Influence of Leadership Styles and Sex on Work Engagement among Private Sector Workers in Agbara, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the influence of leadership styles and sex on work engagement among employees of randomly selected private organisations in Agbara industrial estate, Ogun State. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey design, simple random and convenience sampling techniques in selecting participating organisations and 303 employees who participated in the study, respectively. These participants consisted of 110(36.3) below 25years of age, 117(38.6%) within 25-34years, 57(18.8%) within 35-44years, 17(5.6%) are within 45-54 years of age, while just 2(.7%) are above 55years; 183(60.4) are single, 105(34.7) are married, while 15(4.9) are divorced. In terms of educational attainment, 188(62.1%) had a Bachelor’s degree and above, 108(35.6%) had a diploma certificate, and 7(2.3%) were working with Senior Secondary School Certificate. In terms of organisational cadre, 10(3.3%), 34(11.2%), 40(13.2%) and 219(72.3%) are of the managerial, supervisory, machine operator and general employee cadre, respectively; 146(48.2%) had worked for less than 10years, 98(32.3) had been engaged in the organisation for between 10-19years, while 59(19.5%) had been in the organisations for 20years and more. Two standardised scales were utilised for data collection; they are a 17-item self-report Utrecht work engagement scale developed by Schaufeli and Bakker (2003) with Cronbach coefficient alpha of 0.93 and a 36-item multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ-5x) scale developed by Bass & Avolio (1995). Two hypotheses were raised and tested, and the results revealed a significant joint influence of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire Leadership styles on work engagement [R² =.301, F= (42.99), P<.05]; independently, transformational leadership [β= .391, t= .6.611; P<.05] and transactional leadership styles [β= .213, t= 2.972; P<.05] had significant independent influence on work engagement, while laissez-faire leadership style [β= -.012, t= -.211; P>.05] had no significant influence on work engagement, therefore the hypothesis was partially accepted. The second hypothesis on sex showed there was no significant influence of sex on work engagement (t = -3.19, df (301). The results were discussed, and recommendations were raised for future studies based on some identified limitations of the study