online advertisements on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, participants will be directed to an online survey platform (i.e. Google Survey) in order to access the survey. The online advertisement directing participants to the online survey platform will remain for four weeks. Participants will complete an online voluntarily and anonymously to achieve confidentiality. The agreement in participating in answering the questions, will act as a measure of “consent” for participation (Gerald, 2018). Hence, completing the survey online, the participants will be required to read and accept an online consent form that reassures that participation in the research study is voluntary and confidential. Based on the speed and technicality of the questions, the approximated time for completion is 20-30 minutes.
This study takes a quantitative approach, with the applied online questionnaires enabling the gathering of numerical data, essential for subsequent statistical analysis. The chosen analysis software is IBM-SPSS ver. 25 (Gerald, 2018). Descriptive statistics will be applied in providing summaries of the demographic information of the sampled participants, which will include determining the mean, percentages, and standard deviations and the data collected. Using descriptive statistics and graphs or tables, there does the summarizing of the data and allowing for an easier understand? Inferential statistics will be applied in examining relationships across the variables, and in making hypothesis-testing conclusions (Gerald, 2018). Correlation and linear regression analysis will be applied in examining the association existing between the sampled participant demographic variables and their performance. With correlation analysis, the determined outcome, i.e., the correlation coefficient is used in explaining the existing effects across the predefined facets, i.e., zero (0) is applied in indicating no effects, while a determined value of one (1) is used in indicating perfect effect (Gerald, 2018). Hence, by conducting a correlation, one can make conclusions on the association. Secondly, regression analysis will help examine the possible statistical relationships between the public sector employee’s perception of the 6 Emotional Intelligence Dimensions (Visionary, Coaching, Affiliative, Democratic, Pace Setting and Commanding Emotional Leaderships) towards their leaders or supervisors and the employee’s self-reported employee engagement.
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Appendix
Work & Well-being Survey (UWES)
The following 17 statements are about how you feel at work. Please read each
Statement carefully and decide if you ever feel this way about your job. If you have
Never had this feeling, cross the ‘0’ (zero) in the space after the statement. If you have
had this feeling, indicate how often you feel it by crossing the number (from 1 to 6)
that best describes how frequently you feel that way.
Never 0
Almost never ( a few times a year or less) 1
Rarely (once a month or less) 2
Sometimes (a few times a month) 3
Often (once a week) 4
Very often ( a few times a week) 5
Always (everyday) 6
A Communication Styles Questionnaire
ASSESSING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
This questionnaire is based on the work of George Litwin and Richard Stringer,
psychologists from Harvard University. But it considers the same six distinct styles of
leadership as Daniel Goleman.
SCORING
Read the following statements and against each statement allocate a score:
This is always true of me 5 points
This is often true of me 3 points
This is true of me 50% of the time 2 points
This is largely untrue of me 1 point
This is totally untrue of me 0 points
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