“Ethical leadership’s impact on employee’s engagement within a South African public higher education institution”

ARTICLE INFO Anrusha Bhana and Sachin Suknunan (2019). Ethical leadership’s impact on employee’s engagement within a South African public higher education institution. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 17(4), 314-324. doi:10.21511/ppm.17(4).2019.26 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ppm.17(4).2019.26 RELEASED ON Wednesday, 25 December 2019 RECEIVED ON Wednesday, 04 September 2019 ACCEPTED ON Friday, 29 November 2019


INTRODUCTION
Employee`s engagement (EE) is often underestimated and under-represented when it comes to ethical leadership. The paper examines the ethical leadership style from the perspective of the EE. The African continent's development agenda should be to turn the leadership skills into strategic assets, and universities must be proactive in developing the institutional leadership (Hanson & Léautier, 2011, p. 391). There is a need for higher education (HE) leaders to develop new skills and leadership practices to respond effectively to transformation challenges (Herbst & Conradie, 2011, p. 12). Hence, South African HEIs need to ensure that leadership development is a priority at all levels. Over the years, line management leadership (hereafter referred to as LML) have led the departments akin to their predecessors, without any foresight on the impact that leadership has on the EE. Management styles influence both the output and the well-being of employees (Van Niekerk, De Klerk, & Pires-Putter, 2017, p. 221, in Friedman, Tidd, Currall, & Tsai, 2000; Wright, 2011). According to Detert, Treviño, and Sweitzer (2008, p. 386), some organization leaders may possibly influence the existing employees that are susceptible to moral disengagement. Notably, HE employees are regularly under stress from the internal environment (workloads, research outputs, student matters, administrative issues, etc.) and external environment (public funding, autonomy issues, and transformation). Conflict happens when staff is not able to work as a team to achieve the institutional goals and objectives. These disputes influence the HEIs culture and work environment (Du Toit, 2000) and affect the academics and support staff engaged in the academic process (Van Niekerk et al., 2017, p. 3). Inherently, the impact of ineffective leadership and employee`s disengagement will not only affect the staff but will also have a ripple effect on the stakeholders. In light of this, the EE becomes a critical component and requires in-depth examination within the HE context.

Employees and leadership behavior
Research has revealed that the leaders' behaviors will affect an employee's level of engagement (Breevaart,

AIMS
The paper aims to explore the phenomena of ethical leadership and employee`s engagement with the primary aim/hypothesis of establishing if ethical leadership style significantly influences the EE.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The paper extracted the data from a quantitative approach, using the probability sampling technique. The quantitative approach involved the probability technique using the simple random sampling, as the technique provides a guarantee that chosen representatives (employees) were a sample of the larger study population. Hence, the quantitative sample constituted to a target of 420 staff members (out of a population of 1,874) at the institution. Survey questionnaires were used for the quantitative study as data collection tools. The questionnaires were distributed to the sample of 420 respondents and obtained a response rate of 312 (74%).

ANALYSIS OF DATA
Quantitative analyses was performed on the data to promote strong validation of findings. This entailed both descriptive and inferential statistics.

Descriptive statistics
Frequency statistics were used to describe the disagreement or agreement levels of employees when it came to the EE. This is reflected in Table 2. Thus, the results show that currently there is a lack of the EE between leadership and employees, and further indicated a weak relationship between leadership and employee engagement.
Leadership dimension concepts are shown in Table 2, which includes the ethical leadership impact on the employees. Table 3 presented the leadership dimension concept that utilized 4 Likert five-point scale statements (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). The average mean value amounted to M = 4.27, SD = 0.093, and this was much higher than the mean measurement value of 3.00. The results imply that the majority of respondents believed that ethical leadership style can have a positive impact on the employees.

One-sample T-test
In light of the preceding statistics, one sample T-test was performed, which uses mean score, standard deviation, and number of samples to calculate the test statistic. The hypotheses posited were as follows: Does ethical leadership style significantly influence the employee engagement?   The results showed negative higher dimension of t-value for the majority of the statements. The outcome of the statistical results from the p-value revealed that there was a significant disagreement for overall employee engagement construct, as reported below:

KEY RESULTS
The analysis indicated that there was currently a lack of the EE occurring at the institution ( Table  2). It further revealed a strong agreement of 66.6% by most respondents for annual leadership evaluation of HODs by the respective staff. Thus, the results have implied that more than half of these respondents believe that LML needs to be evaluated continuously. The one sample t-test indicated that a statistical significant disagreement existed for mean value of the EE variable for majority (14 out of 15) of the variables related to LML. It therefore shows a statistical significant disagreement for the overall EE construct. In addition, respondents believed that ethical leadership can have a positive impact on the employees, as shown in Table 3. Hence, H1 0 is rejected. Therefore, H1 1 (alternative hypothesis) is partially accepted.

DISCUSSION
Relating to the results found, the rationale behind leadership evaluation would be to facilitate better work relationships between LML and employees. In addition, it would examine any underlying issues between both these parties that may impact the teamwork, achievement of departmental goals and objectives. This is further affirmed by Brown Leaders did acknowledge that employees should be kept happy and viewed well-being, drive and commitment as important in their departments. Ethical leadership is firmly connected to well-being (Kalshoven & Boon, 2012, p. 60), thus, could enhance the productivity, as engagement had a positive effect on work and productivity. It is vital from a management viewpoint to note that the intellectual capital of employees itself is the principal asset of the organization (Denton & Vloeberghs, 2003, p. 88, cited in Handy, 1997). However, it was evident that the processes to support employee well-being, drive, and commitment were limited. The study findings have shown that a lack of ethical leadership style had an adverse effect on the EE. This shows the relationship between ethical leadership style and the EE, which can be concurred by Men's (2014) assertion that ethical leadership communication inspires the EE. Moreover, the main features of ethical leadership style are to be moral, transparent, and have integrity regardless of institutional constraints or challenges. When employees view leadership as ethical, they will follow the leader and be inspired to become better employees or better future leaders. Evidently, most of the findings have revealed that these managers have not conformed to or exhibit the ethical leadership style, which has resulted in the employee disengagement. The findings have shown that ethical leadership can significantly influence the EE at the institution. However, these findings have also indicated a lack of the EE at the institution. Furthermore, the alternative hypothesis testing was accepted for leadership having a significant influence on the EE.

CONCLUSION
The study concludes that there is a current lack of the EE occurring between the respective leaders and their employees at the institution. The alternative hypothesis testing was accepted for leadership has a significant influence on the EE. More importantly, ethical leadership style can impact positively on the EE whereby the respondents believed that ethical leadership can influence the employee behavior and mindset while also contributing to motivation, drive, commitment, and feeling valued. This can have a positive effect on work and productivity. Lastly, it was also important for the leaders to be role models and to lead by example, despite the university constraints and process limitations.