Does organisational politics affect leaders’ ability to engage Ghanaian Bankers?

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of transformational and transactional leadership styles on employees’ work engagement and the moderating effects of perceived organisational politics (POPS) in indigenous Ghanaian Banks.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a cross-sectional survey design and a quantitative approach to gather data from 430 respondents through the use of structured questionnaire. The covariance-based structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data with the aid of statistical package for social sciences and AMOS.FindingsThe analyses revealed that transformational leaders had a positive influence on employee engagement while transactional leadership did not have a significant influence on employee engagement. POPS also had no influence on employee engagement. Furthermore, POPS failed to moderate the relationship between leadership styles and employee engagement.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide important practical implications for managers and policymakers in the banking sector of Ghana in engendering good leadership and political environments that will promote the engagement of employees.Originality/valueThe variables used in this study and the context, present interesting and fresh insights into the interplay between leadership styles, POPS and employee engagement, thereby contributing to the discourse on the leadership and human resource management literature. Furthermore, this study fills a gap in literature and challenges prior conceptions that negative political climates within the public and private banks is chiefly responsible for the recent troubles some banks have faced in Ghana’s banking sector.