Effects of Supportive Leadership Behaviors on Employee Satisfaction, Engagement, and Performance: An Experimental Field Investigation

Abstract

We conduct a field experiment in a large corporation to investigate the effects of supportive leadership behaviors on employee satisfaction, engagement, and performance. Treated leaders receive a brief training promoting leadership behaviors that encourage, assure, and value employee efforts. Our experimental design allows us to observe leaders and employees in a subsequent meeting. We find that the leadership training affects the leaders’ supportive behaviors and thereby increases employees’ self-reported satisfaction and engagement during the meeting by 0.28 and 0.18 standard deviations, respectively. The effect on team performance is 0.13 standard deviations but is not significant.