Leadership Styles in Relation to Employee Engagement and Satisfaction: A Systematic Literature Review

This systematic literature review examines how diverse leadership styles influence employee engagement and job satisfaction. Transformational leadership, characterized by inspiration, individualized consideration, and a compelling vision, consistently emerges as the most effective style for heightening both employee engagement and satisfaction across sectors and regions. Transactional leadership provides stability and procedural clarity, promoting satisfaction particularly in structured environments, though it is less likely to foster deep engagement or innovation. In contrast, servant and authentic leadership styles prioritize ethical conduct, empowerment, and follower well-being, facilitating trust and positive affect, which are strong predictors of workplace happiness. Servant leadership, especially, was found to enhance citizenship behaviors and institutional commitment in critical sectors like healthcare and aviation. Passive and autocratic leadership consistently undermined engagement and satisfaction, often by reducing autonomy and clarity or increasing stress and organizational politics. Sectoral and cultural moderators, such as human resource management practices and perceived organizational politics, significantly modulate these effects. Furthermore, job satisfaction frequently mediates the pathway between leadership and engagement, underscoring the importance of psychological empowerment and organizational culture as key levers. Future research should integrate digital transformation and sustainability perspectives, using mixed methods.