Leadership Frames and Employees’ Work Engagement: Mediating Insights from Leaders' Motivating Language

Abstract

Employees’ work engagement is considered a strategic organizational priority because of its impact on sustainable competitive advantage across the globe.  Despite extensive research on different leadership styles and behaviors, the current study bridges the gap of limited empirical evidence of the impact of Human Resource Leadership Frame and Symbolic Leadership Frame on employees' work engagement with the mediating role of leaders’ motivating language. The study was conducted on management professionals of the petroleum refining sector of Pakistan a major contributor to the national economy of Pakistan. The research study was conducted cross-sectionally through a self-administered survey questionnaire with a sample of 377 professionals from the refining sector in Pakistan. Convenience sampling was used due to the geographical dispersion and approachability constraints of the target population. The research model was analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The measurement model established satisfactory reliability and convergent validity, and bootstrapping confirmed the significance of the hypothesized relationships. The findings revealed that Human Resource Leadership Frame (β = 0.410, p < 0.001) and Symbolic Leadership Frame (β = 0.312, p < 0.001) significantly and positively enhanced employees' work engagement, while leaders' motivating language partially mediated the both relationships. The study also contributes to leadership and work engagement literature along with supporting human resources and management practitioners to apply human centric and meaning oriented leadership behavior and verbal language more effectively for motivating employees and strengthening engagement at the workplace.

           Keywords: human resource leadership frame, symbolic leadership frame, leaders' motivating language, employees' work engagement