Emotional Leadership, Leader Legitimacy, and Work Engagement in Retail Distribution Industry

Purpose: The study examines how emotional leadership affects employee attitude towards work engagement. Leader legitimacy perception is chosen as the mediating variable to understand the effect of emotional leadership on employee work engagement. Research design, data and methodology: The research model is based on theory and empirical research findings in order to examine the mediating effect of leader legitimacy perception on the relationship between the manager’s emotional leadership and employee work engagement. For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 188 employees of domestic retail distributors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and survey data confirmed the construct, and the hypothesis was tested by using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results: a) Emotional leadership has positive influence on leader legitimacy; b) Leader legitimacy is positively related to work engagement; c) Leader legitimacy mediates a positive relationship between emotional leadership and work engagement. However, there is no direct effect on work engagement (of employees) from emotional leadership standpoint. Conclusion: Based on the empirical results, implications and future research directions are discussed.