Article Published In Vol.9 (March-April 2021)

Relationship between Leadership and Employee Engagement in Organizations Today, A Focus on Vihiga County Government-A Scoping Review

Author : PhD Scholar Nasimiyu Ruth Mulievi and Lecturer Dr. Eglay Tsuma

Modern day organizations are in a constant state of instability and often experience large scale change, hence the guidance of visionary leadership is fundamental to the success of any organization.   One of the challenges facing the human resource management team and business leaders of many organizations today is that most supervisors lack the aptitude to ensure that employees not only do their tasks physically but mentally and emotionally.  The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between leadership and employee engagement in organizations today: A case study at Vihiga County government. Fred Fiedler (1960) contingency theory of effectiveness and Psychologist Fritz Heider (1896–1988) attribution theory were used to provide a frameworkfor analysing the relationship between leadership and employee engagement.  There are few researchers who have focused on other county governments in Kenya but there no much study done in Vihiga County government.  The study used stratified random sampling design where the researcher selected 240 respondents.  A questionnaire was used a sole data collection tool to collect primary data.  The inferential statistical methods used were correlation and descriptive statistical involved in measurement of central tendency that is the mean.  Staffs were chosen using stratified random sampling.  Findings indicated that the relationship between leadership and employee engagement was positive and significant.  In addition the research illustrates that transformational leaders transfer their enthusiasm and high power to their subordinates by the way of modeling.  It means that organizations must ensure that employees are totally engaged so as to contribute positively towards attainment of organization’s objectives.  Transformational leadership is a stronger predictor of both overall satisfaction and employee engagement.  Therefore it is the job of a good leader to reconcile all those interests and bring them together in a way that keeps the team moving in the right direction.  It is possible to bring everyone together in a common pursuit if they have divergent goals and aspirations if good leadership is applied. The researcher recommends further investigation on the interaction of other variables on the effects of leadership styles on employee engagement.  A replication of the study should be carried out using a larger sample, more time allocation to the same combination of more than one data collection instrument and more other variables that are relevant to the study.

Keywords: Relationship between Leadership, Employee Engagement, Organizations today