Influence of leadership style on work engagement of knowledge workers in an engineering organization

Recent decades have seen the emergence of organizations that rely on the processing of information into knowledge as compared to manufacturing physical products as a foundation of their core business. These organizations utilize knowledge workers, professionals that produce or exchange knowledge to develop products or services, as integral drivers of innovation, business growth, and competitiveness. Organizations are discovering that the level of work engagement of these knowledge workers has an impact on the productivity and success of the organization. Studies show that work engagement is correlated to psychological constructs such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Leadership study results indicate that leadership style has an impact on worker job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The leadership style of the leaders of an organization can therefore impact the level of work engagement of workers in an organization, through mediating psychological constructs of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Knowledge workers are motivated by intrinsic motivators and to a lesser extent by extrinsic motivators. Intrinsic motivators such as autonomy and opportunities to learn are job resources that have been shown to be predictors of work engagement of knowledge workers. This quantitative research will study the impact of leadership style on the level of work engagement of knowledge workers in an engineering organization. Research instruments will measure knowledge worker's perception of their supervisor's leadership style and their own level of work engagement.