Leadership Styles and Subordinate Work Engagement: The Moderating Impact of Leader Gender

Introduction The emergence of positive psychology (studies such as those of Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Seligman, 2002) has led to increased attention in the positive constructs of employee well-being, one of which is work engagement. This has been defined as "a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption" (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, and Bakker, 2002, p. 74). Various studies (such as Ghadi, Fernando, and Caputi, 2013; Suharti and Suliyanto, 2012; Babcock-Roberson and Strickland 2010; Giallonardo, Wong, and Iwasiw, 2010) have linked leadership style to employee work engagement. Authoritarian and benevolent leadership styles are examined in this research. The former is defined as leader behavior that uses authority and control over subordinates, demanding unquestionable obedience. On the other hand, benevolence is leader behavior that shows individual concern over followers' personal or familial well-being (Cheng, Chou, Wu, Huang, and Farh, 2004). A number of former studies indicated that benevolent leadership influence different subordinate outcomes, such as creativity (Wang and Cheng, 2010), compliance with the supervisor's requirements and work motivation (Niu, Wang, and Cheng, 2009), and task performance, citizenship behavior and creativity (Wang, Chiang, Tsai, Lin, and Cheng, 2013). In addition, considerable amount of research has found that authoritarian leadership style affect a number of subordinate outcomes such as task performance, citizenship behavior and creativity (Wang et al., 2013); organization-based self-esteem and task performance (Chan et al., 2013); employee performance (Chen et al., 2011). Authoritarian and benevolent leadership are both commonly found in the Turkish context. Ronen (1986) pointed out that many Turkish organizations have the characteristics of centralized decision making, highly personalized, strong leadership, in addition to limited delegation. Furthermore, Kabasakal and Bodur's (1998) study concluded that Turkish leaders are either mainly autocratic/paternalistic or consultative. Moreover, Kozan (1993) indicated that traditionally, a benevolent, autocratic leadership style is valued highly in Turkish society. In light of these former studies, this current research investigates the relationship between authoritarian and benevolent leadership styles and subordinates' work engagement. The moderating influence of leader gender on this relationship is also probed. The social role theory of sex differences indicates that, in general, people are expected to act in accordance with their culturally defined roles (Eagly, 1987). However, by fulfilling people's expectations about manager or leader roles, women can violate what is considered as appropriate female behavior. According to the degree that female leaders violate their subordinates' gender expectations, leaders might face prejudiced reactions such as biased performance evaluations and negative assumptions about future performance (Eagly, Karau, and Makhijani, 1995). Considering the difference in expected gender role behaviors of male and female leaders, this current study examines the moderating influence of leader gender. This research contributes to the literature in several ways. First of all, although there are studies (e.g. Ghadi et al., 2013; Zhu, Avolio, and Walumbwa, 2009) in the literature that have investigated the influence of transformational leadership style on follower work engagement, there is scarce research that examines the relationship between benevolent and authoritarian leadership styles and this engagement. Our paper extends the former literature by examining the relationship between benevolent and authoritarian leadership styles on subordinate work engagement. In addition, there is limited research in the Turkish context that has investigated leader gender as a moderator of subordinate outcomes. This study also contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between benevolent and authoritarian leadership styles, employees' work engagement, and leader gender in a single work. …