Charismatic Leadership Impact on Employee Psychological Engagement: Evidence from Travel Companies

Researchers in organizational behavior have long been interested in exploring how employees’ perceptions of their leaders influence their work-related thoughts and behaviors. The present study examines the effect of charismatic leadership style on employee psychological engagement in travel companies. The study data is collected using questionnaires completed by 339 employees working in travel companies. The questionnaires have been designed based on the Conger Kanungo model to measure charismatic leadership behavior and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) to assess employee psychological engagement. The results of this study indicate that charismatic leadership is positively related to employee psychological engagement (p < 0.05). Moreover, a significant predictive relationship (p < 0.05) is found between charismatic leadership style and employee psychological engagement,with variability of 54.9%. The results also reveal that managers with high "sensitivity to member needs" (SMN) have effective impact on improving employee psychological engagement. In addition, the results demonstrate that "absorption" is the most associated subscale that could be predicted by charismatic leadership. Finally, this study discusses managerial implications of results, introduces recommendations, and presents suggestions for future research.