The Satisfaction and Frustration of Basic Psychological Needs in Engaging Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to test engaging leadership, which is a recently developed leadership concept based on basic psychological needs theory. Drawing on self‐determination theory, the current study hypothesized that basic psychological needs mediate the relationship between engaging leadership and both positive and negative outcomes. An association between need satisfaction and positive results and an association between need frustration and adverse outcomes were expected. The survey data, collected from three comparable groups from two multinational, technical engineering organizations (N = 304), were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Autonomy satisfaction was found to play a pivotal role in the leadership model and was associated with increased positive outcomes, such as work engagement and autonomous motivation, and decreased unfavorable motivational consequences, such as controlled motivation and amotivation. The highlighted role of autonomy satisfaction informs leaders to focus on the positive aspects of leadership and need fulfillment rather than aiming to diminish frustration. Additionally, the current study adds to the growing body of knowledge on effective leadership approaches in a fast‐changing complex business world and on the benefits of autonomy‐supportive work environments.

Engaging Leadership: How to Promote Work Engagement?

“…In other words, satisfaction of the four basic needs should mediate the effect of engaging leadership on work engagement. This indeed appears to be the case, for example among South African miners (Erasmus, 2018 ), employees of Flemish health insurance funds (Robijn et al, 2020 ), office staff of a Dutch insurance company (Robijn, 2021b ), staff of the back office of a Dutch technology company (Van Tuin et al, 2020a ) and finally Russian civil servants and employees working at an Indonesian palm oil plantation (Rahmadani et al, 2019 ). In all cases full mediation was observed, except for Russian civil servants and Dutch back-office staff, where the mediation was partial in nature.…”

Engaging leadership: Enhancing work engagement through intrinsic values and need satisfaction

“…The respondents of study 2 were engineers overseeing complex mass‐production processes, whereas the respondents in study 1 were business information analysts and order‐managers.Despite its firm roots in a well‐established theory of human motivation, the measure of EL is relatively new and cannot draw on a wealth of studies. Nevertheless, a growing body of research has been conducted, under which: a diary study investigating the impact of EL on daily team job‐crafting (Mäkikangas et al, 2017); a crossed and lagged panel study into the relationships with autonomy, social support, learning opportunities, and engagement (Nikolova et al, 2019); mediational analyses on the role of basic psychological needs satisfaction (Rahmadani et al, 2019) and needs frustration (van Tuin, Schaufeli, & Van Rhenen, 2020); an intervention study on the impact on business results and well‐being (van Tuin, Schaufeli, Van Rhenen, & Kuiper, 2020). Another aspect is the more general issue of construct proliferation in leadership research (Shaffer et al, 2016).…”

“…A previous study on EL indicated an indirect effect on burnout and engagement via job demands and resources, as well as a direct impact on employability, performance, and commitment (Schaufeli, 2015). Later studies showed a positive association of EL with work engagement through the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs (Rahmadani et al, 2019) and their frustration (van Tuin, Schaufeli, & Van Rhenen, 2020), as well as positive effects on employee learning and innovative job behavior (Rahmadani et al, 2020), team job crafting (Mäkikangas et al, 2017), autonomy satisfaction, and social support (Nikolova et al, 2019). Additionally, a recent leadership intervention study showed that training managers in EL behaviors led to improved business results, lower absenteeism, and well‐being (van Tuin, Schaufeli, Van Rhenen, & Kuiper, 2020).…”

“…This theory posits that human motivation is nourished through the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs whose fulfillment leads to a range of positive outcomes in human growth, optimal functioning, well‐being, and flourishing (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Needs satisfaction tends to explain a considerable part of the variance in work engagement (Rahmadani et al, 2019; van Tuin, Schaufeli, & Van Rhenen, 2020). This perspective on motivation is attractive for HRD professionals because it supports the shift in focus from extrinsic incentivizing to boost employee performance to supporting high‐quality motivation coming from within (Fowler, 2018; Rigby & Ryan, 2018).…”

A relatedness-based model of transformational leadership: a case study of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 1960s East Bengal

“…Leadership has been studied from myriad perspectives, including evolutionary theories (Van Vugt et al, 2008), popular culture (Kuri and Kaufman, 2020), psychology (Tuin et al, 2020), traits (Gardner, 1989;Zaccaro, 2007), and import of trust (Braun et al, 2013;Torres and Bligh, 2012), or empowerment (Avolio et al, 2004), leader-member exchange (Schyns, 2013;Yukl et al, 2013), sincerity or authenticity (George, 2003), and power (Collinson, 2005;Burns, 1979), or as a social process as opposed to individual action (Bolden, 2011;Bennett et al, 2003) to name just a few. And while leadership has been traditionally studied from a Western cultural perspective, there is now a growing trend to look at other regional (Chong and Fu, 2020;Ma and Tsui, 2015) and global perspectives (Hanges et al, 2016).…”