Engaging leadership and followers' outcomes: incremental validity over transformational leadership

Abstract

PurposeThe present study examines the incremental validity of engaging leadership in predicting five fundamental organizational outcomes (followers’ organizational commitment, work engagement, task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour and counterproductive work behaviour) over transformational leadership.Design/methodology/approachThe study is cross-sectional in nature and a survey questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were collected from 402 workers in different fields. Hierarchical multiple regression was used in order to determine the incremental validity of engaging leadership.FindingsOur results indicated that engaging leadership contributes additional variance over and above transformational leadership in predicting the five organizational outcomes.Practical implicationsThe results of the study suggest that combining engaging leadership interventions with transformational leadership interventions may lead to better results.Originality/valueThe present study supports the empirical distinction of engaging leadership from transformational leadership, addressing possible concerns regarding construct redundancy.