Supervisors’ Active-Empathetic Listening as an Important Antecedent of Work Engagement

Inga Jona Jonsdottir and Kari Kristinsson
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Inga Jona Jonsdottir: School of Business, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland
Kari Kristinsson: School of Business, University of Iceland, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-11

Abstract: Social support from supervisors is a job resource that has been found to be an important antecedent to work engagement. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding one of the key features of social support—i.e., supervisors’ active-empathetic listening—and its relation to employees’ work engagement. To bridge this gap, this study explores how supervisors’ active-empathetic listening is associated with employees’ work engagement. Using a national representative sample ( N = 548), the results show that supervisors’ active-empathetic listening has a significant positive relationship with employee work engagement. Additionally, we show that active-empathetic listening does not affect all three dimensions of work engagement equally, with dedication being the most affected by supervisors’ active-empathetic listening. We argue that supportive leadership which uses conscious and active listening-centred communication is highly significant for employees’ work engagement. Therefore, we suggest that organisations experiment in training their supervisors in active-empathetic listening as part of a broader strategy to increase employees’ engagement at work.

Keywords: active-empathetic listening; social support; supervisor; work engagement; work-related well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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