As public employees face ever growing job demands, it is important to understand what actions leaders can take to encourage well-being and performance. This paper explores the relationship between instrumental leadership and work engagement using two samples and analyzes the interaction between instrumental leadership and transformational leadership using one of the two samples.
This study conducts regression analysis on two samples. Sample 1 (collected in 2020) surveys Danish public administrators while Sample 2 (collected in Fall 2021) surveys one large southwest US city. Sample 2 also considers the lagged relationships of the OLS model over time.
Findings show that instrumental leadership is positively associated with increased work engagement across both samples. When examined together in Sample 1, instrumental leadership demonstrates a stronger relationship with work engagement with transformational leadership relationship with work engagement having some dependence on the level of instrumental leadership.
Instrumental leadership is associated with higher levels of employee work engagement, which has been linked to improved organizational outcomes. Mid-level managers may already be applying instrumental leadership behaviors suggesting that a more purposeful approach could be associated with higher work engagement.
This study uses data from two distinct public sector environments showing that instrumental leadership's relationship with work engagement spans different cultural and organizational contexts.
