Abstract:

This article fills the void in leadership and engagement literature through conducting a quantitative review to explore the disparities among relationships between different leadership styles and engagement. Based on a meta-analysis of 148 cases and 162 independent effect sizes (N = 84836). We found positive associations between various leadership styles and engagement, and the results of relative weights analysis suggest that engagement was decrementally predicted by empowering leadership, ethical leadership, transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, authentic leadership, transactional leadership, servant leadership and paternalistic leadership. Moderator analyses revealed that the particular engagement scale, design of research and cultural background all produce meaningful influences on the relationships in the meta-analysis.

Key words: transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, authentic leadership, engagement, meta-analysis