Abstract

The paper intends to investigate the impact of two types of leadership style (transformational leadership and transactional leadership) on employees’ engagement as well as employee’s turnover intention. Specifically, it builds link while introduces two moderating variables, emotional intelligence (EI) and employees’ tenure in the
meantime to the investigation of leadership effectiveness. Whether leaders’ EI and employees’ tenure have the impact to strengthen or weaken certain leadership styles on employees’ engagement and turnover intention will be examined in the paper.
The data were collected from one middle-sized enterprise in China, including 325 valid responses. Data results demonstrate that only transactional leadership style influences employee turnover intention and employee’s tenure moderates effect of transactional leadership style on employees’ outcomes but there was no significant effect of EI of leaders on two employee outcomes . Since the data mainly came from China, the paper integrates cross cultural theories and leadership practices in Chinese enterprises, discussions and implications of the research findings are offered.

Key words: transformational leadership style, transactional leadership style, employee engagement, turnover intention, emotional intelligence, tenure