Engaging leadership and its implication for work engagement and job outcomes at the individual and team level: A multi-level longitudinal study

The current study investigates how supervisors’ engaging leadership, as perceived by their employees, increases employees’ job outcomes at the individual and team level, as mediated by (team) work engagement. Job outcome indicators at the team level are team performance, team learning, and team innovation; and at the individual level, job performance, employee learning, and innovative work behavior. The novel concept of engaging leadership is presented as the specific type of leadership to foster (team) work engagement. A multi-level longitudinal study is conducted among 224 blue collar employees nested in 54 teams in an Indonesian state-owned holding company in the agricultural industry using a one-year time lag. The findings show, as expected, that at the team level, engaging leadership at time 1 predicted team learning and team innovation (but not team performance) at time 2, via team work engagement at time 2. Additionally, an expected cross-level effect was observed from engaging leadership at the team level at time 1 predicting individual job performance (but not employee learning and innovative work behavior) at time 2, via team work engagement at time 2. Finally, an expected second cross-level effect was observed for engaging leadership at the team level at time 1, which predicted individual job performance, employee learning, and innovative work behavior at time 2, via work engagement at time 2.