The impact of dissonance in schema based leadership perceptions on employee engagement: Evidence from Australia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible consequences of the intra-individual level-based perceptions of participative, supportive and instrumental leadership styles and the dissonance factors of leadership styles perceptions on employee engagement using the information-processing and connectionist perspectives of leadership perceptions. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses relating to direct and moderated effects of perceptions of leadership styles on employee engagement were tested using a two-stage intra-individual level study (n=172 in each stage). Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The findings revealed that perceptions of preferred and experienced supportive leadership styles are individually important predictors of employee engagement. It was also revealed that differentiated leadership styles have stronger (complementary) effect on employee engagement when the perceptions of experienced participative and supportive leadership styles were aligned with perceptions of respective preferred leadership styles. Furthermore, it was also found that the low level compared to the high level of dissonance factor or the difference between preferred and experienced instrumental leadership style acted as a complementer on employee engagement. Research limitations/implications This study has made contributions to facilitate scholars to build better information-processing models and implicit theories for differentiated leadership and employee engagement links. Finally, the study provides new information on the consequence of perceptions of leadership style and the dissonance factor of leadership perceptions on followers’ actions such as employee engagement. Originality/value This will be the first empirical study examining the relationships between the dissonance factor of leadership perceptions of participative, supportive and instrumental styles and employee engagement