Abstract
In today's rapidly changing business environment, employee engagement is an important element of organisational survival that has a significant impact on employee retention and the organisation's performance. Among all the factors that have an impact on employee engagement, leadership is considered as the most important one. However, there are no studies that illustrate what leader's actions contribute to employee engagement. Moreover, the tax and legal professional service sector remains unstudied, even though the importance of the tax and legal (T&L) service sector is becoming more significant. This study explores what attributes of transactional and transformational leadership styles contribute to employee engagement in the tax and legal professional service sector. Transactional and transformational leadership styles are the focus of the study because they are considered to be the most popular and applicable leadership styles in business settings. In this study a qualitative narrative research approach was applied. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews with leaders from the tax and legal sector. Prior to the data collection process, all participants were qualified to validate the study, including participants undertaking the MLQ. Only leaders with transactional and transformational leadership styles were included in the interview process. The interview questions were aligned with the original research questions and research participants shared their experiences of how they engage with their employees. The collected data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. The research findings illustrate that the most-discussed factor believed to contribute towards employee engagement is meaningful, challenging, and interesting tasks. Another factor that was discussed by participants is a common goal and/or a vision shared by the team. General sense of purpose is also mentioned as one of the most important factors that have impact on employee engagement. Besides, the participants explained a sense of being supported, a sense of being valued and trusted as factors that contributes to employee engagement. It was also identified that rewards and a sense of ownership and autonomy are factors that are likely to lead towards higher employee engagement. The participants discussed their leadership attributes that lead to employee engagement. The leader's attribute mentioned the most that is believed to facilitate engagement is assuming the role of a mentor and role model. Another related action leading to employee engagement that the participant discussed is being transparent and approachable, having a close relationship. In addition, fostering the culture of open discussions and mutual feedback is also mentioned as leader's attribute that can positively impact employee engagement. The study makes significant contributions to gaining a further understanding of transformational leadership, transactional leadership theories, the employee engagement concept, and how they all work in the tax and legal professional service sector in practice. The current research could contribute to the creation of a new theoretical framework of transactional and transformational leadership attributes that drive employee engagement. Moreover, the findings of the current study also reveal several factors and leader's actions that could lead to increased employee engagement. The findings of the study are important for the leaders operating in the tax and legal professional service sector. The findings of this research also have application for leaders in the government and non-profit sectors by providing strategies to boost employee engagement, to retain employees, and to create more employment opportunities for the families in communities and Australian citizens.